The first time I heard about The Hole in Our Gospel was in a blog post by Pete Wilson when he went to India with Compassion. He said it rocked his world.
That scared me. And intrigued me.
So when the book became available for review, I jumped on it. And then put it off. For almost a year.
I’m not exaggerating this time. I took the book with me on vacation. Last June.
See, Pete wasn’t the only person I’d heard talk about this book. Written by Richard Stearns, the CEO of World Vision, the book’s subtitle is “What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World.”
Yikes. Does that not intimidate you??
Eleven months later, I’ve finally finished The Hole in Our Gospel. Actually, I finished it a while ago, but I’ve been letting it settle in my soul.
I’m still pretty unsettled, if you want to know the truth, but it’s time to review the book.
Richard Stearns begins The Hole in Our Gospel with his personal story. It’s an incredible one, and it blew me away. He was a very wealthy, very successful CEO of a corporation when God CALLED him to World Vision.
I don’t want to ruin the story by telling you the details. You really need to read it yourself! I’ll just tell you this: God is amazing, and Stearns’ story is an amazing testimony to that fact.
The middle part of the book contains fact after statistic after story, illustrating exactly how bad the poverty in our world is. One thing Stearns pointed out that I hadn’t realized (okay, he pointed out TONS of things I hadn’t realized, but this one struck me in particular): the deficit between the richest and the poorest people is HUGE. Ridiculously huge.
In the last part of the book, Stearns offers suggestions for addressing this problem, and what has stuck with me most was his encouragement to not get overwhelmed and apathetic.
Even though he spent many pages breaking the heart of his reader, he doesn’t want to stop there. He wants us to act. To actually – don’t be shocked – live like Jesus.
This book was challenging. It was eye-opening. It was HARD to read.
And I’m so glad I did.
I highly recommend reading The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns. But don’t be surprised if it changes your heart, too!
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