Product Description

Everybody feels as if they should be evangelizing someone, somewhere. In fact, most of us probably feel guilty because we're not meeting our evangelism quota for this lifetime. But sharing our faith with nonbelievers can often feel like making a sales call during dinnertime: uninvited, unacceptable, and highly unlikely to get any results. Author John Shore proposes a radical solution: Maybe it's time to take the focus off evangelism. As he builds his case with sound theology, humorous insights, and "me too" moments, John suggests that we move beyond the Great Commission and start living the Great Commandment, because the only thing better than telling someone about God's love is to let them actually experience it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #774703 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Internetmonk.com
" .... Shore is a humorist whose work is more comedic than Donald Miller, and his appeal to Christians is more direct. Shore is preaching and teaching under the comedy, and he's very effective as a critic and motivator. Shore turns evangelism upside down and engages in just enough hyperbole to effectively make the point. Readers of this web site will recognize many of the same critiques I've made in posts like Wretched Urgency. The problem in evangelism isn't what we think. The information is there; the credibility of the Christian community isn't. ...

"Shore ends each chapter with sets of extended comments from unbelievers on what they want to say to Christians. Shore calls these sections "Ouch," and that's what they are. These unbelievers are articulate, thoughtful and way out in front of many Christians on the subject of love, respect and dialog.

"Shore appeals to Christians to ponder the nature of love, the importance of honest and mature Christian character and how relationships with non-Christians really look. Shore speaks so much common sense, and skips so much Christian-ese and predictable rhetoric that some Christians will be offended immediately. Younger, thoughtful, humble Christians who know something is very wrong will find Shore saying exactly what they've been thinking.

"This is a great book for a discussion group, and it has questions to stir up those discussions. If you let this book loose "in church," however, the response may be explosive, which would be a lot of fun. ... [An] Outstanding book to stir up thought and conversation. And a good book to show to a thoughtful unbeliever."--The Internet Monk

Stephen Arterburn
"John Shore helps us accept that we aren't OK, and that's OK. As with all of John's books, I'm OK--You're Not is very insightful, and very funny." --Stephen Arterburn, author of Healing Is a Choice and Every Man's Battle; founder of New Life Ministries; host of the nationally syndicated "New Life Live!" daily radio program.

Christianbooks.com

"Has America been effectively evangelized? Have the non-Christians in our lives already heard the Gospel? According to John Shore, yes! Calling for a cessasion of domestic evangelism (while being very clear, however, about the importance of evangelizing both to people who've never heard about Christianity, and to anyone who has first asked to hear about it), he turns his razor-sharp wit towards exposing the problems inherent with the efforts of modern evangelism. While championing the Great Commandment over the Great Commission, Shore humorously illustrates his experiences as both a non-Christian being 'evangelized' and a Christian trying to share his new-found faith. First-person testimonies from non-Christians' experiences with attempts to evangelize them are supplied to bolster his position, as are refutations of key biblical texts commonly used to support evangelism." (Strictly speaking, this isn't a "review" of the book; it's a description of the book written by Chrisitanbook.com's Evangelism Books editor.)

Customer Reviews

Evangelize or love without pushing?
As you can see from the other reviews, people are very polarized over this book. Some absolutely love it, while others abhor it. It is very polarizing because it tells Christians to love neighbors without being so forceful about it. The author recommends to get to know non-Christians instead of simply telling every non-Christian you know that they need to be Christian.

If you think that evangelizing is the most important thing a Christian can do, then you will dislike this book. If you are uncomfortable evangelizing or think Christians need to be more loving to non-Christians, you will like it. The author does not make many points that are overly persuasive, so you will likely leave the book thinking the same things that you thought before reading it.

Since everyone else just wants to argue over Christian theology, I will stay away from that and focus on the book itself. I thought the author was hard to read because his writing was very choppy. It had no flow. Although he probably would have been very funny in person, I found many of his jokes not all that funny in book form. Personally I did not find the book all that good even though I agree with a lot of the author's general principles

BIG Disappointment
Mr. Shore is probably a great guy, but Theologian he's not.

His misuse of the Scriptures makes me wonder if the publisher, Navpress, even read the book.

A Buddhist highly recommended the book to me. ...that should have been my first warning sign.

No disrespect, but don't waste your time and money unless you're going to put it in the "cults" section of your library.

Please don't buy this!!!
While I am sure John Shore has a desire to help fellow Christians, this book does nothing of the sort. Instead, it is telling Christians not to obey one of Jesus' commands. Jesus' command in Matt. 28:16-20 is to make disciples. The way we are to do this is go into the world (that means witnessing), baptize them when they make a public declaration of faith, and teach them the truth in Scripture. John mistakenly thinks that this command conflicts with the greatest commands to love God and love your neighbor. The two are not contrary to each other. Rahter, they are in harmony. If we truly love our neighbor, we will warn them of the Day of Judgment to come where people will stand before God and have to give an account of their life. If they are found in their sins, they will spend eternity in hell. Warning people of this horrible fate and telling them about of the Gospel is loving them. Likewise, if we love God we will witness since this is a command (just look at the Greek in Matt. 28:18). Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments". So if we love God and want to fulfill the greatest commandment, which is to love God will all our very being, we will obey all his commands. This includes the tough ones like evangelizing. We don't get to pick and choose. Please don't let this book tickle your ears. Please don't use this book as a way out of sharing your faith. Pray to God to give you courage and be bold and speak to the lost about their eternal fate.

God bless,
Pastor Peter O'Neill