Going Deep by Gordon MacDonald

MY REVIEW...
Gordon MacDonald begins with asking the question, "What does a deep person look like?"  Then he enumerates several qualities that describe deep people:

• Quiet but noticeably living, people who exude all the fruit of the Spirit as well as grace and wisdom
• People who know what their motivational gift is and who operate within that gift.

If a church were populated with a whole congregation of such deep people, there would be no power on earth great enough to stop their ministry.

Enter an unchurched friend who suddenly ask the 40+ year pastor, "What's your church's elevator story?" The pastor has this doe-in-the-headlights look. "What's an elevator story?

Thus a wonderful journey begins. With some very simple, yet powerful changes in church leadership meetings, injecting fun as mandatory, and understanding people's gifts, MacDonald takes this church into new heights of power. Miracles happen, and a church is deepened with the power of Christ Jesus.

An absolute must read for every pastor who deeply desires his church family to make a difference in the community doing exactly what God has intended His church to do. An amazing, and very readable book.

Five out of Five Stars.

 ABOUT THE BOOK...
The future of the Christian faith will not be determined by the number of people who fill the pews but by the spiritual depth of those people.
Pastor Gordon MacDonald revisits the fictional New England congregation of his critically acclaimed book Who Stole My Church to deal with a new dilemma: What's his church's story? What is it doing that justifies its existence? The importance of these questions is anything but fiction.

Through a series of e-mails and discussions with friends and parishioners, Pastor Gordon's search for their story leads him to realize that the future of the Christian faith, and thus the church, is at risk. As MacDonald says, "We seem to know how to get unchurched people to visit our buildings. We even seem to know how to draw them across the line into a declaration of personal faith in Jesus. But what we do not seem to know is how to cultivate spiritually deep people. Tomorrow's church could be headed for trouble."

Deep people. People who possess spiritual awareness and maturity, people with solid, grounded, life-altering faith. MacDonald shows that the church needs people with a passion for God's presence and a desperate hunger to seek him above all things.
Join Pastor MacDonald and his congregation on their quest to cultivate spiritual depth and grow into a community of believers whose hearts and minds are truly focused on God.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR...

Dr. Gordon MacDonald has been a pastor and author for more than fifty years. He serves as chancellor at Denver Seminary, editor-at-large for Leadership Journal, and speaker at leadership conferences around the world.

Journey to Unity by Garry Harper

I have  friend on LinkedIN who wrote the first in a trilogy, Journey to Unity.  He outlines the path to a new American majority. It makes a lot of sense.

He has put into words the same questions that a lot of Christians are asking. My pastor posed the question, "What would you like to see from Christians?" Some of the answers the church gave are the same things Garry is saying here.

The main point is that Christians are not the Enemy. Paul tells us plainly that our enemy is not of flesh and blood. Jesus said that we are known by the love we have for each other, yet Christians would rather have coats of blue or red with political pins rather than be Christ-like first, last and always.

The fundamental point is that Christians all over the world must come together on the foundation of agreement. That literally means we must root ourselves in Bible rather than Man Teachings, for there is where our agreement should begin and end.

Harper also points out that each individual should know, understand and be able to defend his or her own beliefs and faith before ever stepping into a voting booth. If we demanded more from the candidates concerning their own beliefs and convictions, then apply our faith filter to that, our votes would be based on clear, rational reasons rather than on emotion or how we felt about an issue.

I highly recommend this book. It makes a lot of sense, and is probably nothing you haven't thought of before but now it's well thought out and defended. It isn't an afternoon's easy read. You'll find yourself thinking about this long after the last page is turned.

Go to FaithPolicy.com to find out more about Garry Harper and to purchase this book. Look for the other two in the trilogy.