In the evangelical Christian world, there aren’t too many people more famous than Don Carson. He is well known for his preaching and his writing on a whole host of subjects. 

But amongst his many books, this one is unique. This is essentially a biography – but not just any biography. This is a record of the life and ministry of Don Carson’s father – Tom Carson. This book is a famous son writing about his far-from-famous father.

Tom Carson was, in effect, a missionary to French-speaking Canadians in and around Quebec. He planted and pastored churches and had a wide evangelistic ministry from the early 1940’s until his death in 1992. Don Carson has combined research, with his personal experience, and a healthy smattering of Tom’s own journal entries to give us an insight into a fascinating ministry and into the personal life of a man he calls ‘an ordinary pastor’.

I found the book very easy to read, and Tom’s story was told vividly but honestly.  It’s the sort of book that will have special interest for those in Christian ministry but which will be enjoyed by anyone who loves Jesus. One of the absorbing aspects of the book for me was that I was reading in an area of church history I previously knew nothing about. So it’s one of those books that will serve to widen a reader’s horizons and to remind the reader that God is at work in places of the world we may never have heard of (and that strategies like MTS did not simply originate with us!).

But for this reader, the real interest of the book lay in the personal struggles and growing maturity of its central character. Tom Carson was clearly a man who carried with him a shadowy sense of his own failures. He spoke in his journals of his disappointments in himself with the kind of candour that can only come from writing without an audience. It is wonderfully reassuring stuff to read as it reminds all ordinary pastors that they’re not alone in the dark thoughts that often nip at the heels, but also because the book shows how God, in his grace, wonderfully refreshes and sustains even his most frail servant.

Most compelling of all, though, was the pervasive impression that Tom Carson was a humble man of deep Christian character. Don Carson’s tribute to his father’s ordinary life reminded me in a vibrant way that the pursuit of the likeness of Jesus is the heart of all discipleship and all Christian leadership. Seeking to please God is the “ordinary” stuff of life in Christ’s service, yet it is, at the same time, what makes an ordinary pastor someone worth following.