The Grove Booklet

You perhaps have to be a certain age to know what I mean by 'Brodie's notes'. These were an invaluable resource for those of us who had not read the holiday book or the Shakespeare play when the prospect of an exam was looming. What better then than someone else who had read the book for you and told you in a few brief pages what it was about (leaving you plenty of time to muck about not working in the holidays). Thinking about it, I suppose now it is the internet that does this for you. Oh well.

Imagine then, you have a huge theological subject (Divorce, Abortion, War in the Old Testament etc) and don't have time to spend three years in Oxford reading all about it in the Bodlein library. Cue the Grove Booklet. These are a series of short summaries on every topic under the sun that can be read in an hour or two and tell you most of what you need to know. For non-reading sorts or short on time folk these are excellent primers on every area of ministry. (Available on ebooks for use on your kindle 2)

These are available on every subject you can imagine just click around the site and see what strikes you. Here are a just few:

How to develop vision in the local church

Discerning the Spirits: evaluating the prophetic voice

Using the Psalms of prayer through suffering

Coaching in the church

So next time an ethical question assails you unexpectedly, or a pastoral issue or a leadership challenge or a spirituality thought-reach for a Grove booklet. My Vicar Factory friend Sean wrote this one on Medical Ethics.

One of these little books may just be an information life-saver you need.