Dangerous Church

When I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to run with scissors or poke metal objects into electrical outlets.  That would have been too dangerous.  We didn't have BB guns because guns were dangerous.  I lost my bike privileges for awhile because I had crashed a couple of times in one week.  I was being to dangerous.  Being dangerous was something that was not encouraged because being dangerous meant the risk of injury.  My parents wanted me to live past my growing up years without maiming myself.  Thus, to me, the idea of being dangerous was always bad.  Needless to say, when I received John Bishop's book, Dangerous Church, from Zondervan for free to review and blog about, I was intrigued.

Bishop's book, interestingly enough, is about challenging the church to be dangerous in order to give it life for the sake of the Gospel.  Rather than encouraging the church to be safe by sitting still and going through the motions, he calls his readers, the church, to ask hard questions about their motivations in ministry, their vision for the lost, and their actions to those whom Jesus would call, "the least of these".  These are all great questions that we need to be asking ourselves as we live out our faith.

For me, the highlight of this book was the chapter entitled, "When We See Jesus and Want Hand Sanitizer", where Bishop tells of his experience at a leper colony in India.  He shares about what he feels inside when he comes face to face with a leper who has no nose.  Its a compelling story - one that challenges us to think about how we are being Jesus to everyone around us.

I encourage you to take some time and interact with Dangerous Church.  I'd love to hear what you think.