Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals

Same Book, Different Cover 2010-01-12

Reviewer: Tyler Ellis

I liked Irresistible Revolution. Since then, I've read several of Claiborne's books and am frustrated to find so many of the same stories and points repeated.

Doers, Not Hearers 2009-09-15

Reviewer: Sarah A. Zeloof

Shane and Jonathan combine forces to produce a brief, easy to read book on prayer. I'm sure it is unlike any other prayer book you will ever read, as the two authors share their experiences and how praying the right way can greatly influence your every day decisions. Wonderfully provocative and inspiring! The only "downside" (if you want to call it that) is that Shane includes many of the stories he wrote about in another one of his books, "Irresistible Revolution".

All in all, a very helpful tool to make you think about the prayers in Scripture in a whole different light.

Great & practical insights on answers to prayer 2009-08-21

Reviewer: Darien Gabriel

"Prayer is not so much about convincing God to do what we want God to do as it is about convincing ourselves to do what God wants us to do." -from introduction

The authors hit a home run here.

Written not by theologians (although great theology & biblical insights) but by activists who know from personal experience why prayer isn't just a good idea but essential in following Christ. They guys live it out daily in urban settings by choice. They could be in high-paying jobs or ministries. Instead, they are working with the least, the last and the lost to make a real difference in the poorest neighborhoods in Philly and Durham, NC.

At only 120 pages (and with great end notes), this won't take you long to read. But it will stay with you for quite a while.

They basically show how prayer and action go together. While that sounds like a no-brainer, ask yourself this question: how are you doing putting your actions and your prayers together?

"If we hope to see God change society, we must be ordinary radicals who pray--and then are ready to become the answers to our own prayers." Classic. A must-read.

Life is Prayer 2009-07-11

Reviewer: Joseph I. Noffsinger

It's a beautiful book, it weaves the prayers of scripture with the prayers of saints modern and ancient into a very hopeful and encouraging picture of how kingdom principles and ethics can be fleshed out in our world. This is a book for those among us who dream with open eyes and pray with open hearts. The stories these two share are powerful examples of what can happen when we move from a place of dutiful recitation to a space of incarnation. While some of the personal stories are not always immediately illustrative or connected to the specific prayers mentioned, they all lend depth and promise to the overall theme of becoming a people engaged in experiments of compassion and healing. I highly recommend this book.

praying with your feet 2009-05-30

Reviewer: S. Norris

Good book, in general. I found a lot of material repeated from Claiborne's Irresistable Revolution (could be that I read the two within a week of each other). According to the authors, they are not trying to teach people how to pray as much as they are trying to encourage us to be better more courageous pray-ers. They are trying to be the spark that unites those radically committed to following the Rabbi from Nazareth to burn with the consuming fire of God. That said, there are some real nuggets of hard-hitting truth that affected me deeply. For example:

"Because white congregations in America have so often intellectualized faith and individualized our relationship with God, people who are hungry for community and drawn to justice movements are usually white. So we find ourselves trying to learn how to be the people of God with one other white folks a lot of the time. the trouble with this isn't just that we end up reproducing communities marked by racial division (though this is something that troubles us deeply). We also continue to suffer the deficiencies of white theology.

"White folks are big on ideas, and we try hard to put our ideas into practice. But ideas are not what sustains us when times get hard. In our experience, it wasn't until we encountered the spiritual wisdom that black churches and charismatic Christianity possess in abundance that hope really came alive. We have much to learn from people who know struggle."

Maybe it's because I see myself so clearly in these paragraphs that it hit me so hard. We (the educated) are very good at thinking our way through this faith thing. The problem is that we have become so good at thinking about it and talking about it that we have forgotten Jesus' call to "follow me." When I'm brutally honest, I must admit that I don't know struggle. I read, write, think, and live from the comfort of middle-class privilege. Jonathan and Shane pull back the covers that I'm all too comfortable hiding beneath and expose the short-comings of my own walk with God. They do so, however, not with the callous frigidity of an outsider looking in and wagging his finger, but with the compassion and encouragement of a fellow pilgrim, seeking to encourage others along this road we are all called to travel together.