Book Review: Primal by Mark Batterson

I recently received a pre-release copy of Mark Batterson’s new book, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity.  Can I be honest? I was a little skeptical. I mean, I enjoyed his first book: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. But a lot of “Christian living” books are all the same. They have good points. But they have the same points. And they’re about 200 pages too long.

But with Primal, I was impressed. It was a quick, interesting, and challenging read. Batterson has the ability to weave interesting examples around real truths, and it’s all built around a framework of application.

I really believe that as the “Church” today most of us are educated beyond our level of obedience. We need more books like this. It’s filled with simple truths you’ve probably heard before. But there’s also more than likely a few new perspectives in here, as well as fresh ways to apply that wisdom you already “know.”

Primal is wrapped around a desire to return to a basic, primal Christianity – to look at what it means to love the Lord with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Mark unpacks each section in detail, looking at “heart” through the lens of compassion, the “soul” through wonder, the “mind” through curiosity, and “strength” through our energy.

I was personally challenged by Mark’s thoughts about money. In his section on loving God with all of your heart, Mark tells the story of Stanley Tam, a man who transferred all of his successful business to God more than 50 years ago. For him, that meant he worked off of a salary. All of his profits above that went to kingdom work. He’s given away more than $100 million.

“A man can eat only one meal at a time, wear only one suit of clothes at a time, drive only one car at a time. All this I have. Isn’t that enough?” Batterson quotes Stanley as asking.

I’m at a point in life where I’m concerned about money and the future. How will I provide for my family? How can I bring security? There’s a real battle there between comfort and security and much of God’s call. I love Mark’s idea of setting an income ceiling – determining how much you need, tithing along the way, but once you hit that cap, giving everything else away.

“I stopped setting income goals and started setting giving goals,” Mark writes. “I finally come to terms with the fact that making money is the way you make a living and giving it away is the way you make a life.”

Primal is filled with more challenging, thought-provoking ways to apply Jesus’ simple message.

Mark’s publicist encouraged the advance copy readers to challenge our readers to make this their first book of 2010. That may sound a little PRish, but I actually think it’s a useful idea. I know Grete and I are going to be reading through and thinking through some of the concepts together in the coming weeks.

So overall, I’m excited. Sometimes the small steps we take are the most significant. And most of us have a list of things we know we should do that we just don’t get around to doing. Primal’s like a list of basics attached to motivation and ideas of how to put them into practice. If you can unpack what it says and apply it to your life, I know it can be tranformational. That’s what I’m going to try to do.

(Disclosure: The links to the book in this post are affiliate links, which means if you click that way and buy, I get 4% or so of your purchase. I’ve made about $0 off that on this blog so far and only reviewed it positively because I really like the book, but if it bothers you, you can click here to get to amazon.com without the affiliate code…)

This one’s for Grete…

Read them here.

Big ideas are little ideas that no one killed too soon.

- Seth Godin

Biff answers a couple of questions

So I haven’t seen Back to the Future in years. But this makes me like Biff a little more …

Pixar, move over.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (directed by Wes Anderson, based on a Roald Dahl book) looks like it’s going to be a great movie. I’m even more interested after reading this article in the LA Times about Anderson’s directing technique and how he pushed the animators to have an extremely detailed, non-technological look to the film.

“

Even if that meant bucking conventional animation wisdom by avoiding the modern technology that pervades the genre these days.

“It’s not the most pleasant thing to force somebody to do it the way they don’t want to do it,” Anderson said. “In Tristan’s case, what I was telling him was, ‘You can’t use the techniques that you’ve learned to use. I’m going to make your life more difficult by demanding a certain approach.’

“The simple reality is,” Anderson continued, “the movie would not be the way I wanted it if I just did it the way people were accustomed to doing it. I realized this is an opportunity to do something nobody’s ever seen before. I want to see it. I don’t want afterward to say, ‘I could have gone further with this.’ “

“

(HT: Kottke)

Quote: Christianity as a mode of life

“The decisive factor for the nature & greatness of Christianity is not found in a teaching, but in a mode of life which shapes a community.”

- Alan Hirsch

“It is important to note that the spiritual growth process involves far more relinquishment than acquisition.  In our culture, we are conditioned to expect growth to involve acquisition of new facts and understandings.  To put it neurologically, the functional systems of our brains are used to elaborating upon themselves as growth happens.  We have, in a way, become attached to the very process of expanding our attachments.  But spiritual growth is different.  It cannot be packaged, programmed, or taught.  Although some new facts and representations may help us along the way, the essential process is one of transformation, not education.  It is, if anything, an unlearning process in which our old ways are cleansed, liberated, and redeemed…Spiritual growth does not establish new normalities through more habituation and adaption.  Instead, it frees us from slavery to conditioning; it leads us in the direction of unconditional love.”

- Gerald May in Addiction and Grace (via Dave)

Leaders always set the tone

In the context of churches/church planting, people always talk about how the church will mirror the pastor. The interests of the pastor become the interests of the church. The weaknesses of the pastor often become the weaknesses of the church. A pastor who cares deeply about missions? The church will be extremely missional. Deep teaching? You’ll be known for it. You get the idea.

It’s really the same, though, for any field. I can’t help but wonder what ways I am consciously and unconsciously setting the tone and building the culture for the folks I lead. One of my goals is to be aware of what culture and expectations I’m modeling and creating.

Michael Hyatt had a great post recently where he talked about this as the law of replication. In it he said:

“Unconsciously, your people will mimic you. This means:

• If you are late to meetings, your people will be late to meetings.
• If you don’t take notes in meetings, your people won’t take notes in meetings.
• If you are angry and defensive when you get negative feedback, your people will be angry and defensive when they get negative feedback.

Conversely:

• If you are humble and grateful, your people will be humble and grateful.
• If you are warm and engaging, your people will be warm and engaging.
• If you are even-tempered and unflinching under fire, your people will be even-tempered and unflinching under fire.

Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I would add, “Be the change you want to see in your organization.” If you don’t like the culture of your department, division, or company, start by changing yourself. Set a new standard. Let your word become flesh. This is the most powerful thing you can do to change your world. … You will replicate yourself.”

Get people involved by making it fun

stairs + piano = excitement

(via Gizmodo)

Lord, Save us from Your Followers

This looks like an interesting movie. Thoughts?

A creepy Joker child, anyone?

Ingredients fail?

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Around the interwebs: blobfish, good enough, and church

• 
• Blobfish: I’ve never seen a stranger looking creature. And! It’s! Real!

• Sometimes, good enough is good enough: “Sometimes, what we would label an 8, viewers might consider a 10.  We’ll agonize, complain and spend our way towards those extra two points, but they aren’t going to make much of a difference.  That energy and money is best used somewhere else.”
• Star Wars – Crowdsourced: Yes – you can help create a reenactment of Start Wars!
• Neil Cole on Multi-Site Church: “Some shoes are near impossible to fill in a ministry built on attraction. We must ask ourselves what is the fallout with the rise of the mega-church phenomena that is s o dependent upon large personalities. … I do not know of any studies that have been done, but I do know that many of my personal friends who have led large mega-churches have experienced some sort of personal and emotional melt down due to going too long carrying so many people’s expectations and functioning on adrenalin and giftedness. … For me the success of a leader is not determined by the number of followers attained, but by the number of fruitful leaders that are blossoming around the leader.”
• Aaand Vince Antonucci on how we should evaluate a day

Working hard at the wrong thing …

“So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”

- Caterina (via Signal vs. Noise)

Press on and get things done. Avoid distractions. Like blogging.

Sometimes, you just have to buckle down and get things done. (or, you know, carry on)

I’m less than two weeks away from graduation at Fuller. And all that’s keeping me from it are a paper and a final exam. That’s exciting. But between doing some research and making plans for next year at work, hanging out with friends, and spending time with my wife and our new dog, motivation on this paper is a little lacking.

But sometimes, you just have to focus in and get things done.

I mean, I actually like writing. When I pull myself away from the interweb long enough to think deep thoughts, it’s actually kind of fun. But then there’s all this other stuff that pulls my focus away. Like, you know, blogging.

But sometimes, you just have to clear your mind and get things done.

I was reading something Mark Batterson wrote recently about Parkinson’s Law. It says projects will fill the amount of time you give them. The more time you have for something, the more time it takes. It’s so true, isn’t it. Especially for the perfectionist type. It’s always on deadline. Because that’s the only way to get things done.

And then I was thinking about this awesome post by Jason Jaggard. It talks about how the future you needs the you of today to make the tough decisions you need to make to become the you you need to be. (Read the post. It makes sense. It’s good). And, you know, that “discipline” thing of getting things done when you don’t feel like getting them done and working ahead when it would be easier to procrastinate is one of those things the future me needs me to get better at now.

So yeah, it’s time to get this sucker done.

(But David and Joey – if you read this – “get it done” in this case means “make progress.” I’m turning it in on Thursday. Not Tuesday. If given the option, things take as long as they have time to take. Parkinson said so!)

(Photo from swissmiss)