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4.54 AVERAGE
4.54 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Highly recommend this book to anyone! It’s sooooo good and convicting and eye opening! I can’t wait to read his next book!
I've heard many people talk about this book, but generally when people say "You have to read this; everybody is", then I don't read it! So I was in no rush to read this book even though so many people said it was a must-read. I'm glad I did finally read it!
First, the title. The world seems insane and out of control. People are persecuted for their faith. Human suffering makes no sense. And yet, God uses all of this insanity. His ways are not our ways and what doesn't make sense to us, is used by God to grow His church.
Nik Ripken and his wife served as missionaries in three different countries in Africa. Then they started a relief organization (as I understand it while still part of their mission organization) to Somalia. What Nik saw there was emotionally difficult to handle and was discouraging to say the least. As he says, "We struggled to steel our emotions without hardening our hearts. That was not easily done." To see so much human suffering, to have to deal with a difficult political climate, and to realize that there were so very few Christians in Somalia, topped by the sudden death of their son, left Nik, not doubting his faith, but worn out and discouraged. He says, "My struggle at this point brought me to a profound spiritual crisis. I knew that God had never promised to reward obedient sacrifice with measurable success. At the same time, I wondered why our sacrifices had yielded so little. Maybe, I wondered, there were results that we could not see. Still, these were dark days." Wow, I wrote similar things during dark days of ministry discouragement in Tera, so I could certainly identify.
Nik and his wife ended up returning to the USA and took on a two-year assignment as missionaries in residence at a Christian college. Nik wondered how believers in countries who face persecution survive. How could their stories speak into the discouragement of so few believers in Somalia. This began the journey of research and visiting countries where the church and believers are persecuted. The stories he heard in eastern Europe, China, and many unnamed countries were incredible.
I think my take-aways from the book are:
1. We do a disservice to our friends in Muslim countries to give the impression that if they come to Jesus, everything will be wonderful. It won't be wonderful. It will inevitably mean persecution. We need to be teaching that heaven is our home, not earth. Yes, we may be killed on earth, but we have eternal forgiveness of sins and have been reconciled with God, even if that means persecution here on earth. Nik writes, "What if persecution is the normal, expected situation for a believer? And what if the persecution is, in fact, soil in which faith can grow? What if persecution can be, in fact, good soil?"
2. This book has changed how I pray for the persecuted church. Should my prayer be more for strength and courage to not turn to the faith or for persecution to end? He writes, "For decades now, many concerned western believers have sought to rescue their spiritual brothers and sisters around the world who suffer because they choose to follow Jesus. Yet our pilgrimage among house churches in persecution convinced us that God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered-down, powerless western faith."
3. What is our strategy as missionaries? Do we create all sorts of plans, hoping that God will fulfill our plans? "A much better and more effective strategy for carrying out the great commission, especially in our world's toughest and most discouraging places, would be to learn what God has already been doing and is doing there, join Him, and together figure out how we can build on that. Once we find out what God is already doing to show Himself, all we have to do is point others to Him."
4. How prepared am I for persecution? What if I were kidnapped or jailed for my faith? How many verses would I be able to recall without a Bible? How many songs could I sing without a book or a power point projector? "You can only grow in jail what you take to jail with you. You can only grow in persecution what you take into it."
and finally,
5. I live in so much fear of sharing the gospel. God help me! You've called us to make disciples, but fear has its grip on me!
As with any book, there are things I didn't like, of course. Nik Ripken is not a saint and I'm not sure he always handled situations in the best way possible. But God can take our mistakes, our misunderstandings, our speaking out of turn and redeem those things.
First, the title. The world seems insane and out of control. People are persecuted for their faith. Human suffering makes no sense. And yet, God uses all of this insanity. His ways are not our ways and what doesn't make sense to us, is used by God to grow His church.
Nik Ripken and his wife served as missionaries in three different countries in Africa. Then they started a relief organization (as I understand it while still part of their mission organization) to Somalia. What Nik saw there was emotionally difficult to handle and was discouraging to say the least. As he says, "We struggled to steel our emotions without hardening our hearts. That was not easily done." To see so much human suffering, to have to deal with a difficult political climate, and to realize that there were so very few Christians in Somalia, topped by the sudden death of their son, left Nik, not doubting his faith, but worn out and discouraged. He says, "My struggle at this point brought me to a profound spiritual crisis. I knew that God had never promised to reward obedient sacrifice with measurable success. At the same time, I wondered why our sacrifices had yielded so little. Maybe, I wondered, there were results that we could not see. Still, these were dark days." Wow, I wrote similar things during dark days of ministry discouragement in Tera, so I could certainly identify.
Nik and his wife ended up returning to the USA and took on a two-year assignment as missionaries in residence at a Christian college. Nik wondered how believers in countries who face persecution survive. How could their stories speak into the discouragement of so few believers in Somalia. This began the journey of research and visiting countries where the church and believers are persecuted. The stories he heard in eastern Europe, China, and many unnamed countries were incredible.
I think my take-aways from the book are:
1. We do a disservice to our friends in Muslim countries to give the impression that if they come to Jesus, everything will be wonderful. It won't be wonderful. It will inevitably mean persecution. We need to be teaching that heaven is our home, not earth. Yes, we may be killed on earth, but we have eternal forgiveness of sins and have been reconciled with God, even if that means persecution here on earth. Nik writes, "What if persecution is the normal, expected situation for a believer? And what if the persecution is, in fact, soil in which faith can grow? What if persecution can be, in fact, good soil?"
2. This book has changed how I pray for the persecuted church. Should my prayer be more for strength and courage to not turn to the faith or for persecution to end? He writes, "For decades now, many concerned western believers have sought to rescue their spiritual brothers and sisters around the world who suffer because they choose to follow Jesus. Yet our pilgrimage among house churches in persecution convinced us that God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered-down, powerless western faith."
3. What is our strategy as missionaries? Do we create all sorts of plans, hoping that God will fulfill our plans? "A much better and more effective strategy for carrying out the great commission, especially in our world's toughest and most discouraging places, would be to learn what God has already been doing and is doing there, join Him, and together figure out how we can build on that. Once we find out what God is already doing to show Himself, all we have to do is point others to Him."
4. How prepared am I for persecution? What if I were kidnapped or jailed for my faith? How many verses would I be able to recall without a Bible? How many songs could I sing without a book or a power point projector? "You can only grow in jail what you take to jail with you. You can only grow in persecution what you take into it."
and finally,
5. I live in so much fear of sharing the gospel. God help me! You've called us to make disciples, but fear has its grip on me!
As with any book, there are things I didn't like, of course. Nik Ripken is not a saint and I'm not sure he always handled situations in the best way possible. But God can take our mistakes, our misunderstandings, our speaking out of turn and redeem those things.
Wow---this book will make most Americans think three and four times or more about their lifestyles. It is not written to cause guilt, but to make people aware of the "bigger picture". Read it. The sooner the better.
Though it gets off to a slow start (mainly because the direction of the book isn't clear at the beginning), the stories and insights from the persecuted Church are incredible, potentially life-changing testimonies to the work of God around the world. I won't soon forget the moments of joy, sorrow, guilt, and inspiration I took away from this book. I thank God someone has been collecting these stories and found a way to share them.
Such an honest look into Nik’s life and journey of searching for God is the hardest circumstances. I loved the way he asked questions and didn’t give direct answers because it makes you realize it’s a journey you need to take with God too, in your own way. Please read this!
This book is phenomenal and life changing. If you want a fresh perspective on what it should mean to follow God than read this and know you will not want to settle for business as usual anymore.
Nik Ripken- pseudonym for the real minister behind this book, who choose to hide the identity of himself and many people mentioned within for protection's sake- is no writer. And sometimes that's okay. While it may seem odd to shuffle off style- or talent- in a book, the depth of what he is relaying within these pages is strong enough that the conversational, sometimes trailing manner in which it is relayed works. In this true story, Nik's journey starts out in Somalia during a brutal civil war in the early 90s that left relief workers up to the arms in starvation, homelessness, disease, orphans, widows, and childless parents. Nik dives into that with the enthusiasm in which he has always done things, and after 8 long, war-weary years, filled with graphic, brutal glimpses of the depths of evil, returns to the United States utterly defeated, and mourning not only the lostness in Somalia, but the death of his son. While Ripken had lived and worked in Africa for years, including a tense time in South Africa during apartheid, he found himself utterly devastated by his time in Somalia, and begins to ask an important question: is there evil so dark even God can't redeem it? After a period of mourning, Nik begins a years-long journey that will take him across the globe and into various "hearts of darkness" all over the world, asking believers in oppressed countries how they maintain their faith. What he experiences is breathtaking. Speaking to believers the world over, from the house-churches of urban China (where believers literally view three years of jail time as a period of Biblical training akin to seminary, and make light of the torture they endure there), to the rural backwoods of China (where believers ask if Jesus is known to other countries, or still only to the Chinese?), to the former Soviet Union (where believers could recite the gospels by heart, despite many suffering through or knowing someone who suffered through years of unimaginable torture), to many Muslim countries so oppressed Nik couldn't even name them for security reasons, Nik encounters believers with amazing, miraculous stories to tell, snd begins to pick up on a single thread running throughout: God hasn't left us, we've just given up in our freedom what many would never surrender in the face of persecution. Through recounting dozens out of the many hundreds of stories he hears, it becomes apparent that the miraculous events relayed in the New Testament are still happening, and that Christ is still transforming lives- he is still thriving even in some of the most evil places in the world, and doing things we Americans couldn't even dream of. This is a portrait of real persecution- and the real faith that is birthed from it. Eye opening, often unbelievable, and extremely powerful, Nik's story is one I would recommend to any believer- and anyone skeptical of the faith, for that matter. Painting a portrait of what real faith looks like- and of how much we have lost in our freedom- Nik provides a tool here that explains why God still matters- and how he is beating back the evil in the world, one miracle at a time.