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.