I was challenged by Mark’s love for learning & passion for change. Some of my favorite quotes:
Christianity that is more educated but less powerful, more civilized but less compassionate more acceptable but less authentic
I wonder...if the accumulated layers of Christian traditions & institutions have unintentionally obscured what lies beneath
"Christianity has a perception problem...Christians are more known for what we’re against than what we’re for."
before confronting...our culture, we need to be humble enough, honest enough & courageous enough to repent of what’s wrong with us
Does your heart break for the things that break the heart of God? Craig Groeschel
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is a sad commentary and sadder irony that Christians are often viewed as heartless...we have engaged our culture mind-first
Rick Warren-the five global Goliaths-spiritual emptiness, self-serving leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic diseases, & rampant illiteracy.
"If you are in Christ and Christ is in you, you cannot be okay with suffering or injustice or starvation."
"The blessings of God are always a means to an end. And the end is blessing others. We are blessed to bless."
Mall Effect-Malls are designed to feed greed. Mission Trip Effect-the antidote is one trip to a third-world country
I believe that God will bless National Community Church in proportion to how much we give to missions & care for the poor.
What do you think brings more joy to the heart of our heavenly Father - singing songs or caring for the poor?"
What if, instead of sound quality or lyrical creativity, our litmus test for worship was a heart that breaks for the things that break the heart of God?
Is it possible we've studied the God of logic without truly worshiping the God of wonders?"
loving God with all our soul means a soul full of wonder, a soul flooded with the glory of God, a soul awed by beauty and mystery, a soul that hallows God above all else."
One of the great mistakes we’ve made in modern Christianity is approaching God deductively as an object of knowledge instead of approaching Him inductively as the cause of wonder.
Awed silence in the presence of divine beauty is a form of worship that is often deeper and truer than sung words.
“Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The way you master a text isn't by studying it. The way you master a text is by submitting to it. You have to let it master you.
The goal of knowing the Bible isn't Bible knowledge. The goal of knowing the Bible is knowing God. Anything less is bibliolatry.
What is the best translation of Acts 1:8? It’s not with your mind. It’s with your life. You can read it. You can meditate on it. But it doesn’t translate if you don’t live it out. You can’t just audit it. You have to act on it.
"In essential things, unity. In nonessential things, freedom. In all things, love." Rupertus Meldenius
Have you ever noticed how many times Psalms tells us to sing a new song? That creative command is repeated no fewer than half a dozen times. Evidently God gets tired of old songs. He doesn’t just want you to worship Him with your memory; He wants you to worship Him with your imagination. Love isn’t repetitive. Love is creative.
“Faithfulness is playing offense for the kingdom even if some Pharisees find it offensive.”
We need fewer commentators and more innovators. We need fewer critics and more creators. We need fewer imitators and more dreamers.
2 Corinthians 10:5, “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” the way we create culture and change culture is by taking those God ideas captive and turning them into reality via blood, sweat and tears.
"Change of pace + Change of place = Change of perspective"
One God idea has the potential to make more of a difference than a thousand good ideas. Take yours captive and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)
"Taking out the garbage is romantic. Why? Because love isn't measured by words spoken. Love is measured by calories burned."
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. CS Lewis
“most church problems don’t come from the abundance of sin but rather the lack of vision. I’m not suggesting that there aren’t sin problems or that those sin problems aren’t serious. But in too many instances, there isn’t enough vision to keep churches busy. Our vision isn’t big enough to demand all our energies, so we manufacture petty problems to keep us busy.”
"Loving God with all your strength really means loving God with all His strength. It's not about what you can do for God. It's about what God can do in you and through you."
"if God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream dies, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you - the dream or him." That quote is from Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer
The last reformation was a reformation of creeds. The next reformation will be a reformation of deeds. ( )

When I think of the word “Primal”, I often think of an uncivilized culture. But in the book “Primal” Mark Batterson strips away all the 21st century trappings of Christianity to take us back to the roots of our faith. With four sections (Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength), I expect there will be one that resonates more than the others with you. While I found the section on the mind fascinating because I always do love a good trivia fact, it wasn't that one that got me excited. I loved the “Strength of Christianity”. One of my favorite parts of the book is where he feels God speaks to him that the sound of the bricks in an orphanage that he is helping to build is music to God's ears. It's often so easy to see Christians as something we are, not as something we do and live out.

I loved how on page 148 he talks about how for us to quit sinning is not our resolve to do better, but the fact we need to capture a vision from God. I also loved how he said on page 149, “If you do little things like they are big things, God will bless them and use them.”

This would be a fantastic book for a Bible study group. It includes discussion questions in the back and there is an accompanying Primal: DVD-Based Study that you can also purchase.

Be forewarned, this is a rather heavy book. It's not beach reading material. If I were to compare books with meals, this is a steak. It needs to be savored, but I definitely recommend it.

FTC disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. The opinions are my own. ( )

Mark Batterson's new book, Primal, hits bookstores today. I received an advance copy to review.

If you've read much of my blog, it's no secret that I'm a pretty big fan of Batterson's books. (Here's my review of Wild Goose Chase.) Primal is no exception. In this book, Mark challenges us to get back to the primal essence of our faith, by fully living the Great Commandment. He does this by dividing the book into four sections: The Heart of Christianity, The Soul of Christianity, The Mind of Christianity, and The Strength of Christianity. I really enjoyed this approach and I felt it made for a very well-rounded book.

Reading Primal was a bit like trying to drink from a waterfall. I didn't highlight while I read this time, but if I would have I would have ran out of ink. I love great quotes and this book is full of them--both from Mark and other great minds that he quotes. I'll just say that reading this book increased my sense of how great God is, increased my faith in what he's able to do through me, and increased my desire to step out and dare to follow God wherever. Batterson is one of the most positive, encouraging voices in Christianity today. He's this generation's Schuller (but with a greater emphasis on God).

I found myself wanting to preach every chapter of this book. I'm sure I'll be borrowing from it quite a bit in the future. Get this book today. It's truly great. ( )

This is a wonderful book about getting back to the basics of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The author thinks deeply and courageously about what each facet means. What does it mean to love God with all of our heart? How would we act? What would happen. He uses experiences and stories to illustrate. Very challenging book! Highly recommended. ( )

The name Mark Batterson is one that I have been hearing more and more come up within the evangelical universe. So, when I received word that I could receive a copy of Mark’s new book Primal through WaterBrook Multnomah’s Blogging for Books program I naturally jumped at the chance.

Batterson is the lead pastor at National Community Church in Washington D.C. and he blogs at Evotional.com.

In this his third book, Mark identifies his purpose right up front in the subtitle, “A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity”. I understand that catchy titles help move books, but honestly those words troubled me at first. It sounds a lot like the kind of book that promises to reveal the ‘real secrets of Christianity,’ secrets that you won’t find anywhere else. But it is always good to read on and not judge a book by it’s cover (or by it’s subtitle for that matter).

Without giving too much away (because I would recommend that you read this book yourself), the author identifies the ‘Lost Soul of Christianity’ as what is often referred to as the ‘Great Commandment’. God’s people are to love Him will all of their heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30; cf. Deuteronomy 6:5).

Mark does an excellent job demonstrating that love of God goes far beyond attitude; love of God is to be lived out in actions. He has clearly meditated deeply on these things and has taken concrete steps in his own life and ministry to enflesh the Lord’s commandment. For example, here is a statement that jumped off the page for me:

“I think it’s easy to talk about things like faith and obedience and compassion in abstract terms. The more abstract, the less convicting the truth is. So let me get concrete. Faith equals God-ordained risks in the face of fear. Obedience equals God-honoring decisions in the face of temptation. And compassion equals Spirit-prompted generosity in the face of greed.” (p. 32)
I do have one major concern with this book. I am troubled that the gospel is largely absent from this book. I am not suggesting that Batterson denies the gospel, rather that he seems to assume the gospel. That is something I believe to be too dangerous in an age when even among self-professed Christians the gospel is largely misunderstood.

What I mean is that apart from the gospel or with a distorted gospel, the ‘Christian’ will find what Batterson challenges the reader to do (love God wholly) to be virtually impossible. Much of what was said in this book could just as easily been rooted in Deuteronomy 6:5 rather than it’s New Testament counterpart. That’s not to suggest that the Old Testament command is somehow less authoritative. What I was hoping the author would have brought out more clearly was to identify what about the Great Commandment is distinctly ‘Christian’.

My concern should not prevent the reader from picking up a copy of Primal and seeking to be challenged by it. There is much within these pages that can be mined for the reader’s benefit. Primal is on bookstore shelves today and is available for order directly from WaterBrook Multnomah or from your favorite online book retailer.

This book was provided by WaterBrook Multnomah. ( )