I Believe in Taking Action

I Believe In Taking Action
By Steve Chalke
Hodder & Stoughton
165 pages
ISBN 0 340 66144 5

No-one who knows Steve Chalke and his various ministries could doubt his qualification to write a book with this title. This is the first offering in a new launch of Hodder's 'I believe' series which served the Christian church very well in the 1960s. The new editor, David Stone, has contacted several people with interest in specific ministries, and academic qualifications in some cases, to write up this new series.
Unlike some of the former volumes, Steve Chalke's contribution is a very easy read. He touches on subjects which vary from homelessness to the National Lottery. He tackles the vexed question of teenage sexuality and the lessening of standards and the needs of the disabled and the deprived. All this is placed against a Scriptural background. He peppers his essays (for that is basically what each chapter is) with relevant contemporary quotations which in themselves are of great value, and he concludes each chapter with addresses of organisations who can give further information.
This book therefore has at least double usefulness - not only does it challenge us to a demonstration of pragmatic Christianity, but it helps the enquirer to delve further into each of the 11 problem areas on which the author touches.
Steve Chalke has rightly won for the Oasis Trust, which he heads, high esteem, not only in church but also secular and media circles. He not only tells us what ought to be done but actually by his own ministry shows us how to get involved. I heartily recommend this 165 page book to all pastors and those engaged in any form of Christian work in the community.

J.A. Sargent

© Evangelicals Now - April 1997
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Main Articles

• Being a Christian university student
  A discussion of attitudes to be adopted by Christian students at university
• Shanty town church
  An account of Christian witness in a slum area of the Mathare valley just outside Nairobi
• How to help Muslim converts
  The condition of Christians in Muslim countries and the help given by the Barnabus Fund
• Strasbourg's Cockney Christian
  Interview with David Hallam MEP (Member of European Parliament)
• Labels past their sell-by date (Bulldog for April)
  The labels of charismatic and reformed
• Let's keep asking questions
  Discussion on the question of Biblical inerrancy

Other articles

• Killing Fields - Living Fields - An account of the suffering of the Cambodian church during the Khmer Rouge regime - an extract from the book Killing Fields, Living Fields
• In Pursuit of God: The Life of A W Tozer - The evangelical mystic - remembering A W Tozer - extract from the book In Pursuit of God: The Life of A W Tozer
• The Doctrine of Humanity
• The Beauty of the Lilies
• Shine - The story of the Australian pianist David Helfgott
• The Openness of God - A challenge to the traditional understanding of God
• Treasures of Darkness - Reaching a new understanding of God's sovereignty through suffering
• The Blessing of Tears - Healing benefit in weeping
• A Grace Disguised - Reflections of Gerald Sittser on the years following the loss of his mother, wife and child in a road accident
• The Naked Feet of Nicaragua - Account of a project to open up the interior of Nicaragua by the provision and use of a hovercraft
• The Ten Commandments for Today
• Becoming a Premier League Husband - (Audio tape)
• Cure for Life
• Revelation Unwrapped (Bible Application Series)
• Kriss - Biography of athlete Kriss Akabusi
• Jesus Here and Now
• Renewal for Life
• Manual of Congregational Principles - (Reprint of work first published 1884)
• I Believe in Taking Action
• Animal Rights and Wrongs - A Biblical Perspective