Book Review: "Rise Up & Build"

It’s about time Neal Pollard published a book! Many of you are familiar with brother Pollard from his Daily Bread, a (almost) daily email with brief devotional thoughts.

In his 2007 release Rise Up & Build: Tools for Church Growth, Pollard presents us with powerful pointers to help our congregations grow–the Lord’s way. While there are dozens of books out there on church growth, so many tackle the subject with many false ideas. Pollard draws the best from those sources and gives us 13 chapters to help our congregations move forward while not forsaking Biblical teaching.

As you might expect, the 13 chapters are alliterated. They are:

1. Expository Exploration

2. Evangelism

3. Edification

4. Education

5. Elimination

6. Enthusiasm

7. Eldership

8. Effort (the best chapter, in my mind)

9. Evangelists

10. Encouragement

11. Emulation

12. Expectation (another star of a chapter)

13. Epilogue

The 13th chapter is meant as a summary lesson of the “high points” of the book, and fills that purpose well.

This book is well-designed, as is usually the case with a book from Publishing Designs. Pollard also did a great job with the length of each lesson. While there is some “meat” in each lesson, class teachers will find plenty of room for class discussion and suggestions.

Most lessons have a closing section entitled “Make It Practical.” These good suggestions are helpful for anyone who is serious about taking his/her place among those who truly want the Church to grow. The book also features questions for each lesson. These questions are well-written for class discussion.

Personally, I feel this book would be a great study for an entire congregation. From Junior High through all adult classes, this might be a good book for every member to study at the same time. It might also be helpful for the preacher to “work his sermon around” these topics. With good class study and much prayer, results would be seen.