Book Review: A Greater Glory

I read quite a few books, both Christian and not, and have always meant to be a better and doing short reviews, as I think it's helpful both for me to summarise what I thought of a book for future reference and perhaps for others to have a review from a fairly bog standard pastor.

So here's my review of Gavin Peacock's autobiography A Greater Glory: From Pitch to Pulpit, which I recently read on Kindle. Gavin is a Christian pastor who has just returned to the UK from Canada to be the locum pastor as Bethersden Baptist Church. Before that, however, he was a professional footballer playing for Chelsea, Newcastle and QPR among other teams.

Starting with the moment where he just misses scoring in the FA Cup Final, the book takes us back to the start with his family (his Dad was a footballer and a manager), his beginnings in football and then his progression into professional football. As a young man he becomes a Christian and so he describes through the book the impact on his life whether his family or his career in football and then being a football pundit. The final section of his story deals with his moving to Canada to train to be a pastor and then his new role is a pastor. The book ends with a faithful explanation of the gospel and then a vignette of his new life as a pastor on Sunday mornings.

I'm a football fan and a Christian and I really enjoyed reading the book. It's an interesting autobiography from a football point of view, but also, of course it has the dimension of his Christian faith being applied to his life. It is both well-written and faithful. It is even fairly clear on Gavin's complementarianism (something which will perhaps put some off).

The commendations include a wide range of people who are well-known in the football world, but not necessarily Christians and I think that points to the purpose of the book. It's a good read for Christian football fans like me, but perhaps for a football fan who has some interest in Christianity, it's a chance to get the gospel in their hands open up more gospel conversations.

I enjoyed it and would certainly use it with people in the right circumstances.