Church of God (Holiness)

A Book Review

By Dr. Gayle Woods

I have great admiration for Josh McDowell, the author of “The Last Christian Generation.”  I have read a number of his books.  I have heard him speak.  He is a tremendous scholar and a great apologist.   The many books that he has authored such as, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” “More Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” “Beyond Belief to Conviction,”  “The New Tolerance,” “The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers,”  “More than a Carpenter,” etc. are consistently among the top titles of books on the subject of Apologetics.  For over 25 years he has provoked the world to think about incidents surrounding the events of the life of Christ that can’t be explained by mere coincidence.

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A Book Review

By Dr. Gayle Woods

Those who have prodigal sons or daughters understand the feeling I had when I was given “Praying Your Prodigal Home” as a Christmas gift.   Hope surged.  Maybe there was some secret hidden in the book that I had missed.  Maybe my prayers for my own son would be more effective after I read the book.

I also opened the book with some sense of skepticism.   What did this person know about my heartache?  Was the author really involved?  You have to face this situation from a stance of experience.  Mere research is not enough.

As I began to read my heart soon melded with the Richard Burr.  He and his wife had suffered my heartache.  They sat where I sat.  read more »

A Book Review

by Dr. Gayle Woods

It was the title of the book that first grabbed my attention.  Don’t we normally think in terms of church growth by planning?  As I stood at his book table, I knew that Dr. Whitesel, Vice-President of the American Society for Church Growth, had something on his mind that many had probably overlooked.  

Dr. Whitesel, the founder and Senior Editor of Strategies for Today’s Leader magazine, and associate professor in the College of Graduate Studies at Indiana Wesleyan University is well equipped to write on the subject of church growth. Having studied under church growth guru’s such as Peter Wagner and Charles Arn at Fuller Theological Seminary, he is well versed in this subject. Knowing Dr. Whitesel’s excitement to see God’s kingdom increase through the auspices of the local church, I could not wait to study this volume.

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