TENACIOUS
Proof in your hands that God never lets go of us
Chief editor Sally Bertram
Transform Europe Now. 349 pages. £5.95
ISBN 978 1 909 611 085
First of all, two reservations about the cover.
The title Tenacious has more to do with the organisation publishing the book than the contents. ‘Transform Europe Now’ (TEN for short, thus Tenacious) is the operating name for Eurovangelism which has partnered across Europe for 50 years to see lasting transformation through the gospel. Then the subtitle is also very unclear : who is the ‘us’ in the sentence? Christians? Non-Christians? Since the book is about both conversions and the Christian life, I found it difficult to relate to such an audacious claim!
Delightful testimonies
But the book itself is a delight. Dozens of good old-fashioned first-person testimonies, most of them from Eastern Europe, are extremely encouraging through their moving realism written in simple words. Most of them are very short, which is sometimes a little frustrating when you have the impression that you didn’t have time to really get to know the people well enough. But the cumulative effect of so many true stories more than makes up for that.
As one of the contributors (a church planter in P o l a n d ) wrote : ‘What has become so precious to me?’. His answer summarises the book and shows why it will be a real encouragement to any Christian who reads it: The gospel of grace, the church as a community incarnating the gospel, and the mission of advancing the gospel around us. May we know more of that all over Europe!
