Category: Books

How exactly is it that people come to faith in Jesus? It’s something that requires a miracle of the Holy Spirit working in someone’s heart, of course, but there’s a human element which provides a context in which the Holy Spirit works. In the Western church nowadays, we tend to assume that it happens during one-to-one interactions, and so we emphasise personal evangelism and personal commitment.

In his very readable little book entitled The Bridges of God, first published in 1955, Donald McGavran asserts that people primarily come to faith in Jesus through group decisions, rather than through individual ones. The book, which is one of the most important missiology books of the 20^th Century, asserts that the “mission station” approach to evangelism, which involves rescuing people out of their environment one at a time, is inferior to the “people movement” approach, in which whole groups of related people become Christians at the same time through a group decision making process.

Although the book talks primarily about cross-cultural missions work in non-Western countries, it seems to me that McGavran’s insights are highly relevant to evangelism today in Western countries. In spite of the value which we place on individualism, most people make their important decisions in life through a consultation process with other trusted people, although they are usually peers rather than family members.

Not many people have the courage or inclination to swim against the tide. Our need for the approval of others is too great to allow us to act differently from everyone else or start something new. So it takes a rare combination of skills to dream dreams about what could be, and then to bring those dreams to fruition.

Guy Kawasaki is an expert in innovation, and his book The Art of the Start is a “time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone starting anything”. According to Guy, the five most important things an entrepreneur must accomplish are: 1. Make Meaning (create a product or service which makes the world a better place); 2. Make Mantra (make a mantra out of your meaning); 3. Get Going (start creating and delivering your product or service as soon as possible); 4. Define your Business Model (work out how to make the innovation sustainable); and 5. Weave a Mat (compile lists of milestones, assumptions and tasks, to keep you on track).

We live in an age where every follower of Jesus is called to be an entrepreneur, a missionary, finding ways to relate and communicate the good news to people who have no understanding of its relevance or importance. While we’re not necessarily starting up businesses for profit, we are constantly encountering new challenges and experiences, and Guy’s book provides a number of handy hints.

I remember discussing integrity with a successful businessman. He thought that you either had integrity or you didn’t, and if you didn’t have it he wouldn’t hire you. The problem is that I’ve never met anyone who was completely trustworthy, and I’ve never met anyone who was completely untrustworthy. And there’s a lot more to integrity than trustworthiness.

Henry Cloud identifies six aspects of integrity in his book Integrity: establishing trust, orientation towards truth, getting results, embracing the negative, orientation towards increase, and orientation towards transcendence. While I’m not sure I would have picked exactly the same components of integrity, I found the book to be a very useful exploration of what needs to happen below the surface of honesty.

A person who has integrity isn’t just someone who tells the truth. It’s someone who also understands and communicates well with other people, who has a firm grip on reality, who tells it like it is, who has the persistence and fortitude to see things through to the end, who listens to criticism and is willing to endure confrontation and do the difficult jobs, who is always learning, and who understands that he or she is a small person in a very big world.