Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Awakening Each Other To The God Who's Already There" by Leonard Sweet, July 24, 2010
This review is from: Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who's Already There (Hardcover)
Leonard Sweet's "Nudge" is an artistic masterpiece that challenges, de/constructs, defamiliarizes, fractures, opens up, expands, nudges and Pneumafies our contemporary and anemic understanding of evangelism. Leonard Sweet's masterful metaphors, sacred stories, awe-inspiring anecdotes, wondrous wordsmithing and exceptional wit invites us to a profound new out/in-look on evangelism or what Sweet calls, "Nudging". "Nudge" seeks to, "awaken each other to the God who is already there". It is a book that I believe should be a standard textbook in all evangelism classes throughout all seminaries seeking to grapple with what it means to be followers/livers/lovers/proclaimers/planters/sanctified semioticians of the Grand Signifier Jesus Christ.
For me Sweet is a de/constructionist; one who shakes, rattles and roles-over the average person's understanding of evangelism at the same time constructing something that is beautiful, helpful, hopeful and sensational (encompassing all of the senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight). In "Nudge," Leonard Sweet becomes an iconoclast; chipping away at the false pictures, images and old, archaic, outdated and sometimes just purely unbiblical conceptual contemporary understandings of evangelism.
For example, it is typical in many churches to speak of our task as Christians, "to bring Christ to the Nations." It is a common understanding that until we bring God to people groups and locations then it is naively assumed or declared that God is not there (so much for His omnipresence). Sweet aptly and boldly writes, "If you think about it, isn't it the height of theological arrogance the notion that you and I take Jesus to anyone? You mean Jesus never arrived on the scene until you got there? You mean Jesus wasn't present until I showed up?"
There are so many golden nuggets that are in this book that could be mined by individuals, small groups and whole churches. Between Sweet's writing about Semiotics, the Semiotic 5, physics, music, relational, communal and Jesus immersed evangelism, his "decelerating rites," and many other evangelistic insights, "Nudge" is a must read.
I want to end with a main thesis of this amazing book:
1. Jesus is alive and active in the world.
2. Followers of Jesus "know" Jesus well enough to recognize where he is alive and moving in our day.
3. Evangelists nudge the world to wake up to the alive and acting Jesus and nudge others in the ways God is alive and moving
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incarnational Nudge, July 23, 2010
This review is from: Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who's Already There (Hardcover)
Visionary and futurist Len Sweet turns his attention to incarnation. Christ, fully human and fully God, an incarnation that through the narrative of the Bible shows us how to live most fully human; yet many of us find that by using the Apostle Paul's allegorical language of "the flesh" in a pejorative sense, try to cleave our flesh from our spirit, rendering a view of ourselves wherein we love our spirits whilst hating all that makes us human. To many of us, being fully human means being sinful... yet Christ's incarnation is fully human without sin.
Len's new book, "Nudge" brings a new view of the God in all of us.
Nudge reminds us of imago dae in us, but more than simply nudging us towards acknowledging His presence in ourselves and all others, Len's sharp insight takes us on a tour of the senses to provide earthy examples of heaven.
In the practice of spiritual direction, there is a mantra, "Tell them, and if they cannot hear, show them, and if they cannot see, do it to them." The idea is that we all try to convey knowledge orally, or point out truth visually, but finally, most of us learn by the nudge of shared experience. Len's "Nudge" sits squarely between "Show them" and "Do it to them". Len's incredible intellect is harnessed, but more, the book reveals his tender paternal heart.
Len takes a tour of the senses, and points out how what is common is truly uncommon, and how all that creation has to offer is the word of God. We sense all that is, and interpret it with the lenses of experience and knowledge we have. Len seeks to wear Jesus goggles for a tour of all we sense, and shares his journey in "Nudge"
"Nudge" forever provides a model for evangelism, a love breathing human "Christ in all of us" model. "Nudge" nudges us to the best we have, a subtle and not so subtle friendly and intimate reminder that we CAN choose our responses to all we experience, and that by choosing to honor and to acknowledge and to awaken our senses to the God who will never leave us, we live most abundantly.
Let Len in "Nudge" inspire you to acknowledge Christ, to be constantly open to His kingdom and work, and to be a conduit of the love and grace and mercy He provides to ourselves and our world. Let Len help "Nudge" the Kingdom of God to earth today through Christ in your life.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nudge, August 24, 2010
This review is from: Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who's Already There (Hardcover)
It seems I often get what I call "spiritual nudges". You know, those times you have a thought flit through your head and instead of flitting right out again, it stays. It consumes your every waking moment.
Sometimes they happen when you're in the drive-thru line at McDonalds, the thought that says, "Pay for the car behind you. Tell the worker to say, 'Jesus paid for your meal'" type of thought. Or sometimes you're nudged to tell the cashier at the bank, grocery store, gas station, or just your neighbor, "Hey! Did you know Jesus loves you?!"
Those nudges that you can't escape and can't ignore. But seem so very hard to do, so hard it is almost impossible? Those nudges that when you've moved on and haven't done what you know you should have, you feel a tremendous sense of loss?
We traveled last weekend to visit family and since finances are tight, we took our supper of ham and cheese sandwiches and chips with us. As I was getting on the interstate (I'm more of a highway driver, I like to see the sights no one sees anymore because everyone is in too big of a hurry on the interstate), there was a couple with a sign. I have no idea what the sign said, but they looked like they could use a good meal. I felt the nudge to stop and empty our supper cooler at their feet, apologize that it wasn't much but it was all I had. And instead I kept my supper and zipped onto the interstate. All the while feeling, I had somehow failed miserably the test I had just been given. I could have been the flesh-and-blood Jesus for that couple and I chose to keep my meager meal.
Leonard Sweet wrote in his latest book, Nudge, about this very thing. Nudge is about being awake and aware of all the times we are nudged by God to evangelize, even in some small way, those around us. It is about being aware of God working in, through and with us to reach a lost and dying world.
I had the privilege of sending messages with questions about certain things in the book to Leonard Sweet and forgive the pun but he was sweet to answer. To say the book is not without controversy would be to say the sun is without heat. Or maybe it was just so radical to me it appeared controversial. It is to say the least, revolutionizing. It will revolutionize your thinking and how you view evangelism.
Here is a quote I found especially convicting.
" Evangelism is more being the good news than telling the good news. But sometimes you tell. In fact, the first postresurrection of Jesus contains the whole of nudge: 'Go quickly and tell." 'Go' means to get off your seat, on your feet, and leave your secure world to venture forth into where God is up to something. Forget about hijacking people into holy places. Fish where the fish are. But go fishing."
I first discovered Leonard Sweet about 10 years ago when I read "A cup of coffee at the Soul Cafe". A book I still, a decade later, highly recommend. I loved "Soul Salsa" and "The Gospel According to Starbucks". This book, though had me really questioning why I liked those books so much. I mean they seemed to agree with me and my thoughts, my theology, if you will. While Nudge seemed to be so "out there" for me. Nudge stretched me in places I had no idea needed stretching.
So when you read this book, prepare to be stretched.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Leonard Sweet Ph.D
by Michael Frost
by Leonard Sweet Ph.D
by Frank Viola
