THE SELFISH GOSPEL
By Freddie Pimm
IVP. 160 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 783 595 174
Every congregation has its struggles. For some, that will include the absence of intentional discipleship, teaching that promotes a self-centred faith and a tendency to get inwardly-focussed, leaving no appetite for genuine outreach, or a lack of awareness of just how wonderful it is to have personal devotions.
If that sounds like your church – this book may be for you!
Positives and negatives
It’s accessibly written, intriguingly illustrated with stories from the author’s work as a doctor, and unswervingly winsome in encouraging readers to spend quality time with Jesus. Pimm is passionate about both evangelism and discipleship and is motivated by remembering that a relationship with Christ isn’t just about getting into heaven, it’s also about sac-rificially participating in genuine Kingdom growth. It acknowledges how hard it is to live counter-cultural lives, but encourages us to do so anyway, and it helpfully challenges our tendency towards individualistic relationships with God. Some pages are a sheer delight.
However, for those of us who are part of churches with a very different style – and a very different set of struggles – some of the vocabulary and assumptions in this book may feel somewhat culturally alien. It is written from a context where Alpha is the evangelistic norm and vibrant ‘times of worship’ are enjoyed on a Sunday morning. There are moments when it feels Bible-light, times when his definition of ‘discipleship’ could be clearer and some of the outworkings of his points may jar on more conservative ears.
Overall, though, the call to ‘be transformed by giving it all’ – to remember that we are called to lose our lives if we want to save our lives – is a wonderful message and one that many of us need to hear time and again.
