More Lost Than Found is about next generation Christians drifting away from organized religion and church in search of a deeper spiritual connection with God, because they can't relate to the answers or lack of answers they find in the church. The idea is not that they leave Jesus, but they leave the church in search of Jesus only or a deeper connection to Jesus without all the religion and disappointment with the human institution of the church.
As I began reading this book, I was instantly hooked and thought this was going to be along the lines of many similar books: "Why Men Hate Going to Church by Murrow" "Finding Organic Church by Frank Viola" "House Church by Atkerson", "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore by Jacobsen" and "If the Church Were Christian by Gulley". These books share the idea: "18-30 year olds are not finding Jesus and God in rigid judgmental churches, so they leave to find a personal experience with Jesus and God." Being a super devoted 27-year-old Christian girl, I relate to all my fellow 18-30 Christians who learn more at home in one day than from months of sermons. To us, church does not even come close to meeting our spiritual needs. It is too basic, too childish, and so unchallenging.
The best part of this book was when the author went into how adolescent rebellion was created when adults became fixated on money and careers and they forgot about their children. These parts of this book are very deep and very accurate from my own youth perspective. This book also goes into how teenage rebellion (as expressed in angry rap, tattoos, piercings) are the result of this anger that kids have towards their parents because there is no family connections and there are so many broken families now. The author also explains how historically, kids and parents were very much alike and shared many common interests - prior to the Industrial Revolution that made women work and family lose its place of importance.
So this book began fantastic! I couldn't put it down for much of the book... until Chapter 8. From Chapter 8-11, the entire book lost its purpose. It was almost as if these chapters didn't even belong to the same book. Or the author completely forgot what the entire premise of the book was about. Especially chapter 9-11 were disjointed, out of place and served no purpose in light of the previous fantastic focused chapters. These last chapters were spacey and gave no insights. The ending completely died. Maybe the author had to meet a publishing deadline and just banged out some fluff, because the ending chapter had ZERO to do with the first 1-8 chapters! It was the weirdest ending to any book I've ever read.
But because the first chapters were excellent, I would still recommend reading this book. Just skip the last chapters. :) I give this book 3 stars because there should have been an ending that made sense and wrapped up the ideas in the previous good chapters.
My disclaimer - I received this book from the publisher Thomas Nelson free of charge but I always give honest reviews. I want you to be able to choose the best book based on stars because I know you have limited time and energy to read.
No comments:
Post a Comment