Living in Christ: Character, Community, and Leadership is the fifth and final book in Stephen W. Hiemstra’s Christian spirituality series, co-written with Rollin A. Van Broekhoven and published by T2Pneuma Publishers in 2020. It picks up where the earlier books in the series left off and asks a narrower question: once your faith is settled, how does it actually shape your character, your church, and how you lead other people?
What’s Actually In It
The book starts from the idea that our character is formed in the image of God and matures as we follow Christ’s example, under the ongoing influence of the Holy Spirit, through family and church. From there it works through real, specific problems: idolatry, family dysfunction, and the kind of morally complicated decisions that do not have a clean answer in a single verse. The section on leadership argues that a leader only reaches maturity once he is mentoring someone else, not simply managing a program.
The Biblical Angle
This is a Scripture-grounded book rather than a devotional one. It explains Christian ethics instead of just asserting them, which means it spends real time on why a position is biblical rather than just stating that it is. That makes it slower reading than a typical men’s ministry book, but more durable.
Who It’s For
Better suited to a small group willing to sit with harder questions, or a church leadership team, than to casual solo reading. It rewards discussion more than a quick read-through.
Our Take
Dense in places, but it treats character and leadership as something formed in community rather than achieved alone, and it backs that claim up with real engagement with Scripture instead of platitudes.