Something Needs to Change – David Platt

©2019  Multnomah, Colorado Springs

In 2010, David Platt stormed the Christian publishing world with a radical book with radical ideas about how average Christians and the typical church could move beyond mediocrity and into, well, radical living for Jesus. The book was called Radical (I reviewed it here) and called for us to step up our faith to include looking outside ourselves—and even to the world—in order to live more like Jesus. It was Platt’s leadership through the ideas in Radical and starting a movement known as “Secret Church” that led the Southern Baptist Convention to call him to serve as president of the International Mission Board (a position he held for a couple of years before moving on to be Lead Pastor of McLean Bible Church in the Washington D.C. metro area.

Something Needs to Change is the logical progression for this pastor who likes to challenge us into the uncomfortable places in life. On the surface, this book is an invitation for the reader to virtually join the author and a group of others as they spend a week hiking in the mountainous region of the Himalayas. Along the way readers encounter starvation, disease, sex trafficking, and abuse all resulting from abject poverty. Then we are faced with the deep questions of our faith—what is God doing when He allows me to live in relative comfort and ease, while atrocities occur in this other part of the world? Is it right for me to feel faithful in the comfort of my weekly visit to a multi-million-dollar, air conditioned, audio-visual spectacular of a worship service, when people are living entire lives without ever having heard of the Savior that I follow? Is my attempt at living faith really living faith if I am only willing to “sacrifice” as long as the sacrifice costs me only a little?

In the midst of this journey, Platt throws in some pretty heavy Bible study from the book of Luke that spurred him on along the way.

The good news is that you can join in this visioning trip without leaving the comfort of your own home. The more difficult news is that, like any encounter with Jesus, you will meet with some serious soul-searching along the way. The subtitle tells much about the intent of the book: “A Call to Make Your Life Count in a World of Urgent Need.”

Can you read this book and walk away as if nothing has transpired? Certainly. And many readers will. Will you feel called out to do something more with your faith-walk? Of course, if you read with a heart for Christ’s best in the world that He created.

The book itself is a fairly easy read—which one might expect from a talented communicator such as Platt—and at the same time one that requires much chewing before you try to digest it. I do not recommend this book for the satisfied Christian (although it would be worth their time because it is among the satisfied community that something most needs to change). I suspect that those who are thirsty for a more meaningful life this side of Glory will gravitate toward this book. As for me, I was challenged to be more meaningful in my living out of the faith that I claim and that my daily devotional reading leads me into. If you read this book, I pray that you will be as well. I give Platt four reading glasses for this book: it is well worth your time.

—Benjamin Potter October 10, 2019

[Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.]

Renovate: Changing Who You Are By Loving Where You Are – Léonce B. Crump, Jr.

©2016  Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs

I like recommendations, sometimes. I especially like it when people take the time to notice where I’ve enjoyed something and make recommendations based on that. (Note of warning: on-line sites like Facebook and Amazon.com don’t really take the time to note your preferences, they just make recommendations based on volume activity.) Anyway, someone noticed that I gave a positive (maybe even glowing) review of David Platt’s Radical, and so this book was recommended to me.

The author, lead pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta, is a former professional athlete who loves his town and his calling.

Like any book that approaches the norm from an angle, this book is liable to challenge your traditions as well as get your feathers ruffled because Crump forces us to ask the questions that no one wants to ask—or be asked.

The book has some drawbacks. The author’s love for Atlanta because of first a calling to that great city and followed by his intentional planting of himself there is evident in the amount of time spent in the first half of the book describing the history (good and bad) of the city of Atlanta. It is laudable for the church planter whose calling is to plant in Atlanta to love Atlanta. The take away for others is to fall in love with your place of calling. However, the first chapters, in the guise of supporting a sense of call to place, become an effort to convince all readers that Atlanta is the place (and the only place to serve). With a bent toward overselling his city, Crump almost loses his audience from his actual message—God not only calls to vocation, he calls to place as well.

Another distraction in the book is the intermission included in the middle of the manuscript. The record of the interview between the author and several of his colleagues who are part of his church planting effort does not flow with the rest of the book. If its inclusion was mandatory (on either the part of the author, the editor, or the publisher) for the book to see the printing press, it would be better served as an appendix located at the end of the book. Perhaps the production team felt that (even though it distracted from the message of the book) it might have missed a few readers’ eyes as an appendix, and centrally placing this section would earn it more readers, it still seemed to be less a part of the book and more a piece of the research for the book, and draws a giant question mark as to its inclusion (especially as an interruption).

I am disinclined to totally pan the book though. In a day and a vocational path that trends toward itinerance, Crump calls for longevity. He suggests that perhaps when the minister is answering the call from God to be part of church leadership, that the minister should consider not only the what but the where of that call. According to Thom Rainer, the average tenure of a pastor in a local church still hovers at just under three years (up from when I began my ministry when preachers were staying an average of 18 months). With research also claiming that most effective ministry is done after the 5-year mark, it would behoove ministers to actually plant themselves. The challenge is for those called to vocational ministry to stop looking for their next position the moment the moving truck drives away from the parsonage of their current place of service. Instead, study your place and the people there. Learn how to become one of them, and make your life about your place of calling. (Again this is addressing a God-calling that is often short-circuited by short-sighted men and women.)

The book reads a little slowly because of some of the distractions included in it, but it does have value if only to challenge both ministerial types and church members in general to start looking at their church place as a place to be planted, a place to serve, and a place to become. Christians are to be about the building up of the community—not necessarily changing it to the American dream, but changing it from the heart outward with the love of Christ. Therefore, I rate this book with three and one-half reading glasses. Don’t rush out and buy a copy (unless you want to plant a church in Atlanta), but go ahead and read it if a copy falls into your hands.

—Benjamin Potter, August 6, 2016

[Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.]

Plastic Donuts – Jeff Anderson

[View my video commentary on Plastic Donuts by clicking here.]

© 2012 Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs

Sometimes it takes the act of a child to get our attention. That’s what author and financial advisor Jeff Anderson discovered when his young daughter presented him with, you guessed it, a plastic donut.

The gift which became a happy game between father and daughter made this money-numbers man begin to think about his own faith and giving habits. After all, the toy was one of the toddler’s prized possessions. She wanted Daddy to have something special—and it delighted her to give it while delighting him to receive it.

Anderson’s point in the entire book (readable in one or two sittings, depending on your rate of reading) is that those of us who are God’s children should get to the place of giving to God that which brings us most pleasure—and that in turn will bring Him most pleasure. The author makes the point that if one of his older sons brought him a plastic donut it would be little more than a joke, nor would the gift be well received.

Anderson addresses two of the most common giving traps into which Christians fall today:

First, there is the “give until it feels good” group—these are the people who give of the passing thought to God. Much like in the story of Cain and Abel in the Old Testament book of Genesis—we give to God out of our sense of duty, but only that which will not bother us to give. Consequently our churches are filled with untunable pianos, broken-down toys, and second-hand furniture that wouldn’t sell in the rummage sale. And we wonder at the state of our spiritual lives.

The other group (at another extreme) are the “give that 10% and not a half-penny more” givers. These are the modern-day Pharisees who have developed a legalistic view of tithing to go along with their legalistic view of worship, service, and church in general.

Anderson does not espouse not tithing, but he suggests that we, in our giving, can get to the place where the tithe doesn’t matter so much as the pleasing of God. What does God want from us? The very heart of us—that which brings a smile, a giggle of joy, a glow to our face—and when we give that, He returns that smile, that giggle, that glow from His very throne.

This is probably the best book on giving that has been published in a number of years. The author’s message moves us from no giving, and slow giving, to meaningful living giving. I’d recommend this to every Christian who wants to take the drudgery out of the Christian life, one plastic donut at a time. (4 out of 5 reading glasses)

 

—Benjamin Potter, August 9, 2013

[Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.]

Why Church Matters – Joshua Harris

© 2011 Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs

When I first heard about this book from pastor and author Harris, I was curious. The premise behind the book sounded strikingly like the author’s 2004 book Stop Dating the Church, which I reviewed here (follow link to my original review). What I found when I read the book was a re-package of the original text. For the most part it is an excellent and thought-provoking argument for church-tasters to dig in, to commit, and to make church a priority.

There are very few changes in the text itself—a new title and cover, an updated title for the final chapter, and (as with all re-issues of a previous book) study questions at the end of the book which provide more interaction with the text in perhaps a small group setting. I believe that the book was pretty well on point to begin with. Which brings up the question: Why repackage material at all?

In answer to that question, I believe that Harris and publisher Multnomah had more in mind than simply reissuing the text to make another buck on an old standby. This re-packaging cannot be considered a new edition since there are so few major changes. It is more like a re-issue under new title and cover to appeal to a different audience. Personally, I prefer the previous package, but there are readers who would be more likely drawn to the calmer approach to church apologetic (Why Church Matters vs. Stop Dating the Church) which seems less abrasive on the shelf.

In any case, I liked Stop Dating the Church, and I still like the new version, Why Church Matters. If you are young and open to in your face confrontation about living your Christian life, you’ll want to try and find a copy of the 2004 version of the book. If you’re more refined and would like to enter a conversation about why church is important, pick up a copy of this new packaging. Either way you’ll get a four-reading glass book—it’s short, to the point, and reads like lightening. Enjoy.

—Benjamin Potter, March 30, 2012

[Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. This is a review of the Nook edition of this book.]