Don't Just Stand There - Pray Something! (by Ronald Dunn)

(Amazon UK link)

Always on the lookout for new books, I browsed a church bookstall a couple of months ago, and saw a Christian books that I hadn't previously read. I had never heard of Ronald Dunn; moreover, the book looked like a product of the 1980s, but there are some gems from that era, and I was happy to pay a euro for it.

'Don't just stand there - pray something!' is, unsurprisingly, a book about prayer. In particular about intercessory prayer.  It was fairly interesting, with Scriptural backing and some relevant anecdotes that illustrated the author's points pretty well.

I found the early chapters quite encouraging, even though there wasn't anything new in them; nonetheless, I felt they were a useful reminder of how important it is to pray for our loved ones regularly, and for situations in general.

On the other hand, I wasn't so keen on the later chapter about Revival which didn't really say much, and somewhat contradicted itself. It felt rather as if it had been tacked on the end of an otherwise useful book.

Worse, I then read the appendices which were apparently intended for ministers or church administrators, on the topic of setting up a 'prayer ministry'. While some of the ideas were good, the whole was so overwhelmingly complex and structured that I mentally and emotionally backed off.

Somehow the writing style, like the cover made it feel like an early 1980s book, although to my surprise it was apparently first published in 1991. Not that it's a topic that dates, particularly...  other than those appendixes where the author recommended, among other things, a 'rolodex' - I had to do a Google search to find out what one of those was!

Still, overall I thought this book was worth reading, although I didn't find it as inspiring as Philip Yancey's more recent book about prayer. This book is still in print on both sides of the Atlantic, and has even been put in Kindle form as well.

Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, 22nd June 2012