“I think the word that best describes how many feel about their Christian lives is not abundant, joyful, or purpose-driven, but disappointing,” says Vince Antonucci in his book I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt. Somehow, most Christians miss out on the lifetime of adventure that is supposed to come with following Jesus, and instead they settle for wearing the souvenir T-shirt. They are stuck in a dull routine, and never experience the joy and fear and laughter and doubt of taking great risks for God, praying dangerous prayers, and facing spiritual attack.
In order to live the life which Jesus wants us to experience, we need to stop “having a relationship” with Jesus and start “abiding” in him, living every part of our lives with him. We need to give up our roving appetites and start being hungry for Jesus. We need to stop focusing on staying on a straight and narrow moral path, and instead focus on following Jesus in all the different directions where he leads us. We need to stop striving to be like Jesus and instead let Jesus live through us.
The book is easy to read and filled with interesting anecdotes and the author’s idiosyncratic sense of humour. For example, a footnote on page 194 attempts to define the position of widows within society in Elijah’s time: “The order from the bottom of the totem pole is foot washers, elephant proctologists, vomitorium scrubbers, widows, slaves.” There is a companion website which provides free resources for a six-week sermon series based on topics raised in the book.