A New Start? Hopes and Dreams for the New Millennium

A NEW START? HOPES AND DREAMS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
By Rob Frost and David Wilkinson
Hodder & Stoughton. 199 pages. £6.99
ISBN 0 340 71389 5

Rob Frost and David Wilkinson are concerned about the world. And as we approach the millennium, they have each taken a handful of topics which they are concerned about - themes such as society, the environment, relationships and issues surrounding the start and end of life.
For each of these issues, they give an assessment of where the world is and where they think the world may be going, and they challenge individual Christians and the church to get involved and start to do something to make a difference.
These topics don't seem to have anything in particular to do with the millennium, other than this being a convenient hook to hang things on. But nevertheless, it's well written, even if at times it makes depressing reading. I found it very interesting, and at the very least, it's a great source for sermon illustrations and quotations!
They could do with some more biblical input (the chapter on the arts didn't have a single direct reference), and sometimes they are a little sweeping (e.g. 'All Christians should be encouraged to find a spiritual director,' p.175). But my main concern is that in trying to cover nine major areas, they don't major on any of them. This is full of broad brushstrokes, and therefore may not be the stimulus needed on any one of the areas which they are concerned about.
They are quite good at practical suggestions and possible projects that we can do in order to take things forward, but I came away thinking that it could do with some more depth, and that they've tried to cover too many areas for this book to be truly effective in helping to change the church and therefore change the world.

Phil Moon
Christ Church, Lowestoft

© Evangelicals Now - September 1999
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• Christ on the airwaves
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• Holy molars!
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• Pentecost or Plotinus?
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• A trip to the dump
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• Cloning . . . Cloning . . . Cloning
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• Augustine of Hippo
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• You in Your Small Corner - the elusive dream of evangelical unity - How baptism is a major obstacle to unity - an extract from the book You in Your Small Corner - the elusive dream of evangelical unity
• Intimacy - CD review
• Welsh Calvinistic Methodism
• Knowing the Times - An extract from the book Knowing the Times on evangelical unity
• God, Revelation and Authority
• Beware the New Prophets
• Read Mark Learn - John's Gospel
• A New Start? Hopes and Dreams for the New Millennium
• Religion in Victorian Britain - 1 - Traditions
• Now You See It - Using Illusion to Present the Gospel
• I Believe in Heaven on Earth