One Book Challenge: One Book that Changed Your Life

A new book meme for the new year!  This didn't have a title accompanying it, but since every question starts out with "one book" I've named it the One Book Challenge.  I found it here: http://book-memes.livejournal.com/

One Book That Changed Your Life


You might think I'm going to say Harry Potter because I'm a huge fan of the series, but I'm not.  Instead I am going with The Debt by Angela Hunt.  This book opened my eyes to how Christians are to live in the real world.  We don't treat the sinners, because we're all sinners, like they are a plague and we should never be seen with them. They need help and we have to be there to give it to them.

The story is about a young man who finds his birth mother.  His birth mother is part of a famous televangelical team.  Her husband is a pastor of a local church and runs a nation wide ministry.  She never told her husband about the son she had before they were together.  Her son is a minister himself, but he doesn't have a church.  He ministers in bars and other seedy places, like a porn shop.  What he shows his mother is to reach the people in need we need to be where they are.

The book didn't encourage me to hang out the seedy places in town.  I would not fair well there, I can tell you that.  We are to not worry about how we are percieved helping the lowly.  The mother was afraid of what her congregation would say seeing her step out of a bar or another not so good place.  Her son knew he was doing the best thing he could reaching out to those who really needed his help.

I recently attended a church in Daytona Beach, Florida that is located downtown just a walk from the seedy part of that town.  The church is amazing.  The preacher is great.  The congregation was welcoming.  I enjoyed my time there.  The church is building in a new location.  They are going to a not rough part of town.  A few people I talked to were excited.  They were glad to be getting out of that part of town.  I kept thinking about this book and how moving would change a lot of things.  They were in their present location to help those around them and the congregation didn't want anything to do with them.

This book has made me rethink things.  I haven't changed my a whole lot because of it, but I'm changing my way of thinking and that's the first step.