Book Review: Maximum Faith: Live Like Jesus by George Barna

I have mentioned this book several times on my blog in the past, but I thought it was time to do an actual book review on it. 

There have been many books that have influenced my life and ministry, this one is in the top five for sure.

I am not  usually a fan of wide scale survey results, lots of statistics, and charts.  I will admit I have not read much of Barna’s stuff, but the reputation that precedes him is wide scale survey results, lots of statistics, and charts which made me almost not read this book at all.  But it was recommended by one of the other Pastors at my church so I decided to give it a chance.  I am very glad I did.

The book is split into 3 sections.  The first lays out the transformation journey and how George discovered it.  The second section is a personal story of a girl named Jennifer as she goes through the stops of the transformation journey.  And section 3 gives some practical ideas on how to travel the journey yourself as well as how churches can help people navigate down the road of transformation.

The book is pretty long, over 200 pages, so it definitely is one you will have to commit to reading.  However, the meat of the book is in sections one and three, if you skipped section two all together it cuts out half of the length.  You might enjoy the mix of journal excerpts, life stories, and personal conversations but I didn’t.

The last negative thing I have to say is there are several typos and obvious grammar mistakes in the book, which was disappointing.

This book really hit me on a personal level as well as a professional/ministry level.  I think the lack of spiritual transformation is at the core of many issues and problems in our churches today, mine included.  This book speaks to the problem and gives some good tips and ideas on how to better minister people toward true transformation.

He makes the point in the book, and I agree strongly, that most churches are pretty good at ministering to stops two through five.  But as soon as people hit stop six the modern church basically programs them back into stop five, which is where most of our Christian population is stuck.  In my current youth ministry context, I have realized I have a lot more student in stop six than I ever realized.  And as a student ministry we were not doing a lot to help them continue to grow.  Many of the changes we have made to our programs and structure are aimed directly at this issue.  I want to be about spiritual transformation, not behavior modification.  This book has helped me make some big strides toward that end.

I gave all ten stops of the transformation journey in a past post, click here if you want to read them.  But don’t let that deter you from buying this book and reading it for yourself.  Like I said, this is in my top five.  I think it will help you too.