Necessary reading for most Christians

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	• Messy Spirituality Mike Yaconelli Zondervan, 2007 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Messy...Messy...Messy

The pastor at the church I attend started preaching out of "Messy Spirituality". I am very glad he did. My walk in faith can sometimes be categorized as a walk with a small limp. Oh, I want my walk in faith to be more like a fast sprint but yet that leg hindered by sin makes it still a limp. The words holy, sacred, pure, righteous, and innocent do not describe me. I want to be those words. I want so much to be perfect. Yet my sin and shame describes me more like the ungodly. How can I approach the Almighty God as the wretched man that I am. Then the author takes me back to that rugged cross. That splintered, rugged, and thorny cross in which Jesus Christ took on not only my sins but sins of the whole world. The author reminded me of the grace the flows from that blood stained cross. The one and only son makes me holy, sacred, pure, righteous, and innocent. Even though I do not feel it...I am those words. All from that little place in history 2000 years ago. The author reminded me of Noah and David. Great names of the Bible who were scandalous in their own right. God worked his will through the Godly who at times acted very ungodly. I can hear him now....shake of that guilt and run. Run towards eternity with all your might because I am with you....with you to the ends of the age. My faith was strengthened. Yours might be too.

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Great group study

I host a church 'Impact Group' in my home. I also live in "Focus on the Family" country, where perfect Christians seem to be everywhere around us. The members of my group are a bunch of sinners, a group of seemingly not-so-good Christians, a collection of real people with real struggles. One of our members knew Mike Yaconelli and recommended 'Messy Spirituality' as a group study. Without doubt, it was the best book study we have done. It confirmed that we're all OK! We've been accepted into the family of God - just as we are. We're all working toward a closer walk with Christ one day at a time. We've seen members of our group go through life changes immediately upon accepting Christ, and we've seen members grow closer to God over several years. Either way, 'Messy Spirituality' has helped us all get closer to God and closer to each other. I highly recommend it for individuals and for groups.

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Necessary reading for most Christians

This is a short, easy read, but spells out essential concepts of grace interpreted to real life. From my point of view, a 35 year-old Lutheran seminary student, this is NECESSARY reading for most of the people in most of the churches in our country -- across denominations. It speaks to the uptight formal church member of mainline denominations (who are not really evangelical), in regards to keeping church safe and predictable and 'nice.' It speaks to the legalist, fundamentalist, evangelical church member who needs to either discover the real gospel for themselves, or release it for others (perhaps the person next to them in the pew). Yaconelli drives home the reality that Christian people don't ever get it right. They may love Jesus, they may call Jesus 'Lord.' But that doesn't translate into perfect living - ever. He is NOT advocating a Christianity that asks nothing of us, he is not downplaying sincere belief. Nothing that is 'wrong' is re-construed as 'right' or good. He is only offering a potent corrective to so much tradition in the church that teaches people they have to 'look good' -- have their lives in order -- to be in church or be 'really' into Jesus.

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Great look at faith and acceptance

Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli is the antithesis to many Christian books on the market today. The majority of those books contain a formula or plan to help you straighten out your life to get closer to God or alternatively, get closer to God so you can straighten out your life. While those books are well-intentioned, Yaconelli makes a good point for keeping our spirituality messy. Only by getting stuck can we get unstuck, so sometimes it's good for us to be in a bad place. Yaconelli embraces the ups and downs of faith and encourages the reader not to beat themselves up for the times they feel distant from the Lord. He makes some excellent points about how Jesus himself was wild and out of control in his spirituality based on the mores of the day. And the people Jesus chose for his followers weren't straight-up people. These were people who had serious messes, and Jesus embraced them anyway. Toward the end of the book, Yaconelli tells some very moving stories about how it's really the small decisions we make every day that determine who we are and where we are with God, far more than the big decisions. He definitely gave me a lot to think about. His words will stick with me for awhile, and I'm glad of it.

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