Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity

One of my favorite Christian authors is Mark Batterson. Mark is the lead pastor of a church he planted out in Washington D.C., and I first found Mark's book while browsing through the Christianity section of a Barnes and Noble. My reason for browsing the store that day was to find some books to help me take control of my life - I was in a bad place at the time, and I needed something that would remind me that God had a plan for my life and that there was still a bright hope for my future (I can't believe I was already overly worried about that at the age of 23, but oh well). Then, I saw Mark's book, titled: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars. Sounded exactly like what I needed - a book that would help me to take control of situations when an opportunity presented itself!

Needless to say, I loved the book, and I became a huge fan of Mark's writing. Mark mentioned at the end of the book that he had a blog, so I immediately got onto that mailing list! Within the year after I found this book, Mark released his second book: Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God - a wonderful book that reminded me that following God's will is much like chasing a wild goose - you never know which direction He will decide to lead you in!

Now, over Christmas, Mark is set to release his third book: Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity. I am going to be honest, when I read the title and some of Mark's thoughts/themes of the book, I was not sure if I would like it. After all, his first two books seemed to have a clear theme of "here are some ways to follow God's will for your life"...but a quest for the lost soul of Christianity? I didn't know we were missing any soul! I think we are still doing relatively well after 2,000 years, and I was honestly thinking of not buying the book initially since I thought it would be more about historical facts and history of the church than about how it relates to my life today...

...how wrong I was...

Through a very fortunate set of circumstances, I was one of the chosen people to partake in Mark's Blog Tour. I received an advanced copy of Primal and have LOVED it. Mark covers very well how we need to recapture that initial excitement and love that the early Christians had. I mean, they were giving their lives to the cause - literally - and they were meeting illegally for hundreds of years before Christianity became legal! Obviously, their beliefs and fellowship was something that they knew was worth dying for, and we have lost that today in our culture. What is the worst that will happen to us when we fully practice our Christian beliefs? We might have some people judge us? Our friends might think we are weird? We may not be invited to a party? How trivial our current "woes" of expressing our faith are compared to those early Christians!

Mark does an excellent job throughout Primal of mixing real world, concrete examples that better demonstrate how our faith works. I love his mix of sciences, history, and faith beliefs. It makes it possible for us to pull our whole life into focus and to see how our faith is really represented through everything around us. One of my favorite visuals involves Mark explaining how the eyes of a baby develop. He says that there is limited color spectrum in babies' eyes and that they can only see as far as about 13 inches initially...but that within a year their eyes have adjusted to be almost as good as an adult. He mentions how slowly they begin to see more and more colors, and how they begin to see that there is more and more to this world than the 13 inches they had been seeing....what a great representation of how our faith also begins on such a small spectrum before growing and maturing to show us how amazing it can truly be.

Mark's book is filled with great references to the past, present, and science that helps us to understand what our church today has lost compared to early Christians. I think the "primal movement" that Mark envisions in this book is one that is greatly needed in our culture and world today - a reclaiming of that faith that set so many people on fire 2,000 years ago and that is still setting people on fire today.

If you read only one book in 2010, I highly recommend having it be Primal by Mark Batterson...and let me step up that challenge to have it be the first book you read in the new year! What better way to start off your year than with a reclaiming of your "primal" faith?

The book releases tomorrow, December 22nd! You can order your copy here.

A defining moment

Each of us has a defining moment in our life. A moment when we experience something that makes us say: "this is how I am going to live my life" or "this is not what I am going to be"...you don't know when these moments or revelations are going to hit you, but when they do, you are changed forever. What's even more amazing, is that these moments can be such a wide range of possibilities...it can involve emotions, actions, careers, others, yourself, life, death - anything.

One of my defining moments came for me during high school. Between sophomore and junior year, my youth director moved away. It was very sad, but I had full confidence in his replacement and in the continuing support of my friends who attended the Wednesday events with me.

However, a few months after he left, one of my friends who I considered on of his "favorites" went off the deep end. She started to get involved in things that weren't her and that we had discussed many times as being actions she didn't want to participate in. After about a month of this strange behavior, my friends and I decided that we should contact our former youth director. If anyone was going to talk some sense into her, it was going to be him.

I don't recall if we called or emailed him, but I do remember that we were able to get a hold of him and ask him to give her a call regarding her strange behavior. I was so disappointed when his response to us was basically: it is out of my hands. He may have also told us to confront her ourselves or have directed us to the new youth director, but these options seemed hollow. He was the one whose opinion would matter to her...he was the one who would be able to get directly to her heart on the subject.

Sure, maybe my friends and I had too much hope placed in our former youth director...maybe we should have aggressively pursued a different direction or option...but even so, it was a defining moment for me. A moment when I decided that if I ever went into ministry, I would not "drop" any of the kids I worked with even if I did move away. I also try to use this mentality in all areas of my life...and to stay connected to all the important people from my past. I'm not always successful, but I do try to put my heart into it. And maybe some of you have noticed how I get crazily overexcited when I see someone I haven't seen in awhile...it is partially because of this defining moment from my past. I want everyone I've known to feel like they are loved, important, and that they have been missed.

In case you're curious, my friend continued to "slide down" a slippery slope that we couldn't pull her back from...and to my knowledge, she never received that phone call that my friends and I believed might have been able to pull her back.

We all have our defining moments - whether through a positive or negative event - and we will all contribute to someone else's defining moment. We're each going to have a passion or personality that is going to shape our lives and the lives of others - pursue it.