Mandating vs. Modeling

I have a love/hate relationship with authority. While I was a fairly obedient child, as an adult, I’ve not been a huge fan of rules. Sometime in my teenage years, I realized that a simple prohibition of something because “it’s wrong” or “I said so” did not hold water for me. Like an inquisitive toddler, I constantly asked the question “why,” more often to myself than out loud.

Authority and power can be given but wielding them can feel dictatorial and despotic if we don’t have some kind of relational connection to those over whom we hold that authority and power. Giving orders without teaching the rationale behind those orders won’t produce the results that we might think they will produce.

Talking with some friends the other day as we dive deeper into what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, I came to a realization: mandating and modeling produce very different results.

It isn’t uncommon for me to say that parenting and pastoring feel similar. There is a deep love for those whom you lead and your heart desires for them to grow. The urgency of that desire can easily lead to mandates that feel way more restrictive than relational and ultimately fail to achieve the desired outcome.

But modeling has the potential for producing a very different result. When we model something, we give people a real life example of how to do something. It moves from the pages of a textbook (often the Bible in the case of Christians) and into an incarnational and living example. We cease to speak theoretically and begin to live more practically.

One of my biggest gripes with some of the traditions and beliefs that were handed to me was the emptiness that came from the mandates contained within them. I fully understand the need for rules and regulations, but can you help me to see and better understand the “why” of those rules? Furthermore, can you connect those rules and regulations to practical, everyday living to give me examples of how they actually play out in life?

I’ve always thought that one of the boldest statements that the Apostle Paul made in his letters to the early churches was found in the letter to the church in Philippi. In his closing comments of the letter, Paul writes, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” (italics mine)

One of the greatest detractors of authority is when we fail to see the rules and regulations touted by authority and power figures actually being practiced by them. We see this consistently in our government. Why should we pay taxes when we hear of countless politicians who have managed to avoid the same practice themselves? Why believe the authority of someone who considers themselves to be above the very authority and power that they attempt to wield?

Paul’s words resurface in my mind frequently as I consider the boldness of them. How confident am I in my actions? Do I believe that my actions are consistent with my words, so much so that I can tell others to do what I say AND what I do?

Over the last few years, leading a startup faith community, this is how I have tried to live and lead. “Don’t just tell them, show them.” I am a visual person, I need examples, I need to see it. While I know it’s projection in some ways, I feel like I’m not alone in this and there are others who need more than a sermon or teaching to help them connect the dots. People need practical examples of what it looks like. Faith needs hands and feet to move from theory to practice.

The struggle is real in that the modeling of these things feels far more like organic farming, slow and deliberate. It feels more effective to shout it to the masses and attach requirements to things rather than intentionally modeling them in a way that allows them to see the possibilities and practicalities of them. Wielding authority and power may seem to be the better way to get people to do what you want, but chances are that the moment that they are no longer under your authority and power, they will no longer see these things as valuable and important.

The old adage, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” holds true. If all we are doing as we train up others is teach them rules and regulations without connecting them to the practicalities and practices of life, we will severely limit them from moving past today and into the future. But if we seek to tell and show, the stickiness factor will jump up considerably.

What have you seen to be more effective? Mandating or modeling?

I’m not saying I’ve got this perfected, but I’m certainly moving towards modeling in hopes that I might boldly echo Paul’s words as well, “Do what you see me doing!”

Managing or Leading

I will be the first one to admit that I can be extremely critical. The criticism doesn’t only go outwards, it goes inwards as well. I am my own harshest critic, beating myself up well before anyone else starts hurling criticism at me. If I’m not careful, I can find myself missing all the good stuff because I have a tendency to fixate on everything that’s wrong.

Over the last few years, I have been working really hard to change that. Starting anything new requires a substantial amount of positivity to survive. If you only look at what needs fixing, you will miss the small victories that must be celebrated. I’ve found myself looking to those small victories more and more to sustain me and propel me along.

I say all that as a disclaimer before critique of something that I continue to see. As my context is within the church, I have seen it happen far more often there than other places, not because it doesn’t exist anywhere else, but because when your primary context only affords so many views through the microscope, that’s going to be what you focus on.

I have found that there are a significant number of people in positions of leadership who are not really leaders. They are managers. They know how to move pieces around and put them in places that might be considered the “right places” based on the vision of someone else, but they will most likely never be moving those pieces around to the places they think they should go. And those pieces will probably not be developed by them, they will stay mostly the same.

When Jesus commissioned his followers, he told them to make more disciples. Disciples aren’t cogs in the wheels of the system of the Church. Disciples are learners who are constantly being shaped and formed by whoever is teaching and discipling them. Regardless of the level to which we may be developed, we are still called to be developed, shaped, and formed. We are called to be constantly changing and transforming. If we are simply being moved around and managed, that’s never going to happen.

One of the themes in my life that I’ve noticed especially in the last decade or so is that when I need something, I will do what needs to be done to go get it. I haven’t waited excessively for something to be delivered or given to me, I’ve gone to find it. This can probably be attributed to a number of things as I consider it. It also probably explains why I get so frustrated when I see others simply sitting and waiting to be given instructions or others who are not leading well.

I’m not naive enough to think that everyone likes to be led. Some people are perfectly content staying where they are, my last post kind of hit on that. But what do we do with the people who are hungry to move forward, to change, to experience transformation in their own lives? My experience has been that we can often abandon them to focus instead on those who are a harder sell. I’ve seen that happen in my own life. Tell me who is unreachable and unmovable and I will seek to reach and move them over the ones hungry for movement.

As I look at the life of Jesus, he sure seemed to have that figured out. His most harsh sayings were focused on those who didn’t want to change, the ones who thought that they were perfect just the way that they are. He instead taught and discipled people who wanted to be different.

Now that desire to be different does not mean that people like that are always easy to lead, but some difficulties are more tolerable than others, at least they are to me. I would much rather face difficulties with people who are willing to work towards change and transformation, seeing progress along the way, than face difficulties with people who dig their heels in and say that they’re practically perfect in every way (thanks, Mary Poppins).

As you think about your own experiences and the people around you, are you being led or are you being managed? When it comes to what you do with others, are you leading them or managing them? Leading takes work, it takes humility, it takes patience, it takes a whole lot more. Not to say that managing doesn’t take all those things as well, but the results are very different in the end. Stop and take a look around and see where you’re going and who’s going with you, who’s leading you and who are you leading.

Is Maturity Your Metric?

Worldwide, the Church just celebrated Resurrection  Sunday, the day when Jesus rose from the dead. By doing so, Jesus conquered death and sin through his own sacrificial death and resurrection. Afterwards, he appeared to his followers before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.

Before Jesus ascended, he left his followers with some words of wisdom. He commissioned them to go into the world and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey his commands.

Jesus didn’t instruct them to build big buildings or fancy programs. He didn’t command them to build big church staffs so that people could relegate the church to another one of the many places or organizations they go to consume things. Jesus instructed his disciples to make more of the same: disciples who follow Jesus in word and deed.

I’ve struggled in my years of watching Christians in the West (including myself) become more and more passive in their Christianity. We struggle with what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” It’s a grace without a cost, a grace whose account has been paid for in advance which somehow convinces us that, “everything can be had for nothing.” Armchair Christianity seems to be a much more palatable experience than that to which Jesus called his followers. After all, who really wants to sacrifice anyway?

The Church likes to apply business principles to its own practices. We like to make sure that we are efficient and effective. We like to create our S.M.A.R.T. goals and do our best to set up metrics that tell whether or not we are doing the best job we can.

I’m a fan of leadership books. I read Patrick Lencioni and others and enjoy them immensely. I think there is a place for principles when it comes to being an effective leader. But we have to put everything into context and we can’t stray from our original commission and command: to make disciples. Is there a way that we can reconcile the commission that Jesus gave the Church while also embracing leadership principles?

What would happen if we evaluated Jesus’ leadership style based on some modern day leadership principles? Would he be considered a success? In the short term, his leadership was certainly questioned by the authorities, but the proof can be found as early as just a few years later. Jesus’ choosing of twelve men and investing in them for three years proved to be effective for starting a global movement. Among those twelve, Jesus was connected more intimately with three. If bigger is better has become our mantra or our metric, we will certainly find ourselves questioning Jesus’ methods. But what if he wasn’t wrong? What if we’re wrong?

I think the problem is in our metrics. How do we measure our success? How do we measure whether or not we are achieving the goals that we set? Are the goals that we set the same goals that Jesus set for us when he commanded us to make disciples who make disciples? The type of disciples who live and breathe the principles and commands of Jesus?

The metrics that we use shouldn’t be how many people sat their butts in our seats this past Sunday. The metrics shouldn’t be how full our offering was or how many online followers we have. Our metrics shouldn’t be the number of programs we have or whether or not we are bringing in more people than the church down the street. Are we measuring the right things or are we falling victim to the culture of consumerism that swirls around us?

I have to admit that it’s easy for me to fall into this. It’s also easy for those who promote these kinds of methods to be critical. Critics may claim that those who don’t embrace these methods are just sore because they can’t succeed with them. But it’s not that metrics shouldn’t be used, it’s that we need the right metrics, the metrics that Jesus gave us.

I have come to believe that maturity is the primary metric we need to be using. We don’t need to be measuring nickels and noses but the heart behind those nickels and noses. We need to be measuring whether or not we are effectively making mature disciples who are making mature disciples. Are we producing the fruit of mature disciples who make more disciples?

The funny thing is measuring maturity is a tricky thing. We will often measure maturity through some of the other things that we have a tendency to measure. How well a person serves their neighbors  can be evidence of maturity. How faithful of a steward someone is with their gifts, financial and otherwise,  can be a measure of maturity.  But our focus must not be on those things alone, for those things are evidence of what’s at the heart and in the heart. Like Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. I think that we can safely say that out of the abundance of the heart, the hands and feet act too.

What are we doing to not only create disciples in the Church but measure the maturity of those disciples? We have a tendency to look at the things that our culture and our world looks at, the things that sparkle and shine. The Church has become guilty of celebrity culture as much as the world around us has.

Jesus chose twelve people from all different walks of life and invited them to follow him. Along the way, they discovered the way of the Messiah. They didn’t always get it right, there was conflict, there was frustration, there was confusion, but Jesus’ investment in those twelve reaped benefits for millennia to come. The strategy may not have seemed effective at the time, but the Church remains and God’s kingdom continues to advance.

The thing about using maturity as a metric is that it’s slow moving. It requires patience. It requires investment. It requires sacrifice. It’s playing the long game instead of two minute drills. It’s running a marathon rather than a sprint. Are we willing to have our patience tested? Are we willing to invest? Are we willing to give until it hurts? Jesus gave until it hurt, all the way to the cross.

It was again Bonhoeffer who said, “For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.”

How do we measure maturity? Through faithful obedience. Are we being obedient to what God has called us into? Are we being obedient to the commission that Jesus gave those first disciples? What evidence shows us proof of that obedience? Some might say you can’t see maturity, but I beg to differ. We can certainly point out where maturity is lacking. Take a look around you and then make a case that disproves what I just pointed out. Think about your leaders, whether you chose them or not, and then tell me whether or not you can see maturity, or a lack thereof, in them.

Church, let’s get back to using maturity as our metric. It doesn’t mean that we are perfect and flawless. We must engage in the call to look more like Jesus and to point people to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Invest and sacrifice. Trust and obey. May we invest in those around us so that Jesus’ commission might be fulfilled. Not overnight, but with a steady and consistent pursuit of teaching people to obey all that He has commanded. This is the direction to which we are called.

Is It Changing Me?

We get to a point in our lives when we need to decide whether we are going to stay as we are and as we have been, or if we will change and be changed by the experiences and the people around us. While some people may look at this as a bad thing, thinking that they are somehow giving up their freedom and individuality by allowing so much influence in their lives, I actually think that we are doing ourselves and others a disservice if we don’t allow ourselves to be changed and transformed by what’s around us.

Mind you, when I say changed or transformed, I don’t mean that we are necessarily changing our minds, altering our viewpoints, or shifting our moral compass. What I mean is that we can learn from anything and anyone around us.

One of the biggest gripes that I have had with the church based on my own experiences is that we have looped many things into a category and box called “Discipleship” that neuter that word. Instead of really teaching people what it looks like to be disciples of Jesus, we instead cram their heads with lots of information while not really calling them to something bigger and better than themselves.

We have gotten really good at making “experts” while missing the boat when it comes to making practitioners. Disciples are people who not only know what Jesus said, but also live those things out. It’s not enough to simply say that I know the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, are we actually living and practicing those things?

I remember back to when I was in school, there was so much information that I was putting into my head and so often, I rose to the level of the tests and that was it. Of course, some of that information was not incredibly practical for the every day. But if we consider that the things that Jesus taught are things that have the power and ability to change and transform us, if we gain information without transformation, have we cheapened the message?

Reading through the gospels, it seems that Jesus had numerous encounters with people who considered themselves “experts” on things. A closer look at them revealed that they may have been experts in information but not in practice. They knew all the right things to do, they may even have done a lot of them, but they missed the boat when it came to understanding what was at the heart of Jesus’ commandments.

I think we’ve mismeasured significance in our culture. Significance always seems to be measured in size and grandeur rather than in impact and change. We do this in the church all the time, convincing ourselves that bigger is better and the more people we get to come, the more significant and successful we are.

If COVID has taught me anything, it’s that our emphasis has been on things that are not necessarily reinforcing the importance of making disciples and accepted the cheap substitute of consumers instead. When you’re no longer seeing people come into a space on a weekly basis, or at least not seeing them come in as regularly as they once may have, you come to a place where you begin to evaluate just what you have been focused on.

Discipleship also involves multiplication. This is something I’ve had to think about a lot over the last few years. Am I multiplying disciples? What kind of disciples am I multiplying? Do they look like Jesus or do they look like me?

The journey to be changed is not an easy one. It requires constant evaluation and reevaluation. It’s mostly tiresome work and can often be frustrating, especially if we use the metrics of our culture to determine whether or not we are successful or effective. There have been times when I’ve just had enough, when I’m tired and I just don’t feel like going through the trouble any more. 

There are times when I wonder whether or not it’s worth it. There are times when I wonder if any difference has been made. And then I see the change, either in someone else or in myself. I realize that beneath the surface, God has been doing the work that is beyond my reach and control, he has been doing the transformation that we often try to orchestrate on our own.

At the end of 2020 and into 2021, I knew that I had to rethink all this. I knew that if I was going to keep my sanity I needed to reevaluate just how I was measuring what I was doing. I wrote on the whiteboard in my office, “Celebrate the small.”

Through the gospels, Jesus mentions that small things turn into significant things in the Kingdom of God. As I heard someone say the other day, I would much rather be one inch wide and a mile deep than a mile wide and one inch deep. Significant things hardly start out the way we had thought or even intended, but in the hands of God, they can multiply far greater than we could ever multiply them on our own.

Some might say that celebrating the small is a cop out. They may say that anyone embracing that saying is embracing a defeatist approach because they aren’t capable of performing to the level that they should. I beg to differ. I challenge anyone to read through not only the gospels but the entirety of the Bible and find anything that condones a “bigger is better” mentality. David. Gideon. Jesus. Paul. Peter. The Bible is full of the insignificant accomplishing the super significant by the power of God.

Raising Resilient Disciples

If you spend any time at all around the church and pay any attention to what’s going on in the western church, you know that there is a trend of younger generations leaving the church. Not only are children not being raised in the church but those children who have been raised in the church are going off to college, leaving church and sometimes faith behind.

Over the years, David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, one of America’s leading research companies, has written much based upon the research that his organization has done. Together with Mark Matlock, he seeks to tackle this topic head on that research in his latest book, “Faith For Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon.”

The authors pull no punches in speaking truth. I the introduction, they write that it is their contention, “that today’s society is especially and insidiously faith repellent.” While the history of God’s people has shown that they can resiliently walk our their faith, they also contend that the kind of resilient faith that lasts and allows one to walk through difficulties, trials, and antagonistic culture is tougher to grow today.

While that might seem like bad news for some, the authors speak of how faith can grow deeper and stronger in unsettled times and dark places. The current climate may cause some to head for the hills and hide, but the authors are offering this book as a challenge that resilient faith can be grown, it just takes intentionality and hard work.

The authors speak of the importance of culture and its influence. They use biblical examples of characters who have walked in direct opposition to the culture surrounding them, the culture in which they have been immersed. One of the greatest examples may be Daniel and his three friends who found themselves exiles living in Babylon, a culture dramatically different and even opposed to their Jewish homeland.

Complicating our culture is the medium of technology and how it pulls us and the next generations away from productive things, particularly spiritual things. Screens demand our attention, they call us to be their disciples. Jesus himself said that we can’t serve two masters, so how do we can we be disciples of him and screens at the same time?

Matlock and Kinnaman suggest that we are exiles living in digital Babylon. While we would like to go back to Jerusalem, our home and safe haven, we don’t have that luxury and we need to find a way to live out of faith in this somewhat hostile environment. Fortunately, the story of exile isn’t limited to Daniel and his friends, it’s a story that plays out over and over again in the biblical narrative. We see God’s people living as exiles in lands that are foreign and often hostile.

The authors propose that discipleship today has the goal of developing Jesus followers who are resiliently faithful in the face of cultural coercion and who live a vibrant life in the Spirit. They go on to reveal some of Barna’s research as they define four different kinds of exiles: Prodigals (ex-Christians), Nomads (unchurched), Habitual Churchgoers, and Resilient Disciples. Among 18-29 year olds today, 10% are resilient disciples, 38% are habitual churchgoers, 30% are nomads, and 22% are prodigals.

The book goes on to lay out five practices that have led to resilient faith. These practices are based on a decade of work and research. Not only are these authors experts in researching this material but they have also experienced this personally with their own children, experiencing how these practices make a difference.

The five practices that the research has shown build resilient disciples are: forming a resilient identity and experiencing intimacy with Jesus, developing muscles of cultural discernment, developing meaningful intergenerational relationships, training for vocational discipleship, and engaging in countercultural mission.

Intimacy with Jesus is about so much more than weekly worship gatherings. As the authors write, “we too easily mistake the starting point for the destination, oversimplifying Christianity to mere decionism.” This isn’t about merely following rules and habitually attending church and programs, it means creating an intimate relationship with Jesus, allowing young people to see that God speaks to us. Discipleship is growing in an understanding that one can hear and respond to the voice of Jesus in their lives.

Developing muscles of cultural discernment means combatting the easy and convenient teaching and learning that can be gained through technology.  As they define it, cultural discernment is the ability to compare the beliefs, values, customs, and creations of the world we live in (digital Babylon) to those of the world we belong to (the kingdom of God). It means we don’t bury our heads in the sand and we take a posture of learning and counterculturally speak. It’s not so much about protecting young people but preparing them for what they will face and how they will respond and live.

Developing meaningful intergenerational relationships  means being devoted to fellow believers we want to be around and become. It means mentoring and being mentored. It means to combat a culture of isolation and mistrust with deeper and spiritually significant relationships with those who have gained wisdom in experience. In digital Babylon, technology takes the place of real relationships, so those real relationships need to be forged in resilient disciples so that they won’t settle for cheap alternatives like technology.  These relationships are not forged by steamrolling questions and looking past legitimate doubts but sticking around long enough to work them out.

Vocational discipleship is about training up the next generation to know how to think about work and calling. It means finding meaning in what we do, not simply surviving. It means understanding talents and abilities, listening to God’s call, affirming those things, and being a church that enables and trains them to work this all out. Vocational discipleship does not mean full-time vocational ministry for all but it means being a full-time disciple regardless of your vocation, or even living out as a disciple through your vocation.

Finally, countercultural mission means living differently from cultural norms. We are privileged to be invited by God to join him in his mission to the world. This isn’t necessarily a safe mission, living in exile is not safe. Kinnaman and Matlock write, “Too many of our ministry efforts prepare people for a world that doesn’t exist, undercutting our witness and passing flimsy faith to the next generation.” The church needs to improve by focusing more on safe living than on faithful living. We need to help people believe and know how to express themselves and those beliefs in a spirit of love and respect.

Having read other books by Kinnaman, I was looking forward to reading this book. Much of what the authors share coincides with research that has come out of the Fuller Youth Institute as well. That kind of consistency should be encouraging for the church and should spur her on to the mission of raising up resilient disciples.

In order to fulfill this mission of raising up resilient disciples, we can no longer settle for a church that expects everyone to come to them, seeking good to be consumed and comfortable spaces to be coddled. Instead, we should be willing to venture into sometimes unsafe places, not just physical, in order that we might live out our faith resiliently, faithfully, and effectively.

If you care about the next generation and care about the church, “Faith For Exiles” is a book to be read with a message to be heeded. Matlock and Kinnaman offer not just problems but solutions. Their ideas are not some nebulous or fantastical theories but are based on thorough research. This book is a call to action, the question is whether or not the church will heed that call.

(This review is based upon a copy of this book which was provided free of charge from Baker Books. These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.)

 

The Imperfect Disciple – A Book Review

On the last page of “The Imperfect Disciple” Jared Wilson writes, “I wrote this book for all who are tired of being tired. I wrote this book for all who read the typical discipleship manuals and wonder who they could possibly be written for, the ones that makes us feel overly burdened and overly tasked and, because of all that, overly shamed.” And if we start with the ending, reading this page first, it really gives us a synopsis of “The Imperfect Disciple.”

Wilson’s sub-title for the book is, “Grace for people who can’t get their act together.” He reminds the reader throughout the book that discipleship is not just working harder, better, or more efficiently. We can only get to where we need to go through Jesus, not through our own efforts. Jesus is not looking for people who have it all together, Jesus is actually looking for people who can’t get their act together. It is those of us who don’t seem to be able to get our acts together that understand better that we are unable to get to where we need to get on our own.

Jared Wilson shares stories from his own experiences in ministry as he walks through what discipleship really can look like. We cannot simply manage our sin and think that’s enough to make us good disciples. In fact, if all we are doing is sin management, then we’ve missed the gospel and the essence of discipleship as it goes so much further than simply outward appearance and action. The essence of discipleship and the gospel penetrates to our hearts and souls, changing us from the inside out. That kind of change is not something that we are able to achieve on our own and the harder we try, the more frustrated we will become.

We cannot think that discipleship is all about us fitting God into the nooks and crannies of our lives. But Wilson says, “…God owns all of life, and worshiping God means we must revolve around him, not us. So God shouldn’t be confined to his own compartment in our schedule. Jesus does not abide in his assigned time slot; we abide in him.”

Wilson explores sabbath rest, worship, and other key areas of the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. He challenges those of us who think we can achieve and encourages those of us who feel like we will never measure up. While there was nothing here that was earth shattering to me, Wilson’s writing style and delivery made this book a worthwhile read. If you’re looking for encouragement after having tried to measure up to impossible standards, the message of grace that is presented here could be salve for your soul and encouragement for the way forward.

(This review is based upon a copy of this book which was provided free of charge from Baker Books. These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.)

A Mile Wide – A Book Review

Being a disciple of Christ is more than simply wearing a label and living in a subculture in the world. True disciples of Christ are not simply looking for a surficial relationship that seems a mile wide but which fails to go deep. True disciples are seeking to be as deep as they can be and with that depth, they will automatically go wider.

Brandon Hatmaker’s latest book “A Mile Wide” is an invitation for those who truly want to seek after and follow Christ to trade in shallow religion for a deeper faith. He addresses this in two parts within the book. He spends the first have focusing on what the Gospel does to us, how it changes us and makes us different. The second half of the book focuses on that the Gospel does once it’s in us. It doesn’t just implant itself there, deep inside, to be hidden and unkempt, but instead it works its way out of us, working through us.

Brandon Hatmaker is very relatable through his writing. I feel like every pastor, at some point in his/her life, falls into the category of rebel. Brandon is there now and in that way, I can relate. He’s not rebellious simply to be rebellious, but to shake up the norms and the system and to wake us up out of complacent slumber. If we are truly to be impacted and transformed by the gospel and by Jesus, than we need to be willing to subject ourselves to the discomfort and disruption that causes.

Hatmaker writes, “We limit the gospel by how we define it. We try to control it by making it too much about us, our form, and our function. Thus, what we’re hoping to embody lacks perspective and empathy, the very things that make the gospel good news to others.” A call to the gospel is a call to put aside our creature comforts and pursue something more disruptive than we might even be ready to face. But if we are truly seeking depth, it’s only through our own transformation that we can achieve that depth.

In the second half of the book, Hatmaker calls us to see things with a different perspective. He tells us that trading shallow religion for a deeper faith will require us to view things differently. God’s kingdom. Mission. Justice. All of these things look different when viewed through a gospel lens and when we are seeking depth rather than breadth.

The reader is challenged to stay connected to the community around them rather than getting so caught up in “church” things that they effectively pull themselves out of the very places where they can be used. “Sometimes we add a church group to our schedules and end up pulling ourselves out of our most natural mission field. Perhaps instead we just need to figure out how to invest more deeply in an existing group of friends that aligns more naturally with our current schedule.”

He states that our lives can be divided into three categories: communion, community, and commission. When we find ourselves within the activities of the church, we are deeply engaged in communion but it’s the common language of community and commission that can be the bridge between believers and nonbelievers.

Hatmaker had me until the end of the book. His last chapter is called “A Fresh Perspective.” While I think it’s essential and important for believers to keep a fresh perspective, our perspective still needs to remain grounded in the gospel. It can’t be grounded in our culture, in our feelings, or even in our relationships. While those things are all important in our mission, they cannot drive the process of our shifting perspective. I fear that without the gospel grounding to inform and shape our perspective, we will find ourselves on some very slippery slopes, trading truth for feelings, emotions, and the unstable things of our culture.

“A Mile Wide” was a good book. I appreciate Hatmaker’s perspective. His challenge to trade shallow religion for deep faith will be met if the reader enters into the journey with an open mind, an open heart, and a willingness to let transformation take place in them first.

(This review is based upon a copy of this book which was provided free of charge from Booklook Bloggers. These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.)

Real – A Book Review

If someone were to meet you outside of Sunday morning, would they know that you were a follower of Christ?  Is your faith so tied up in what takes place in a church building on Sunday morning that once you move out from there, you’re indistinguishable from everyone else?  Are we living out our faith throughout the week or only on Sundays?

Jamie Snyder dives into this question of a 24/7 faith in his book “Real.”  He says that, “too many of us have settled for something so much less than Jesus intended.”  We like to enjoy our Sunday morning worship experiences but we can often fail to let them have a greater impact on us and our lives.  Are we about being transformed or are we just coming to be performed to?

Sunday mornings can easily be about our best.  We dress our best, we give our best, we act our best, but what happens when we leave church?  Do we still work towards exemplifying our best or does the mask come off?  Snyder believes that many generations of Christians have been largely defined by Sunday mornings and not anything else, least of all Jesus, who we claim to be following and emulating.

Herein lies the problem, Snyder says that if, “our entire faith revolves around a one- or two-hour worship experience on one day of the week, and every detail of it doesn’t match up exactly with your needs and wants, it is all too easy to become critical.”  In other words, when our faith is based solely on our own preferences and those preferences are all to be met in a brief experience on Sunday mornings, we are setting ourselves up for failure.  That’s an awful lot of pressure to put on yourself, and more importantly, those who are actually taking part in leading this experience.

Jesus didn’t relegate his testimony and testifying of who he was to the temple or the Sabbath, he took it with him everywhere that he went.  In fact, the call to follow him is a call to die and to sacrifice, not to sit back and let other people’s faith become ours.  Jesus didn’t preach warm and fuzzy messages either, if we really follow what he tells us, we might find ourselves feeling much more uncomfortable than we have been.  Being a follower of Christ is risky and dangerous, it’s not comfortable and safe.

Snyder does a good job asking questions and challenging the reader to question themselves.  His ending solidifies the point that all of us need to look at our lives through both windows and in mirrors.  By looking through windows, we see others around us, we embrace the journey that we are on and realize that we are not alone.  By looking in the mirror, we maintain a healthy balance of self-reflection and analysis that helps us to realize that the transformation that has begun in our lives has not been complete.  Sanctification is a process.

At times, Snyder seems like he is getting repetitive, hitting on key points throughout the book.  That’s not necessarily a criticism, I do the same thing in sermons.  “Real” is a good book that challenges the reader, if he/she is willing to be challenged.  If you want to ask yourself the hard questions of your faith and the impact that it’s having on you and others, then “Real” is the book for you.  All others can just stick to Joel Osteen and find their best lives now…

(This review is based upon a copy of this book which was provided free of charge from Bethany House Publishers.  These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.)