By Adam E. Heironimus
Yesterday I finished reading “The Hole In Our Gospel” By Richard Stearns
The main purpose of “The Hole In Our Gospel” is to help American Christians see- and then fix what he called the “hole” that exists in our gospel by not just “talking the talk”, going to church on Sunday and occasionally giving a check to a charity- we should be “walking the walk” and, to quote World Vision’s founder Bob Pierce “Let our hearts be broken by the things that break the heart of God”. Richard Stearns pointed out over and over again the vast resources of the church in America and how little we were actually using them. For instance, there are 155 million people in the US who regularly attend church and call themselves “Christians”, if all of those people would tithe, there would be an extra 168 billion dollar excess that could be donated to missions. I know that sounds like a lot, but that’s 11 billion dollars less teenagers ages 12-17 spend in an average year and 537 billion less than the population of America spends on entertainment and recreation! Suddenly that $168,000,000,000 doesn’t seem quite as large. But it is- that would be enough to completely eliminate extreme poverty for over 1 billion people around the world! Richard Stearns called our lack of compassion, generosity and care for others the “hole” in our gospel that needs to be filled- and it will only be filled when we lay aside our own (often selfish) desires and fully devote ourselves to hearing (and obeying) God’s will for our lives. Now has never been a better time to “wake up” and help others, every single day 25,000 people die of hunger- that means 4 people will have died by the time you finish reading this book review, or more than 3/4 of a million people will die this month, 9 million this year- we all need to be doing something to help RIGHT NOW! No matter how comparatively little our contribution is, it makes a difference: one of the quotes in “The Hole In Our Gospel” was an old African proverb: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito” if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, Jesus said we will be able move mountains and I think poverty is a mountain that needs to be moved as soon as possible- and who knows what wouldn’t be possible if there was a group of people that fully dedicated themselves to sharing God’s love and helping the needy? The world was changed by 11 often cowardly, imperfect men once, so what would stop another group of 50,100 or even 1000 people completely dedicated to the Gospel from doing it again? To quote the last few sentences in the book “You,Me, let’s go. We have work to do, and it’s urgent. Join Me…”
I enjoyed reading “The Hole In Our Gospel” very much and would highly recommend it to anyone. I would give it 5 out of 5 stars.
“The Hole In Our Gospel” is available at Amazon.com and at many other physical and online bookstores worldwide.
