Book Review: Jesus Manifesto

After reading Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet‘s online essay ”Jesus Manifesto”, I was captivated by their thinking.  The original online essay can be found HERE.  I read through the original Manifesto dozens of times each time reflecting on a new part of the implications.  I began to teach through 10 points of the essay in the young adult Sunday school class here at Crosspoint.  So when I heard that Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet were going to publish a book under the same title, I purchased the book on the day it was released.

The book Jesus Manifesto expanded on the ideas found in the original essay.  The original essay states the problem clearly:

“We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

Do you agree or disagree with that statement?  Before you answer that, let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Have you ever heard a sermon where the name of Jesus Christ was not mentioned? 
2. Take note of Christian worship.  Is Christ mentioned and exalted by name?
3. Ever been to Bible study where the topic of study was so topical in nature that one’s walk with the Lord Jesus was never discussed?
4. What percentage of what we do as Christians is focused on us and what percentage is focused on the person of Jesus Christ?

Fortunately, rather than blasting the fact that we don’t focus on Jesus Christ enough, Sweet/Viola choose to just reveal Christ.   The authors state their goals upfront saying:

“We hope to present our Lord to you in such a way that you cannot help but love Him, that you cannot help but fall at His feet and give Him your undying devotion – not out of guilt, duty, obligation, or fear, but because your heart has been captured by a glimpse of the greatest person this world has ever know, Jesus the Christ.                                Introduction, p.xix

This is where the book comes to life.  Each chapter paints beautiful pictures of who Christ is.  The book uses the epistle of Colossians as an outline to describe who Jesus is.  By revealing who Jesus Christ is in all his majesty the other issues seem to take a back seat.  When I was reading this book I stood speechless after every chapter.  Page after page I was learning more about more about my Savior, my King, my Lord Jesus Christ.  He was called to be my center, my passion, my all.  Jesus was to have the focus of my worship, my time and my energy.  But the fun doesn’t end there.  Not only is Christ the center of all things, early on the book Sweet/Viola hit the heart of the message found in Colossians 1:27:

 ^“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

How stinkin’ cool is that!  The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the man who conquered sin and death chooses to reside in you and me.  Christ in YOU!  He doesn’t just choose to love us, forgive us, save us and allow us into heaven.  Jesus Christ does all that and more!  He chose not just to empty himself to take the form of a servant as described in Philippians 2:6-7, every single day he chooses to dwell and live in the hearts of all Christians, including you and me!  Knowing that, why wouldn’t Christ be the center of all we do in the church?  Why wouldn’t Jesus be the center of every Bible study?  Even our daily lives, if Christ does truly reside in us our lives should reflect His!  In order for Christ reign supreme and sovereign in the church, he MUST reign supreme and sovereign in you and me.

For the last 6 months I have felt something is brewing in the Kingdom of God.  I felt that we are on the tip of some sort of revival, some type of renewal within the hearts of Christian men and women.  I believe that this book and those who read it may be the catalyst for this type of movement.  Why do I say that?  Because if a movement like that is going to happen, Christ will be the center of that movement.  The Jesus Manifesto has Christ at the center as well.  I encourage anyone wanting to know the person of Jesus Christ on a deeper more intimate level to pick up this book.

VBS Part Deux

Last night was another successful night of VBS!  I didn’t get a chance to write last night because by the time all the kids were in bed and all the nightly chores were done, it was BED TIME.  It’s hard to measure the success of a VBS because there are so many benchmarks you could measure it by.  Do you measure it by the number of kids in attendance?  How many visitors were invited?  The money collected for offering?  Or is there something else that was should be looking for or measuring?    

Stacey Lindell helping Mallory with her bracelet.

 

One of the discussions we had in our teaching time with the 4th grade class was about how kids spend their free time.  The goal of the lesson was to live out Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men”.   Most of the kids in the class were thinking through how they could spend their time to honor Christ with their lives.  There was one little girl who turned the question on me.  The root of her question was this, how should adults spend their time and how much should adults be focused on their job vs. spending time with their children.  I could tell the question was asked out of her personal experiences.  My opinion was there was a longing for her parents to spend more time with her, rather than be consumed with work, their job and their career.    

The balance between work and personal life is a challenge for most parents I know.  Too much energy and time spent in either direction can lead to trouble later down the road.  Too much time with family spent at the expense of completing assignments and doing your job could ultimately lead to you losing your job.  Too much time at work and building your career at the expense of your family could lead you to losing your family!  The answer to these difficult questions is balance, and that’s exactly what I told this 4th grade girl during VBS last night.    

But the moral of the story is not balance in the Christian life, rather it’s that our kids desire and long for our attention.  They crave time to be spent “playing”.  They want to share experiences with us.  Our children want to know they are loved and one of the best ways we can show them this love is through the time we spend with them.  Children in today’s culture have a major deficit of quality time with adults, specifically with their parents.  We all need to take time away from our laptops, TVs, video games, and other time-wasting things and spend time with our children.     

So another night of VBS is done.  Let’s get back to the original question.  How do we measure the success of a VBS?  I believe our greatest success is the time we volunteers spend with the children and out of that time, kids at VBS this year know they are loved.  It can be as simple as have a listening ear as a Kindergartener talks about their Bakugan cards, or a 5th grader talk about their latest math competition.  VBS is a time that we listen to kids, play with kids and through that we build a foundation to share Jesus Christ.  And when Christ is shared and experienced, that’s a successful VBS!