I can’t say I liked this book. It’s similar to that feeling where you leave your cursor hovering over a fb status unsure of committing to a like. You’ve just read your friend’s sudden outburst of pain or grief and your left wanting to affirm them. You want to say I hear you, I understand and yet there is no simple click to express your empathy and typed words come out flat.
Family Christian sent me Runaway Radical: A Young Man's Reckless Journey to Save the World in exchange for an honest review.
The words shared in Runaway Radical are hard to read, and I imagine were much harder to write. There is a problem in our churches, a problem in organized religion, that Runaway Radical touches on. It’s the beginning of a much bigger conversation. Songs like Neon Church are born from, and music videos like Take Me to Church, speak to an audience that has been injured. This isn’t the world critiquing us. This is former members who have walked away. The “DONE” crowd who wants nothing more to do with the legalism and false sense of community they have experienced are calling out for change.
My entire life has been within the walls of organized religion. A preacher’s kid I played hide and seek in my father’s seminary student lounge. Later I would work in the church nursery, play in his office, and listen in on the legalistic criticism heaped on our family. Skirts were to short, five year olds were to cheeky, we were never doing enough and we were under constant scrutiny. I experienced the tension of grace and works early on in the christian life. I come from a beautiful family that taught grace and showered me with love. Yet I have spent my life struggling with guilt and shame. There is always more to do. More souls to save. More acts of righteousness to pursue. More grace to earn.
11 years ago I graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary. 20 years after I played hide and seek in the student lounge with my father, I was holding my first born posing for a picture in my cap and gown. I jumped into ministry working for Fellowship of Christian Athletes and various churches as Secretary, Women’s Ministry Intern, Ministry Director and now Director of Family Ministries. It wasn’t long ago I considered myself a part of the “done” crowd but found it to difficult to walk away. I left but found it impossible to let go of an identity I had clung to for so long.
I wasn’t done with Christ. I was done with the church.
There is a difference.
For community to be authentic we have to be an unoffendable people. We have to be willing to sit and talk about topics that may be uncomfortable. We have to experience grace and let go of shame and guilt. Conviction and accountability have their place but only in the understanding of the overpowering grace of God.
God is a mystery. Christ is a mystery. For now we see them dimly but one day face to face. It is that grace that allows us to explore the mystery. It is grace that invites us in.
If you don’t believe there is a problem in our churches I highly suspect you will find Take Me To Church hard to watch. Instead, I encourage you to get a copy of Runaway Radical and commit to read it from beginning to end. Listen to the heart and words of this young man who by all appearances was sold out to God. Did we lose him along the way? Or did he find something greater?
Family Christian is giving away 3 copies of
Runaway Radical: A Young Man's Reckless Journey to Save the World
Here’s how you can win one:
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