Evangelicalism’s Next ‘Big Thing’?

        

 

 

 

 

The Next ‘Purpose Driven Life’?

 

I learned today that my former church (a group of believers God used to pour much grace on my teenage years) is preaching through Kerry and Chris Shook’s One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life.  I visited the One Month to Live site and read the first chapter of the book along with several related blog posts.

Note the endorsements listed for this book on the site’s home page:

Rick Warren – “The fear of death paralyzes most people, preventing them from taking the risks necessary to fulfill God’s plan for their lives. Kerry and Chris Shook want you to grasp an amazing insight: Embracing your mortality sets you free to live a meaningful and significant life without regret. Like Queen Esther, God put each of us in the world ‘for such a time as this.’ One Month to Live is a great way to discover the purposeful, joyful, abundant life God created you to enjoy.”

Joel Osteen - “Kerry Shook is a friend, devoted father, supportive husband and inspiring pastor. As one of today’s most gifted communicators, Kerry’s unique and creative style enables him to take the most complex issues and make them practical and relevant to daily living. He has a genuine love for people that is contagious. His ministry is changing the lives of individuals and families here in Houston and transforming communities all across the nation.”

Bill Hybels - “Kerry and Chris Shook are world-class leaders whose lives and ministry have impacted untold numbers of people, including me. Regardless of where you are on your spiritual journey, One Month to Live will challenge you to passionately live the life you were made for and leave an eternal legacy.”

- A veritable “Who’s Who” of the Seeker Sensitive/Church Growth movement.

I’m not going to engage in an extensive critique here, because I haven’t read the book.  It just makes me sad.  These kinds of movements within evangelicalism used to anger me (to be honest, they still anger me), but more and more they stir in my soul a deep sadness.  I spent a good hour or two reading through the book’s site and watching the video introduction at Amazon.  I was struck by the following quote from the book’s first chapter:

The results were nothing less than life changing! At the end of the thirty days, we all had a greater clarity of purpose and a renewed sense of passion for the things that really matter. Many people did some big, once in a lifetime things, like going on a dream vacation to Hawaii with their spouse, finally getting serious about a healthy lifestyle and losing twenty-five pounds or reconciling a relationship with a parent that had been neglected for years.

Sigh…  I did not find one mention of Christ, the cross, sin, judgment, salvation, etc. at this site.  Hopefully, the gospel is squeezed into this book and program somewhere, but I have my doubts.  To borrow language from the White Horse Inn fellas, this all smacks of simply one more American expression of a sub-Christian, Christless (at the very least, Christ-lite), therapeutic deism.

Oh, that the American church would simply proclaim (not soft-sell) the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

=(