Customer Reviews

Nobody's Perfect, But You Have to Be: The Power of Personal Integrity in Effective Preaching

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Based strictly on its rather provocative title, I wanted to dislike Dean Shriver's "Nobody's Perfect But You Have to Be." I am aware of a rather unhealthy and usually unspoken expectation within the church that church leaders, especially pastors, are supposed to be perfect and sinless. I find this dehumanization of the pastorate to be seriously problematic, and I wondered if this book would further perpetuate that unattainable and destructive myth. Thankfully, for the most part, it does not. Instead, Shriver thoroughly explains the biblical call for church leaders, teachers, and preachers to be people of good character and practitioners of personal holiness, a timely and relevant message in an age when the public downfalls of prominent Christians have not only compromised their personal ministries but marked the church as a center of hypocrisy for a watching and skeptical world.

There are several strengths of the book worth noting. First, Shriver's work is nothing if not biblical. Each page is plastered with passages and references from the Old and New Testaments. Shriver is careful to support his points from the Bible, providing a consistent and solid foundation. He also quotes countless saints throughout church history, verifying the fact that the premise for the book is not something new but a timeless message that can be traced straight back to the Word of God.

Another helpful characteristic of this book is its brevity. It only took a few hours to read and was much more digestible than many books, without being intellectully or spiritually thin. Finally, I thought the chapter called "Growing by Staying" was possibly the most powerful and important chapter in the book. In an era of career-minded, ladder-climbing, transient pastors, Shriver's call for pastors to pursue longevity and even lifelong commitment to one church is worth hearing.

Despite its many strengths, there were several disappointments. For instance, there were moments when the encyclopedic referencing of Bible passages and church fathers actually became a distraction. When the point had been made, the tendency towards incessant quotation simply interrupted the prose and made some sections rather choppy to read. I thought the chapter on expository preaching was unconvincing, at least with the way that he casually dismissed topical preaching as virtually valueless. I am continually amazed at those who wave the flag of expository preaching who refuse to consider that topical sermons can actually be expository, in the sense of digging deeply into biblical texts to unwrap godly teaching and timeless truths. As is so often the case, Shriver rather carelessly threw out the baby (topical sermons) with the bathwater (lazily prepared, fluffy, man-inspired sermons). Finally, there were moments when this book edged towards that unhelpful place of expectating perfection from preachers, and I was occasionally wondering if Shriver has ever actually met a non-Jesus human being as holy as the ones that he was describing!!

In spite of a few flaws, what this book does best is make the point dramatically clear that character and integrity matter for preachers. That is a message that bears repeating and rearticulating. As a pastor-in-training and occasional preacher, I am quite aware of my own sinful nature, so this book challenged me on many levels. Even though I often wanted to rationalize away his points, I am convicted and painfully aware of the "power of personal integrity in effective preaching." I am happy to recommend this book to anyone with the call, the gift, and the responsibility to preach.