BOOK: What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church?

By Skye Jethani | Amazon.com | 237 pages
Published in July of 2022

SUMMARY: Is the church a building? Is it a group of people? As Christians, are we required to be part of the church? Has the American church, writ large, lost the essential Christian values of faith, hope, and love? In Skye Jethani‘s third installment from his superb What If Jesus Was Serious devotional series Jethani teases out the nuances of the church, what it should be, and what it should not be in 51 devotionals.

In true Jethani fashion, he first calls into question the very essence of how many American churches have set up their ministries. He says a majority of American churches have chased the values of and have pattered the structure of the church after corporations. This leads to congregants viewing the church with a consumeristic mindset and churches viewing congregants as tools to be used. Once again, instead of the church being uniquely Christian we have adopted the ways of the world.

“We simply don’t slow down to examine our cultural values and habits and ask whether they are reinforcing the divisions of our society or healing them,” Jethani writes. “We are the proverbial fish unaware of the water in which we swim.”

Does that mean we give up on the American church like so many are doing? Absolutely not! Jethani says we must start to view the church as a family. A felicitous antidote for a lonely population.

“A church that embraces the value of being a spiritual family, more than anything else, is equipped to meet this generation’s relational and spiritual thirst,” Jethani says. “We called to be an incarnate community in a world of digital avatars, a household of healing amid a culture of division and anger, and a surrogate family where a generation of spiritual orphans can find the love of Christian mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, which ultimately points to the love of God himself.”

If you are new to Jethani’s devotionals, each day includes a doodle and scriptural reading. He says he writes devotionals for people who hate devotionals so if you are looking for something insightful and challenging to include in your time with God we cannot recommend his devotional books enough.

Dig in and be fed!

KEY QUOTE: “A church that embraces the value of being a spiritual family, more than anything else, is equipped to meet this generation’s relational and spiritual thirst.”

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BONUS: We highly recommend his other two devotionals as well What if Jesus Was Serious? and What if Jesus Was Serious About Prayer?.

DID YOU KNOW? Sunday to Saturday has a GoodReads page where we post all of the books we have read – even the ones that didn’t make the cut.

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