Both/And Ministry

Kanishka Raffel

With a heart for those who exercise any kind of Christian ministry or leadership, Millar writes with compassion, encouragement and insight to guide his readers into the joy of both Jesus’ completed work for us and his continual work in us. Both/And Ministry does more than call out the error of the Christian ‘pendulum swing’ that constantly oscillates between two half-truths—it directs us into fullness of life in Christ.

Jane Tooher

A realistic and gracious book that helps you better understand God’s character, his work, and who you are—and that helps you better reconcile the paradox that although living as a Christian is difficult at times, it is a life full of joy. Gary Millar has written an immensely practical book that will bless many as they are convicted and comforted by our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Useful ministry resource”

This book dives into the tension of the Christian life where there are often many things we are holding at one time seeking to balance appropriately as we live out our faith.
As I read through this book there were many conversations I remember having with our staff team when I was on staff with a campus ministry. I thought about how this book could have been a useful resource for our team as a way to start the conversation and discuss different topics.
Some of the examples Miller discusses I thought were great while others I found myself wanting more from the example. However, if you were planning to go through this with a ministry team you are on, this I think works well because it does provide that opportunity to be a conversation starter but isn’t the end place.
At the end of each chapter, there is a quiz in which you can rank your views and what was discussed in the chapter. This looks much better in the print format than the ebook format since the pages line up in the print format. In the ebook format, I did find myself being confused initially until I compared to the print version and saw how they lined up which in my opinion allowed for some of the questions/rankings to make more sense overall.
A quote I thought summed up the idea of the book well is “The health of our Christian life depends on both remembering who we are in Christ (Spirit-created, indwelt and empowered people who are already like Jesus in lots of ways) and seeing the ways in which we continue to live in ways which don’t fit with who we are (because of our sinful muscle memory and unruly desires). We need to look in the mirror and see both of these things at the same time.”