Scan barcode
benrogerswpg's review
4.0
With Increasing Rates of Homelessness...
This was a great book on homelessness and Christianity.
Really encouraged me to help more and be more like Jesus in my day-to-day.
Would recommend!
4.0/5
This was a great book on homelessness and Christianity.
Really encouraged me to help more and be more like Jesus in my day-to-day.
Would recommend!
4.0/5
ob_ledbetter's review
4.0
I can’t tell if this touched me so much because I have been to the Community First! village or because the stories are really that good. I think the answer is both. This book challenged me to love my neighbor in entirely new ways.
A very well written, empathetic, perspective-changing book.
2019 reading challenge: the first book I saw in the library.
A very well written, empathetic, perspective-changing book.
2019 reading challenge: the first book I saw in the library.
babyfacedoldsoul's review
5.0
It was so wonderful to see a book about faith, community, and social justice that really got it and let people be people and loved anyway. I found this book to be refreshingly real and the people described to be written with such love. I was shocked in the most pleasant way to see a trans woman highlighted for her compassion and not just tokenized/demonized. One of the best books I've read from the Christian community in a very long time.
rachelb36's review
1.0
Graham tells stories of the homeless individuals he's met and worked with in his ministry Mobile Loaves and Fishes.
The problem is that Graham, in his effort to focus on the positive in these people and their made-in-God's-image status, ends up romanticizing poverty, addiction, and mental illness. For example, on page 46, he recounts the following story:
He tries to redefine the definition of "homeless" by talking about the emotions and connectedness of "home," but that's really not what the term means. He states at one point, "I don't like calling Danny homeless because so much about him is so homeful. Especially when so many people with extraordinary homes are pretty homeless when it comes to matters of the heart and soul." (p 65)
Graham seems to overlook very practical matters and tries to spiritualize everything. To try to keep the practical and spiritual in balance is one thing, but that is not what he's doing.
It's also hard to take seriously the words of someone who spouts off shoulds when they themselves aren't living out those shoulds. He scoffs at those who give 10% of their income away (side note: most American Christians give less than 3% in reality), and says people could/should give away 50-80% of their incomes. I don't even disagree with his point, but a few pages earlier, he was talking about how he has an Apple watch and loves it. Perhaps if he seemed more extreme in his own lifestyle choices, I could understand the extreme judgment he passes on others.
A huge problem for me is that Graham kept referring to certain individuals as "Christlike" when there was no indication that they were even Christians. He decided they were "Christlike" because they were "good people" or generous in some way. But there are lots of "good" people who don't know Jesus Christ. What makes a person "like Christ" comes in their attitude to God the Father. Jesus Christ laid down his own will, and even his life in surrender to the will of God the Father. This is what we have to do in order to be Christlike. There was very little mention of the actual, true Gospel in these pages.
Graham also claims "... the disrespect for human life is almost a distinctly Western problem." (p 98) Since when?! Every culture in every part of history has dealt with humans not valuing the lives of others. This is the problem of a fallen world, not of the West exclusively.
There are so many other books that will encourage Christians and spur them on to good works, while simultaneously presenting accurate information about Jesus Christ. I recommend reading one of those and skipping this one!
The problem is that Graham, in his effort to focus on the positive in these people and their made-in-God's-image status, ends up romanticizing poverty, addiction, and mental illness. For example, on page 46, he recounts the following story:
He asked me if the glass-plastic-poly-whatever elephant in his yard was crystal. It wasn't, but I still replied, "Yeah, maybe." He said, "Screw you, I know it is." This small ability to see the potential renewal in anything and value in everything, so embedded in J.P., brought a new sense of sacredness to all space and all practice, as everything was now seen on a heaven-bound trajectory of restoration.Really, the moral of this story is simply that J.P. is in denial. Graham is reading way too much into this.
He tries to redefine the definition of "homeless" by talking about the emotions and connectedness of "home," but that's really not what the term means. He states at one point, "I don't like calling Danny homeless because so much about him is so homeful. Especially when so many people with extraordinary homes are pretty homeless when it comes to matters of the heart and soul." (p 65)
Graham seems to overlook very practical matters and tries to spiritualize everything. To try to keep the practical and spiritual in balance is one thing, but that is not what he's doing.
It's also hard to take seriously the words of someone who spouts off shoulds when they themselves aren't living out those shoulds. He scoffs at those who give 10% of their income away (side note: most American Christians give less than 3% in reality), and says people could/should give away 50-80% of their incomes. I don't even disagree with his point, but a few pages earlier, he was talking about how he has an Apple watch and loves it. Perhaps if he seemed more extreme in his own lifestyle choices, I could understand the extreme judgment he passes on others.
A huge problem for me is that Graham kept referring to certain individuals as "Christlike" when there was no indication that they were even Christians. He decided they were "Christlike" because they were "good people" or generous in some way. But there are lots of "good" people who don't know Jesus Christ. What makes a person "like Christ" comes in their attitude to God the Father. Jesus Christ laid down his own will, and even his life in surrender to the will of God the Father. This is what we have to do in order to be Christlike. There was very little mention of the actual, true Gospel in these pages.
Graham also claims "... the disrespect for human life is almost a distinctly Western problem." (p 98) Since when?! Every culture in every part of history has dealt with humans not valuing the lives of others. This is the problem of a fallen world, not of the West exclusively.
There are so many other books that will encourage Christians and spur them on to good works, while simultaneously presenting accurate information about Jesus Christ. I recommend reading one of those and skipping this one!
More...