Thursday, February 18, 2010

Discovering Purpose

Over the course of my 30-plus years in ministry, one of the most exciting trends I’ve sensed is the growing interest of the lost in being found. When talking to people about my faith, I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer respond with disengaged apathy. The good news is that more and more are responding with a posture of engaged skepticism when confronted with the Good News.

Charles Drew, pastor of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in New York City, has given us a wonderfully engaging overview of the answer to the world’s deep hunger in his book, A Journey Worth Taking: Finding Your Purpose in This World (P&R Publishing). Rooted in a proper historical-redemptive understanding of the unfolding drama God has given us in His Word, A Journey Worth Taking is an accessible book that Christians can put in the hands of their non-believing and/or skeptical friends—both young and old alike. Drew masterfully lays out God’s story and the place we’ve been created to take in it. After explaining the Creation and Fall, Drew invites readers to consider the wonderful message of Redemption that will ultimately conclude with Glorification and the ushering in of the new Heaven and new Earth.

People love a story. Everyone knows at some level that he or she is involved in a larger story, and is actually an unfolding story themselves. Drew does the spiritually confused a favor by gathering up scattered puzzle pieces of their lives, then putting them together in the magnificent mural that makes sense of life because it’s a picture of God’s big story. But don’t for a minute think A Journey Worth Taking is only for the unredeemed. For Christian readers, this book is a way out of the misunderstanding and theological shallows that mark so much of the church in today’s world. It can facilitate a serendipitous “aha!” moment for Christians and non-Christians alike.

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