Crossinator

Dangerous Faith: Growing in God and Service to the World written by Christian leader Joel Vestal is an excellent recounting of the many ways God is moving around the world in dangerous and tough places.

Vestal, director of ServLife International, has pulled stories from his vast experiences overseas and weaved in vital truths from the Word of God. His official bio reads:

Joel Vestal has traveled to more than seventy nations, often working to improve living conditions in some of the world's least-developed countries. He has conferred with Mother Teresa, has worked in Sudan during the height of its catastrophic civil war, began reconstruction after the devastating tsunami hit near his home in Thailand, was interrogated by secret police in Cuba, and was part of a team that started the first Christian church in northern India.

So you can imagine he has a lot of great stories, but more importantly he has had a lot of encounters with Christ throughout the world. It is from those encounters where I learned the most from this book. His hope for us the reader is that the book will "leave you ready to risk, step out in faith, and live the adventure called Christianity." (p 17) There are many great quotes and excerpts I'd like to share but that'd take a lot of time and energy that could be better spent reading the book!

One great challenging quote is found on page 35:

The central issue, as I see it, is that our missionary efforts should not be reduced solely to proclamation and evangelism; instead they should focus on whole-life transformational discipleship. After all, we are not commanded to make converts; we are commanded to make disciples. (emphasis original)

He ends each chapter - with names like The Bride is Bigger than you think and Jesus, the Singer from America? - with a set of questions to help guide your thought process or to lead a small group with.

I took several pages of notes while reading Dangerous Faith and would highly recommend that you take a few hours to challenge yourself and your faith.

Disclaimer - I was given a free copy of this book to write a review of it.