Although it has been available for awhile, this is still one of the best books for helping church members get a handle on the major changes that are taking place in the world today and what those changes mean for churches. It's a great book to use when trying to get a church that is fairly set in its ways thinking about change. Woods discussed seven key megatrends, covering virtually every aspect of a church's life and ministry: from mass to personal evangelism, from tribal to immigrant education, from surrogate to hands-on mission, from reasonable to mysterious spirituality, from official to gifted leadership, from secondary to primary planning, from segmented to holographic programming. Without even mentioning the terms he helps people deal with many of the post-modern and post-Christian realities that are having a significant impact on churches. The approach is one that takes away much of the threat and fear that are often associated with thinking about the need for change. I'd highly recommend it for church leaders and for any group in a church that wants to begin the process of thinking more deeply about what their church needs to be and do.

Tristram Shandy is a novel about human understanding. One of the things that Sterne believed about humanity is that things were constantly changing; always in flux, if you will. Historically speaking, he was of the Lockian generation which displaced uman understanding into two categories, wit and association. Sterne was a believer in association, and attributed to that the idea of the "hobby-horse." This meant the menial quirks that each and every human had, such is the case with the sexual expeditions of the characters within. With the idea of human flux and the hobby-horse, we are brought to the "marble page," which is, in and of itself, a hermeneutical circle for defining the rest of the book. Sterne presents this page to illustrate uniqueness of individuals and the unpredeictability of the process of writing. Which brings me to my next point, the concept of narrative failure. Throughout the strange goings on of the book, we come to points in the writing in which Sterne includes the reader into the disorder of the narrative. In Volume IV, Sterne mentions the process of the book in which he has done one year of writing, and yet come only to the first day of his life. This is the failure he is showing us, and the manner in which he creates this outrageous tale. These two aspects of Tristram Shandy are intrical in understanding and enjoying the chaos of this book.

While Joyner's book is certainly worth reading and highly recommended for the casual reader, Joyner's methodology is questionable. The preponderance of his primary evidence comes from 10 notoriously questionable slave narratives collected in the early 20th century. Furthermore, Joyner's use of endotes is ridiculously deceptive. He uses a variety of confusing techniques, and very flagrantly confuses the researcher trying to find his sources. To complicate this problem further, Joyner includes no bibliography. Joyner's assesment of the task system falls short of its initial promise. Joyner does an excepitional job of emphasizing the change and continuity in the process of change from African culture to African-American culture. For this reason, and this reason only, I recommend this book.

I have the pleasure of adding Charles Joyner to the list of my personal educators, and he is definitely one of the most informed writers of Southern-oriented literature. This book was assigned to me as required reading, and turned out to be one of the most interesting books I've ever read. A wonderful book by a wonderful soul.

As a free-lance writer living on the grounds of a former rice plantation in Pawleys Island, I think I have read every book on the subject on the SC slave communities and the great rice plantations. Joyner's book is the bible. It is easy and fun to read, concise, filled with fascinating statistics and extremely well written. It is not the usual s dusty book some local resident wrote back in the 1920s as a fund-raiser for the historical society or local women's group. It is a skillfully written book from cover to cover and I urge anyone interested in the history of this area not only to read Joyner's book, but to purchase his own copy. If you are like me, you will soon find that "Down By the Riverside'' will be a well-used, dog-eared favorite. I've sent several copies to friends and family, and it certainly makes the perfect housewarming gift to anyone moving to this part of SC. I have spent the past two years researching this area in preparation to begin writing my own book (a novel) and Charles Joyner will be right at the top of those I thank for making my efforts possible.

Summary : This book covered the theoretical and practical study on Church and Mission .Charles Van Engen gave an extensive and profound definition on the Church which covered from the biblical images , Church History and theological perspective (Part 1 , pp25-86).The Church is one ,is catholic ,is holy and is apostolic.But Charles Van Engen showed that the Church is also mission-intent for God's Kingdom because Christ's salvation and rule are in the Church and for the World .Therefore the church being the only earthly witness for Christ should engage its essence for the Great Commission (Part 2 , pp87-132) . Every local church is God's missionary people to reachout the whole world into the Lost. To accomplish such a mission task ,four elements in the local church : the Goal-setting , the mission-orientated members ,the commissioned leadership and the church administrative system will all be geared towards mission in passion and vision for the whole world (Part 3 , pp133-192).

Comment : Charles Van Engen's presupposition is that the Church in her essence cannot be divided or separated from her commission in mission to the world because the Church is the only chosen witness for Christ. But the issue is : Does the Church lose its essence when her earthly mission fails ? To make some analogy : (1) Does a man lose his image of God or his manliness if he fallen or paralysied ? (2) Does a cat lose its cat-ness if it loses its four legs and still alive ? My understanding is the Church is still the Church though she has not functioned her entrusted mission to the world . It is the same that Christ is the God in person even if he does not want to save his people on earth ! Because he is still the Lord if he did not be my Savior.

The problems Colson addresss are those that fundamentally effect not only our country, but any civilized society. While both precise & strong in its brevity, this book serves as an overview of the issues. Colson writes to show us the problem is not only within society, but also within the Church itself. Overall, the delivery is simple, yet challenging. "Faith on the Line" is more than a title, it is a call to action. How many of us truly put our faith on the line? How many are ready to 'dare to be different, dare to be Christian"?