Reclaiming the Reformation: Christ for You in Community - Paperback

by Magnus Persson (Author), Bror Erickson (Editor)

What treasures of the reformation can pastors, Christians and the church make use of today when trying to navigate burnout and scandal? What should a person look for in a church? Magnus Persson examines his own journey from popular preacher where church was a party, to the Lutheran faith and a pastor in the Church of Sweden where he relishes the liturgy nourished by historic roots using Luther's book "On Council's and the Church" to answer this question and explain his journey.

Originally titled Christ's Church, On the Marks of the Church Magnus shows the influence of Bo Giertz but also draws on many different influences from within and without the Lutheran tradition to explain how everything the church does needs to be focused on Christ crucified for you. Church is about communicating the forgiveness of sins Christ won for you on the cross to you. The church does this through the word, the liturgy, and the sacraments. Through these means the soul is nourished and matured to handle the distress and tribulation with which the world harries the church and her people. Here true rest is found for the souls of pastors battered by the pressure to be the next biggest church in town before they burnout and check out with scandal.

Back Jacket

For what does it profit the church if she wins the whole world but loses her own soul?

Today, the news is replete with stories of scandal and burnout within the church as giants fall and leave wreckage in their wake. Huge churches pop up and explode with popularity before imploding upon themselves, revealing a lack of the solid foundation, leaving their followers cold, confused, and empty.

Magnus Persson, once a popular charismatic preacher, today an Evangelical-Lutheran pastor, has done the journey and traveled down the fast lane of church innovation that ended up in deformation. This is his theological account of redirection and reformation. In Reclaiming the Reformation, Magnus Persson shares the faith "once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) in such a way as to discern direction from Scripture for those who are seeking renewal in the church and rest for their souls.

Author Biography

Magnus Persson is a onetime entrepreneurial pastor who started a large contemporary congregation in Malmö, Sweden, with an international church planting network. Today, he serves as an Evangelical-Lutheran pastor in the Church of Sweden. He works for EFS, an evangelical movement within the Church of Sweden, seeking to revive and restore the message and mission of the Reformation.
Bror Erickson currently serves as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Farmington New Mexico where he lives with his wife, Laura. He graduated from Concordia University, Irvine, in 2000 where he studied apologetics under Dr. Rod Rosenbladt. Subsequently, he attended Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne Indiana, and graduated in 2004. He has translated many works by Bo Giertz, but he also enjoys hunting upland game and ducks with his dog, Grinner.