JourneyOnline
Monarch Books
RRP – $18.95
This book is a sequel to Robinson’s earlier Nobody’s Child. Perhaps the names of each give away to some extent the essential thesis of each! Nevertheless, this book is very motivational and centres the reader’s thoughts and imagination on the amazing power of God to transform a man’s life and then to use that same man to be a vessel through which others can come to know the same ‘God Power’!
The style is simple, conversational yet challenging and even provocative in places, engaging the reader in the laughs and tears, the joys and frustrations, the ups and downs of being involved with ‘on the edge ministry’. Indeed one of the highlights for me is that Robinson tells it like it really is – he doesn’t water down the bad behaviours of some of his ‘colleagues’, nor does he suggest that everybody changes over night! He urges his readers to understand that God is a big God who isn’t limited to the ‘comfortable’ Sunday morning pew sitter; that God is just as much at home with the person for whom church is ‘foreign policy’ – those trying to give up the drink or go straight!
Some could read this book and enjoy it but see it only as another good story of a convert! Yet it is more than that! It is an honest account of ministry with some of life’s hardest and toughest people. It is discipleship! It is evangelism! It is love – God’s love – being shared both in word and action to those for whom Christ also died!
The use of first hand testimonies adds considerable power to the message, providing an authenticity beyond the author himself. It is used well, with sensitivity and purpose.
iThis is an entertaining yet gut wrenching story that lives on. Anybody who wants or needs to be shaken into the reality of a 21st century church setting might do well to engage the meaning and message of Robinsons’ books. It may not be always what we want to ‘see’, but it is real for so many out there on the edge – and books like this one help us appreciate that through the author and others like him – God is there with them!
Somebody’s Child has my vote as a recommended read, as it challenges us to live out its message – that all are ‘Somebody’ in Jesus!
Reviewed by Dave Thomas Community Minister with the Tallebudgera Uniting Church
