Book Review: Getting Fired for the Glory of God

Wow. I'm not usually known as a reader, but lately I've been chewing right through a bunch of the books that have been on my to-do list for a while. Today I wrapped up Mike Yaconelli's Getting Fired for the Glory of God.

I should make it clear on the blog the way I've had to make it clear to everyone on staff this week at work, I have no intention of actually getting fired any time soon. So just so we have that out of the way...

The book is tremendous and painful. Painful when I start to think about how much Youth Ministry as a profession has left to go, how hard it is to do the job we've been called to do, and how much is standing in our way. It was painful to think about how many youth workers neglect to take care of their souls at all, making the job their number one priority.

It was tremendous because it reminded me that my church is actually pretty decent at taking care of me and Ed and our ministry to young people. We've never been in need, and we're incredibly blessed because of it.

But perhaps the most challenging part of the book had absolutely nothing to do with youth ministry. Yaconelli writes about a wide variety of topics, but at the heart of everything he writes is Jesus, and his concern for our relationship with Him. It's easy to get caught up in the programs, in the business, in caring for our family, in the ins and outs of our daily lives. Even for those of us who are crazy enough to claim to be theologically minded, a lot of times we spend our energy and time working through Paul or the Holy Spirit or the Doctrine of Atonement, and not enough time on Jesus and what it looks like to follow him. But Yaconelli hammers it home, line after line, paragraph after paragraph, page after page. Nothing else matters, just Christ and following him.

If you're in youth ministry, it is a MUST read. If you're not, I still think there's a lot you can gain from the book. It's one of the only books in my library that I didn't highlight or color through, so you're welcome to borrow mine if you'd like!

Godspeed,

J