Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Renowned theologian Karl Barth said that the words to this children’s song were the most significant theological truth he had ever uncovered.

And that is the point from which Eric Foley begins his tome: The Whole Life Offering – Christianity as Philanthropy. As God loves humans with all of Himself, He in turn calls us to mirror that love to the world with all of our selves.

Philanthropy as we so often know it–in which a wealthy benefactor writes a check from afar in an attempt to solve a problem or salve his own conscience–is not truly philanthropy at all.

Rather, philanthropy (literally love of men) is the love that God has for mankind, a philanthropy that brings the benefactor (God) into the lives of the recipients (mankind) in an intimate and sacrificial way. It is this sort of philanthropy, this sort of love, that we are called to.

There are ten ways, ten Works of Mercy, in which Christ shows his love to us and that we in turn are to reflect His love to the world:

1. Doing Good
2. Sharing Your Bread
3. Opening Your Home
4. Visiting and Remembering
5. Healing and Comforting
6. Proclaiming the Gospel
7. Forgiving and Reconciling
8. Making Disciples
9. Ransoming the Captive
10. Reigning

Key here is the understanding that these are not to be discreet acts of service but part of a life that is being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ.

The point is not to keep a checklist: “I shared my bread last week. I opened my home the week before that. Thursday I am going to visit people in the hospital. Sunday afternoon is the evangelism outreach.” And so on.

Quite the contrary, “Growing to fullness in Christ does not mean filling one’s calendar with more and more projects in each Work of Mercy. In fact, it typically involves doing less: as one grows in a given Work of Mercy, one moves away from experiencing it as a discrete project. It gradually becomes a part of who one is” (19)

Foley also identifies seven Works of Piety in which each Work of Mercy must be grounded:

1. Searching the Scriptures to learn how Christ brings each work of Mercy into our lives so that we know how to bring it into the lives of others.
2. Learning how to practically do this.
3. Worshipping Christ for exhibiting the Work of Mercy to us and worshipping him through the Work of Mercy itself.
4. Praying for God’s will to be done and Him to be glorified in the Work of Mercy.
5. Self-Denial in order to place Christ and others before self and do the Work of Mercy.
6. Serving others in the Work of Mercy.
7. Giving one’s self to others as Christ gave Himself to us.

Without these we are not practicing true philanthropy, not true growing and giving of self in the way that Christ gave of himself. Without them we are practicing discreet good deeds, likely undertaken for the crass reasons of worldly philanthropy mentioned above.

“In Christianity-as-philanthropy, the donor, not the donation, is the offering. … The focus of philanthropy is on who one is and what one is becoming as one makes the donation. According to Paul in Romans 12, each person is a living sacrifice. As a result, how and why one makes a gift becomes far more important than what one gives.” (11)

Without the Works of Piety we will feed the hungry and house the homeless, but we will not, as Isaiah calls us to do, “divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house.” (58:7 NASB)

This is the radical life to which Scripture calls us, not merely to ensure that people are cared for but to care for them ourselves, to open our lives to those in need in order to reflect God’s love into the world.

Book Review

I found myself resonating with much of what Foley said. It is a call to radical discipleship, to costly grace, as Bonheoffer put it. It paints a picture of a person who is being formed into the likeness of Christ, the God-man who got his hands dirty with saints and sinners, who wasn’t afraid to enter into the mess of life to bring love and restoration.

The only major issue I take with the content of the book is that Foley seems to leave little to no place for specialization within the body of Christ. He would say that each Christian is called to equally participate in each Work of Mercy (7), while I would contend that God gives particular gifts to particular individuals in order to better glorify Himself and advance the Kingdom.

While the content is superb, it is presented quite poorly. The book is too long, relies too heavily on quotations, and is unnecessarily dense, routinely using five dollar words where five cent words would have sufficed.

In short, it is a book of great content but poor writing. I’d rate the content a nine out of ten but the writing a three out of ten. I’m not sure whether to recommend it, so I’ll just say: read at your own risk.

I had the opportunity to take a few hours and read through Andy Stanley's Next Generation Leader a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to do a quick review and share some reflections.

The premise of the book is that there are five characteristics of a quality leader. Andy will almost certainly explain them better than I, so a summary in his words:

1. Competence - Leaders must channel their energies toward those areas of leadership in which they are most likely to excel.
2. Courage - The leader of an enterprise isn't always the smartest or most creative person on the team. He isn't necessarily the first to identify an opportunity. The leader is the one who has the courage to initiate, to set things in motion, to move ahead.
3. Clarity - Uncertain times require clear directives from those in leadership. Yet the temptation for young leaders is to allow uncertainty to leave them paralyzed. A next generation leader must learn to be clear even when he is not certain.
4. Coaching - You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else. But without a coach you will never be as good as you could be.
5. Character - You can lead without character, but you won't be a leader worth following. Character provides next generation leaders with the moral authority necessary to bring together the people and resources needed to further an enterprise.

This is a very good book, and I definitely recommend it. If you'll oblige me, I'd love to share some reflections with you

"Only do what only you can do." - In other words, you should delegate everything that you possibly can. Do the things that only you can do, and do them very, very well.

Know what you're good at. Stanley says, "Successful leaders tend to assume that their core competencies are broader than they actually are."

It's okay to delegate things you don't like doing. This doesn't mean giving someone else all of the crap jobs, but often others will relish the opportunity to do the stuff you despise. Stanley calls this organizational alignment.

Step out. Often the thing that distinguishes a leader from others is a willingness to step out. Leaders lead. They go where no one else has gone before and they get people to go with them. Yes, it's scary, but leaders do it anyway.

Coaching is essential. It doesn't matter how good you are, you need outside evaluation and analysis.

Perhaps the last section of the book is the most important. This is the part where Stanley talks about character, "Character is not essential to leadership... But character is what makes you a leader worth following."

"Character is the will to do what's right even when it's hard."

"As you will discover, if you haven't already, the shortest distance between where you are and where you want to be is not the most honorable one."

"Predeciding to do what's right will cost you. It will cost you time, money, and opportunity. It may negatively impact your reputation...at least for the short term. It may actually be an obstacle on your career path."

"There is never a reason to violate the principles of God in order to maintain the blessing of God."

"What small thing in my life right now has the potential to grow into a big thing?... And who knows about it other than me?"

On the review front, once again, this is an excellent book. My only major complaint is that the section on courage seemed to drag on. While Stanley made some good points, I felt that he could have made them in a fraction of the space.

If you haven't read Next Generation Leader, you probably should.

I'm giving this one an 8 out of 10. Yes, I grade harshly.