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Eats with Sinners: Reaching Hungry People Like Jesus Did

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First of all, I would like to extend a heartfelt "Thank you" to Arron Chambers and his publisher for sending me a copy of "Eats With Sinners" to review for them. I have always been grateful for this generosity, and I am trying to improve at being consistent in taking the time to thank these wonderfully giving individuals in a public forum. I really appreciate your time, effort and expense in making a reviewer copy available to me.

"Eats With Sinners" by Arron Chambers is an engaging non-fiction work that infects the reader with the desire to be a more effective witness. Centered around a meal motif, this "study" on evangelism is divided into 13 chapters. Each showcases a different "ingredient" necessary for developing relationships with the lost for the purpose of evangelism. There is a different recipe in each chapter, challenges to share a meal with someone to introduce them to Christ and begin building a friendship. There are also suggestions for developing yourself and creative methods for bringing the Gospel message to those around you.

This is definitely a book I will refer to often, and not just because several of the recipes look yummy! I will be trying the Red Beans and Rice this week. There are some uber-imaginative techniques that can be used to establish a dialogue about Christ with just about anyone, anytime, anyplace. And when it comes to sharing Christ, I can use all of the help and encouragement I can get. These methods don't quite fit my personality and upbringing - meals were very intimate social occasions in my family. It will take a bit of practice to fully employ the practices suggested in this book, but I'm already laying the groundwork with a couple of co-workers with regard to Christ and dining together. I can't wait to see what Jesus does with these relationships!

Very thought provoking book. Worth reading if you're involved in a hunger ministry or just trying to reach out to someone who is very different from you.

Eating with Sinners by Arron Chambers is a book that shows a different way of evangelizing to the lost people of this world. It inspires readers to be a more effective Christian and witness for Christ. In the 13 engaging chapters, each one has an ingredient that is key to building a relationship with those lost people. Each chapter challenges the reader to sit down and eat with sinners, just as Jesus did. Eating with Sinners is an insightful and wonderful tool for witnessing that can help Christians find new ways of sharing the gospel anytime, anywhere, with anyone they encounter.

Arron's purpose for writing this book is to show how Jesus ate with sinners and how we should follow his example. The book deeply describes different aspects of building a relationship with the lost and witnessing to them, just like Jesus did. Specifically Arron uses an illustration of an elder at his church that would attend a bar but not buy anything. He would come to the bar and sit at the table and have a bible study with those who were willing to listen. The bar workers knew why he was there and soon he became a regular and people knew him for what he did, he ate with sinners. This is a great example that he used, it really showed how we should be like Christ and go out of our comfort zones and witness to those who don't know him. The stories Arron uses in his book inspire and challenge, motivating readers to get out there and eat with the lost and share the Good News!

In this motivating book there are 13 chapters that help with building those relationships with the Non-Christians that we encounter. Integrity, Accessibility, Grace, Faith, Intimacy, Tolerance, Resolve, Urgency, Mercy, Humility, Joy and Vision are the themes of each challenging chapter. Each of these pieces are crucial ingredients to building those relationships that we need to have with those who don't know Jesus. In each chapter there is a different recipe, challenges to take time and sit and eat with someone to introduce them to Jesus Christ and begin building a relationship. He gives different creative ways of bringing Christ into your conversations and your daily life and using it to share the Word.

By having these crucial ingredients, it helps us understand how Jesus ministered to the lost. This book is a helpful guide that awakens the reader to see how people today need to be more like Jesus. Eating with Sinners is also a great tool for Bible Study, having questions at the end of the chapters and challenging the reader to go out and be where the lost people are, to not just sit in the church building and think unbelievers will come to it. Arron's book makes Christians realize that it is our job to witness, because after death, there is no way Christians can share the Good News. He explains that doing it now and going out into the world is how Christians are going to save those who are lost.

Eating with Sinners is an inspiring book that brings forth new and exciting ways for Christians to share the Gospel. Arron gives great points and examples for helping readers get started on this new adventure in witnessing. Tying everything together in 13 detailed chapters, he gives a new meaning to the word evangelizing. He challenges readers to step out of their comfort zones and go where the people are, to eat with sinners, just as Jesus did.

Arron Chambers tries to "reach hungry people like Jesus did" in his new book Eats with Sinners. This should be a popular book. After all, Chambers encourages people to go out to eat, and no one really needs a good excuse to do that.

Chambers focuses on Christians meeting the lost where they are: in the midst of their lives. He encourages Christians to spend time with people who don't go to their church. He wants them to find people they don't know and strike up a conversation, eventually becoming close enough to take them out to eat. Chambers' point is that in the Jewish society in which Jesus lived, eating with someone was an intimate act, one that symbolized friendship. This should be no different today. Christians should start eating with those who are not Christians. Only then can they truly make a difference in others' lives.

This book has a simple feel to it, and the lay out makes it good for a small group study. There are discussion questions at the end of every chapter, as well as recipes and party ideas interspersed throughout. This book challenges Christians to meet the lost where they are: outside of church buildings.

This book serves as a reminder of the people Jesus hung out with, sadly its a far cry from from the valuse some churches focus on today,clothing, buildings etc. Drawing from both biblical sources and everyday people examples author Arron Chambers gives us practical tips on the ways we could serve people as a King who came and lived and ate with sinners once did.

Naila Kling

Evangelism "strategies" and "tools" seem to be everywhere.

They have changed over the course of time. Back in the day, you could actually go door-to-door and have a decent conversation with somebody about faith. Then, when that stopped working, we started handing out tracts. Quite a bit less personal, especially if you just left them on your table at the restaurant for your waitress or on the back of the toilet in the stall. With the age of technology, we have created new ways to engage in "electronic evangelism" and creating dialogue through pictures.

None of these are bad things. But, I tend to grow nervous around methods and tools.

If you look at the way Jesus connected with people who needed to hear the good news, it seemed to be much simpler.

He used food.

"But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, `This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'" (Luke 15:2)

Could sharing the gospel be as easy as eating together? Could we really earn the opportunity to share our faith as we develop a relationship with someone over food? Could the sacred event of a meal be the fertile grounds in which the seeds of faith are planted?

Jesus thought so.

And so does Arron Chambers. His new book is appropriately titled Eats with Sinners. (website / Amazon) In the book, Arron dives deep into the "ingredients" necessary to effectively share your faith. Each chapter covers an ingredient, such as integrity, grace, intimacy, urgency, and vision.

Arron writes practically, but that doesn't mean what he writes is easy. As I read (and re-read) this book, I found myself very challenged. Arron encourages intentional relationships that are moving towards an opportunity to share the gospel. I don't have many relationships with non-Christians. And the ones I do have are surely not intentional.

I found Arron's book to be so valuable that we have adopted, at the Christian Campus House, the theme of evangelism for this spring semester. We plan on looking at each of the ingredients as shared by Arron over the course of the next few months. Our students have a nervous energy about them. Nervous because we are talking about evangelism, and that always gives us the jitters. But energy, because this isn't the same kind of evangelism most of us have experienced.

I bought each of my student leaders a copy of Eats with Sinners. Our first meeting night, I also asked if there were any other students interested in having their own copy of the book...and I ordered 17 more the next day!

And so...if you haven't snagged your copy of Eats with Sinners yet, I recommend you do so. We are buying them up and left and right here in northwest Missouri. You best hurry if you want your own copy.

I have not finished reading 'Eats With Sinners' yet. I say that because usually when I get a study book I read it all the way through first for kind of an overview. Then I go back and really spend some time with each chapter, and get the most I can out of it.

I have been so challenged by some of Arron's thoughts that I had to stop and spend time thinking and praying about how this applies to my life right now. Listen I already do a lot of reaching out to people, mostly through music to tell them about Jesus. But this book is challenging me in a new way to go farther, and try to do more.

Each chapter ends with a guide for both personal and group study. If you have never felt comfortable reaching out to other people to tell them about Jesus, but you have a pulling in your heart, Eats with sinners will help you. You will be inspired by the stories of what other people just like you have done. You will also have some very practical ideas on how to go about it.

Jesus gave us this command in Matthew 28:18-19: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Arron Chambers ([...] ) is the senior pastor of Journey Christian Church ([...]) in Greeley, Colorado. He lives out this command. His life goal is: "To go to Heaven and take as many people with me as possible!"

His latest book, `Eat with Sinners: Reaching Hungry People Like Jesus Did' provides us with a biblical model for evangelism that was exemplified by Jesus. In His day, sharing a meal with someone meant that were acknowledged as an equal. It was an act of intimacy, as pointed out by Pastor Chambers. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, regularly were outraged at Jesus for the company He kept. The Hebrew word for Pharisees is `set apart' - and they lived that out, judging others and placing themselves above - and apart from - the crowd. Jesus set out to point out the hypocrisy and self-righteousness of these rules followers. The first rule for Jesus is found in Matthew 28:36-40, in response to a question from a Pharisee: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Pastor Chambers points out the fact that "Jesus eagerly ate with sinners on earth because he longed to eat with them in heaven. Jesus referred to himself as the bridegroom (Luke 5:34,35) putting on a great banquet meal (Luke 12:36; 14:13, 16, 17, 24) that one day he will eat in the kingdom of Heaven with everyone who accepts his invitation" (p. 13).

`Eats with Sinners' gives us thirteen ingredients (in the form of chapters) that Jesus used in His recipe to reach lost people. The list is integrity, accessibility, grace, faith, intimacy, tolerance, resolve, urgency, mercy, humility, investment, joy, and vision.

In the chapter on Urgency, Arron has this to say:

"The sun is shining. The harvest is ready.... We must - with a sense of urgency - work to bring the harvest in.... The Mennonites have a saying: `We are living in the time of God's patience.' God is patiently waiting for us to open our eyes, to notice that the harvest is ready, and to help him bring it in before it's too late." (p. 131)

`Eats with Sinners' is reaching me at a time when the Lord is showing me time and time again in a myriad of ways how much He loves us. I have the tendency to judge and criticize others, and not extend the compassion and love as the Lord expects. As Christians, we can also fall into a Christian clique in which we rarely connect with or interact with non-Christians. Jesus met with sinner on a regular basis. We need to remember that we are sinners saved by grace, and that we need to not forget from whence we came. Jesus loved, and we need to remember to do the same. I appreciate the methods that Arron gives us in order to get to - or back to - the way Jesus lived His life while walking among us. The book is provocative and heartwarming, while also very entertaining (and funny in spots). Arron provides some wonderful anecdotes and real-life examples from himself and others. He also provides some tasty-sounding recipes that you can prepare for your meals with those who do not yet know Him (and those who do!) - including Darkness to Light Cookies, Compassion Chicken Soup, Friendship Chocolate Pie, and What a Catch Fish Packets.

This is a great book for individual study or small group study. Each chapter includes a Meal Plan - questions for personal or group study, as well as a Meal Plan, in which you set up a meal with someone with the objective of building a stronger relationship and focusing on each of the ingredients used by Jesus. This book, if employed, will add to and build up the Kingdom of God - and isn't that one big reason why we're here?!

I just finished reading Arron Chamber's new book, "Eats with Sinners". Once again Arron's thoughts are provoking, stirring, and makes me examine my walk with Christ. As a Youth Minister I am always reading and being encouraged by other Christians in their writing, but Arron not only encourages, but challenges. As I look at my life and look at the people I socialize with most of the time it is with Christians, and while socializing (i.e. fellowship) is not inherently a bad thing, it is why and what I was called into. One of the best Chapters was Chapter 8 on the topic of "URGENCY", Arron reminds us what Jesus talks about in Luke 10 " The harvest is plentiful..." so many times we examine ourselves in the few of others, or we (well I being a Minister) examines churches and it can be depressing knowing your attending was 300 while the church done the street had 4 services with 300 per service, but Arron reminds me that there are so many people lost I need to stop worrying about the church down the street or the Christian sharing his faith, instead I need to pray for that church or that person and continue to reach people with the Gospel. Every Pastor, church leader, Elder, needs to read this book, needs to bring it to the attention of other leaders in the church, and then needs to take it to the church and get them to see that "eating with sinners", building relationships with those not in the church, and taking the Gospel where other people are not willing to go is exactly what Jesus would want us to do. Thank you Arron for encouraging and challenging my walk with Christ.

Eats With Sinners is an excellent reminder of the example given to us by Jesus to "seek and save the lost." This book provides a swift "kick in the pants" to all Christians to not get too comfortable serving exclusively in our own "Christian" circles, but to make the time to go out and meet lost people (people who are simply not where they need to be) where they are in their circles. There is no place (or time) for followers of Christ to be legalistic. Thanks for the reminder!