When Todd and Erin Stevens' How to Pick Up a Stripper and Other Acts of Kindness: Serving People Just as They Are arrived, I opened the box and left the book on the counter. My wife happened passed it, took one look at the book, then at me, and asked for an explanation. This is my explanation.
How to Pick Up a Stripper is about the Church's identity and mission -- who and why we are. Both are embodied in the phrase "servant evangelism". "Servant evangelism is an approach to outreach that isn't just about telling people the gospel: it is about showing them too" (p. 5).
Todd and Erin spend the rest of the book exploring what that servant evangelism has meant for Todd's pastoring at Friendship Community Church, and his wife's ministry with Nashville Strip Church. For them, the heart of the gospel is God's love for us, right where we are, in the midst of all life's messiness. And, what's more, God's love is made real in our lives through the love we Christians have, including our enemies.
Our acts of kindness, all our outreach, serves that purpose: To point to God's reconciling, loving work in Jesus Christ. To embody that work in getting our hands dirty, in getting involved with real people, living real lives. "Since Jesus founded the church, it only makes sense that He would define the desired reputation: be known for love" (p. 23).
"Our goal is to love our community in such a way that if we closed the doors tomorrow and ceased to exist as a church, then even the people who had never visited on a Sunday would miss us terribly" (p. 25).
Their vision of outreach is simple: Create opportunities for demonstrating Jesus' kindness. To real people. That means meeting needs, sure, but it also means breaking open our lives in generosity and kindness to everyone. Even our enemies.
I must admit that the book's title threw me off. I know it did my wife. And I'm afraid it will so many others inside the church. But this is a word pastors -- even every baptized Christian! -- need to hear and heed. Because it's in the message of the book that we (re)discover a beautiful truth: They'll know we are Christians through our kindness.
I've been preaching sermons like this book for nearly two decades. Now, Todd and Erin Stevens have given us a gift. This book boils so many years of my preaching into a clear, succinct and biblical vision of what evangelism and outeach can be -- should be. Must be!
I can't thank them enough for that kindness.
But maybe that's the point. The gift in writing this book isn't given to us, as a way of earning our praise. It's a gift given to us because they've received so much from God already.
Take up this book. Read it. Learn from it. Then live it.
Because this book will change you. And change the world through you.
All for the glory of God.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers <http://booklookbloggers.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”