SIZZLING FAITH
The dream that got the church on the move!
By Martin Graham. Kingsway. 272 pages. £7.99
ISBN 1 84291 283 6
At the LCM we believe that meaningful communication of the gospel is most effective with those who have become friends. We also believe that if a church is concerned for all the people within its district, it cannot rely on friendship networks alone for opportunities to share Jesus.
A traditional way of making initial contacts with the people in your district in order to befriend them for Jesus’s sake has been through door-to-door visitation, a method that can still be effective if the same person goes to the same homes regularly ‘for Jesus’s sake’. This book presents another idea for making such contacts: holding a free BBQ and thus highlighting one aspect of the gospel that people find hard to believe — ‘that there is such a thing as a free lunch’. For more about the idea you can log onto the website www.onthemove.org.uk and see the varied reports from around the world, from 107 recorded conversations at the London events, to slayings in the Spirit in a small house church on the outskirts of Beijing. The book, however, is more about the man who had the idea than the idea; how despite having cancer of the mouth, he was led by means of charismatic-style guidance to take his idea to the major capitals of the world. The Archbishop of York says the book leaves you breathless, though personally I never really got beyond the way the title talks up both the author’s faith and idea. As ‘a step of faith’ the book was written before the year of missions took place, leaving no room for mature reflection as to whether this really was a dream that at least got some churches ‘on the move’, or just another series of Christian events that came and went. But there may well be potential in the idea.
