Many Christian leaders believe that the imposition of “businessthink” is one of the biggest problems in the contemporary church. 

They understand that business models and practices have led to unbiblical assumptions about success, continuity, consumerism, and exploitation.  Today, many just assume that the Church is a business. 

And, let’s face it: the church can be a great career opportunity.  Furthermore, the relational nature of the Church makes her a consummate marketing machine and an incredible ego-builder.  The church can even be an incubator of illicit attachments. 

All that was the context for Bob Sorge’s courageous, sobering, and historic message at the 2007 International Worship Institute.  “It’s Not Business, It’s Personal,” based on John 3:29, dealt with the chilling dimensions of exploitation and corruption within the modern church. 

It also called us to a higher and cleaner attitude toward the Bride of Christ.  In the same way that John was a friend to the Groom, not the Bride, our burning devotion and loyalty must be the Lord Himself, not His church. 

Bob got very specific: our marketing and careerist impulses toward the Bride are inappropriate.  She is not a business.  She is the One being prepared for marriage to Christ.  He takes her very personally. 

Men squirmed that night as Bob discussed why ancient kings chose eunuchs for service to the queen.  They had been surgically qualified to tend to her every need.  Nothing improper would ever move in them.

Now, thankfully, that message has appeared in book form. 

It’s Not Business, It’s Personal (Oasis House, 2009) is a little stick of dynamite.   Short (87 pages), lucid, and very accessible, this book can and should help to dismantle that unholy syncretism of business and ministry. 

The best chapter in the book – the provocatively titled “Scoring With the Bride” – begins with this wrecking ball quote,

“One of the things Jesus will judge, in the last day, will be how His friends handled themselves around His Bride.  This is real important to Jesus, even now.  He’s wondering, ‘Are you serving her in a way that helps Me, or helps you?’

“One of the most searching questions He’s ever asked me is this: ‘After she’s spent an evening with you, does My Bride come away from the meeting talking about you or Me?’”

Ouch.

It’s Not Business, It’s Personal contains a crystal clear and serious word from the Lord for the whole church.  Those who receive it will also see it as a merciful word.  It could save your life. 

This book should be read by pastors, worship leaders and team members, ministry organization leaders, Christian business leaders, entrepreneurs, and others who seriously follow Christ and care about His church. 

Copies may be purchased from Oasis House.

- Ed Chinn

May 19, 2009

Yes, I know that 4 million+ people have now read The Shack.  So, maybe you’ve already read a dozen reviews.  But, I’m continually amazed that many have not read, or even heard of, this book.

Eugene Peterson says this new novel “has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress did for his.  It’s that good.”  At least one other prominent Christian leader is warning people to run far away from this fiction.

So, what’s behind this polarity of views?

The Shack (Windblown Media, 2007) is the story of an Oregon father who experienced the most horrifying tragedy imaginable to parents.  An old mountain shack was the site of the horror.  Now, a surreal invitation calls him back to the shack.  

To tell anything more would spoil it.  But, I will tell you this is a story you’ve not read before.  Young does take his readers to a new place in fiction (at least new to me).  I suspect that anyone who has ever suffered a life-numbing loss will find enormous comfort in The Shack.  Some will undoubtedly find a breakthrough which reboots life.  

The story is so bizarre that it cannot be told without unleashing controversy.  Pivotal works of art always do that.  And, The Shack certainly follows in that tradition.  The theological backdrop for the story will surprise, challenge, disappoint, enrage, delight, and perhaps enlighten.  

This novel is at least a page-turner.  I could hardly do anything else until I finished it.

And, yes, I do believe the book reveals a glimpse of God.  But, it is like gazing at Him through the blades of a turning windmill.  If you focus at the horizon beyond the blades, you will see Him.  If you get pulled into a head-rolling stare, you will lose Him.  

Some of the criticism of The Shack has focused on what Young does not say about God.  But, art always presents a limited view.  The artist has no other option.  I mean, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa doesn’t portray her parents or pets.  And Arlo Guthrie’s City of New Orleans doesn’t lament the slow death of ship travel.  

But, if you just let Young tell this fantastic story his way and let him paint what he sees in the Lord, this book could deeply affect you and pull you to a higher view.  

Go ahead.  Take a chance.  Be dangerous.   Read The Shack.

- Ed Chinn

December 18, 2008