(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
Loading ...Live Sent by Jason Dukes
What if being ‘missional’ shifted from being about creating a worship gathering to living a well-crafted life? What if being ‘missional’ shifted from a conversion mentality to a contributor mindset? What is the crucial difference between ‘discipleship’ as program and ‘discipling’ as life? All of this and more is explored in Live Sent: You Are A Letter by Jason Dukes.
Jason sees the good news of Jesus working in a context of radical interdependence. Here’s how he puts it in his own words: “What’s my part in this epic called humanity?’ The people whom you encounter every day actually need you. They need you, and you need them. We all need each other – to know each other. Our lives both compliment and supplement each other. That’s how humanity works – together.”
You are a letter, his premise continues. Your everyday life is more than just a story being written. You were created to receive and send a message intentionally into the lives of the people you do life with daily. That’s how love is demonstrated and how relationships happen and how people find abundant life as they were intended to find it. We live out our intended purpose and mission when we live beyond ourselves. Are you giving yourself away in the daily, being to other people the letter of God’s love that has been written on your heart? We must be that letter together. Our community needs us. Our world needs us. Let’s live sent.
“If people think that missional is simply growing a worship gathering instead of releasing people into everyday life, they are misunderstanding missional. Missional is all about “living sent.” Jason Dukes is communicating a message that is vital for people to truly understand the mission for which they were created. I will recommend this book in my spheres of influence.” – Ed Stetzer
If this approach to missional living is something that resonates with you, be sure to check out this brief but fresh read.
chadkmiller
I recently received a copy of Live Sent – you are a letter to review for the Viral Bloggers program. I was struck by the message by the first chapter. It definitely has a Neil Cole, organic church feel to it, which I loved, but it really goes much more in depth than that. Jason Dukes challenges us to really change how we think about the words “church”, “discipleship”, and “evangelism.” He really challenged me to rethink how I frame those words. Even though I would consider myself fairly progressive and emerging, it still really challenged me in my life. My wife was so excited to hear about it while I read it, that we read a few chapters out loud together to encourage each other.
This book really is a game changer for people. I have been looking for something like this to bridge a conversational void I have with many people. I think Jason puts his thinking in action and gives real direction on how to be neighborly, like Jesus, and missional. Not that he prescribes a recipe for success, but for me, a recipe for the confusing insanity that the Sunday driven “church” makes.
He helped me to make sense of much knowledge I already had between my ears and realize how to put in more into action. I would suggest this book to anyone who is desiring movement in their faith community, or who is really frustrated with the church as she exists. Jason Dukes gave me a reason to believe that we really can be the “church” without putting so much focus of being the church on Sunday morning for the “big show.”
Chad Miller
http://www.chadkmiller.com
twitter @chadkmiller
Nov 21st, 2009
ChrisMarlow
I wanted to take a moment and review Live Sent: You are a letter. I met Jason (the author) in DC this past summer. He is a great dude, who is “living-out” what he penned.
Some books offer a tremendous balance and Live Sent is one of those books, it has the ability to influence a wide-spread audience, which not only includes church leaders, but also those folks who are called to minister outside the four-walls of the church.
It’s vital for the church to grasp what it means to truly be on mission in our day to day lives, and this book will help us figure out what that mission looks like.
Let me share some quotes:
The Sender (God) delivered His message to us and then writes His message in us and through us for us to deliver to others.
Our mission will always be determined by who or what it is we live for.
That’s our mission as letters from Him. To carry His through word and deed into all the world-both around the corner and around the globe.
I think Live Sent could be used in multiple settings. But, I would highly encourage small groups to read this book and discuss it’s implications. Because of the missional praxis that it offers, if we truly embrace the message, we can live a more missional live, filled with meaning and impact as we all embrace the reality that God calls every Christ-follower to “live-sent” in his or her culture.
I encourage you to buy the book, read it, discuss it, blog it, tweet it and spread the word; that we are all called to “live-sent” as disciples of Jesus!
Chris Marlow
http://simplymissional.com
@chrismarlow
Dec 2nd, 2009
mhasty
We’ve all had times in our lives when we’ve felt a sense of movement in our lives. We’ve felt like we were meant to live for something more. Like we were meant to be more. We set up these B.H.A.G.’s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) for our lives and then looking back a couple years down the road we often wonder why we aren’t living those things out. Live Sent by Jason Dukes challenges us to “rethink” some things about how we “live” and are “sent” and the goals that we set for ourselves as people.
Dukes asks, as Christ-followers do we follow Christ for selfish gain or vain ambition? Do we love God and love people first our of personal motives or out of true genuine love for them?
What about “church”? In “rethinking” the church we are asked to examine whether or not we really believe that the church is more than just a building that we meet in on the weekends and for potluck brunches. If our answer is “Yes.” He probes farther – then why aren’t we living like we believe that? There are somethings in Dukes, chapter on “rethinking” the “church” that I’m not sure I follow, I get the idea, but I’m not sure how well it connects for me. Dukes, spends some time explain how we have conditioned ourselves to believing that the church is a building rather than people by always inviting people “to” church (a place). We ask “Where do you go to church?” (Again a place.) Why does it matter if I bring someone to a place or meet them at a place? If we’re getting together to talk about the things of God I’m not sure the place matters. (This may be Duke’s point all along.) I agree, as the “church” (the living breathing body of Christ) we don’t just meet on weekends to flex our muscles and get a check up. Our body is moving and exercising all week long in everything we do. We don’t go to “church” we are the “church”. We go to a building once in a while to come together and rejoice over the fact that God made us “the church”.
Honestly this is the only chapter that had my head spinning a bit. Live Sent is a major gut check for all Christ-followers. It causes us to examine our motives. It causes us to examine our lives. Do I really love God because I love God? Or am I just a selfish punk with a golden ticket to the pearly gates throwing vacant kisses towards the face of a holy and righteous God?
Grab it. It’s well worth the read and the thinking it will take you through.
Micah Andrew Hasty
http://www.micahandrew.tumblr.com
Twitter: @MicahHasty
Original Post: http://micahandrew.tumblr.com/post/335223085/live-sent-you-are-a-letter-by-jason-c-dukes-book
Jan 14th, 2010
Carrie Bevell Partridge
First-time author Jason C. Dukes has a heart and passion for the message he presents in his book *LIVE SENT: YOU ARE A LETTER. Jason challenges us to stop thinking about the Church as a particular time or meeting place. We ARE the Church, and Jesus told us to “go forth,” not try to get everyone to come to us. Also, being the Church means doing so every minute of every day–meshing our lives with everyone around us, caring for each other, striking up conversations, doing life together. One of my favorite of Jason’s metaphors compares some of us to e-mail drafts: “saved but not sent.” That’s challenging. What good is an unsent message?
Although Jason’s message is heart-felt and also extremely important, I imagine that his communication style is probably best in one-on-one conversation or in his teaching. I personally felt distracted by his overuse of quotation marks and very informal style of writing. It felt more like I was reading a blog or an e-mail. Of course, since the emphasis was on our being letters, maybe this was appropriate. Still, the grammatical errors, repetition, and asides made the book seem like it wasn’t properly edited. Then again, we don’t worry about all those things when we write or read letters and e-mails.
Overall, I liked this book, mostly because I feel strongly about the topic. I greatly appreciate Jason’s heart and ministry, and I am encouraged and challenged by the practical suggestions and stories he shares in LIVE SENT. This book would be great for Small Groups to read and discuss together.
*This book was given to me for review by The Ooze Viral Bloggers.
Carrie Bevell Partridge
http://www.oncarriesmind.blogspot.com
Twitter: CarriePartridge
Jan 22nd, 2010
RyanBraught
As I mentioned a few blog posts ago I am reading Live Sent by Jason C. Dukes. I am a part of the Ooze Viral Bloggers and received to read and write blogs about the book.
Jason’s overarching metaphor for the idea of living missionally or as he calls it Living Sent, is the metaphor of a letter. Being a letter to the culture, your family, your neighborhood, and the world. I have to say I loved the metaphor and how it also changes the metaphor for church.
In Chapter 2 entitled “Rethinking Church” he works on redefining the metaphor of the church from being a fueling station to a Post office. Here is what he says, “But Sunday mornings cannot be viewed as just “fueling stations” any longer. They must be viewed as Post Offices, gathering and sorting mail in order to send out those letters into daily culture.”
I am not quite finished with the book, but there has been much in this book that has encouraged me in the midst of planting Veritas. There has been much to challenge me. There has been much to remind me.
I think the two biggest statements that has helped me, and are worth the price of the book (I would actually buy this book with my own money, if I hadn’t got it for free) are these:
“But, because of our emphasis on “going to church” and trying to “grow the church” (something Paul wrote that only God does)……” This statement has helped me to cut myself some slack regarding the growth of Veritas. Not that I just sit around and do nothing, but that ultimately it is God who will grow HIS Church.
“The question may not be ‘what do I need to do to live sent everyday. The question may be this- what do I need to stop doing so that I can live sent everyday.” So often in these books it’s like, “Now what am I going to have to add to my life to fully live this out. What he is getting at with this question is the idea that maybe we need to drop something from our calendar so that we can be more fully sent into the world. In another place he said this, “Maybe a bit less ‘church activity’ on their schedule and a lot more of ‘being the church’ in the midst of whatever their schedule already is. Why add ‘church’ to what you do when you can be the church in all you do…..People go to church too much and are not being the church enough!!!”
I have a lot more thoughts on this book, and I will write another blog in the next few days of some other thoughts, quotes, and comments I have regarding this book. One of these thoughts revolve around the being sent to my family, and not just seeing this “missional” life as being sent to others outside my family (which it is also that).
So until I write that post, I will contine to try to Live Sent, to my family, to my neighbors, my friends, my enemies, my community, my world, and on the net as well. May you go and do likewise.
Ryan Braught
http://veritaspa.squarespace.com/blog/
Twitter: RyanBraught
Jan 23rd, 2010
Michelle Van Loon
Sometimes an overarching metaphor organizing a work of non-fiction can feel a little trite or forced. I admit that when I picked up Jason Dukes’ Live Sent: You are a letter and skimmed the chapter titles, I predicted the book would be a lightweight approach to the subject of missional living.
I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Dukes, a pastor, presents a valuable and eminently practical exploration of what it means to be sent by God into the life to which God has called you. He challenges, encourages and above all, simplifies the notion of mission in a winsome and accessible book. In some circles of Christianity, there is a lot of overblown, earnest and pompous talk about what it means to be missional. Dukes yanks the concept out of the think tanks and conferences and roots it firmly where it belongs – in God’s heart, and in our lives:
“As His church, we have a responsibility to humanity to be God’s letter of love. That’s why He started this movement almost 2,000 years ago that He called “the church”. So that we would love each other as He intended, as His family. And so that we would do more than “go to church”, but rather BE THE CHURCH to the people we encounter everyday, loving them as He loves them.”
In Duke’s hands, the call to follow Jesus becomes revolutionary – as it should be. He tackles the purpose of church, knowing and being loved by the Sender, contextualization, hindrances, our spheres of influence, our understanding of the world around us, disciple-making, dropping our self-protective mechanisms, and some pointed (and necessary) words to pastors about their calling to equip instead of control. Dukes salts his book with lots of practical examples meant to inspire us to see ourselves as the living letters Christ’s followers are meant to be.
One small beef – the book could have used a bit more gentle editing (there are a lot of words in “quotation marks”; this was a bit “distracting” for me). However, that small quibble does not negate the big value of this 139-page volume. You’ll want to read – and live – the kind of Christ-follower’s life Dukes describes in this book.
Jan 26th, 2010
Lon
Jason C Dukes does a great job in “Live Sent” sharing how every one of us ought to be living. We always need new ways of communicating our faith in a changing culture – and this one actually works.
From ‘the bulk mail that is humanity’, to the church gathering as a ‘post office’, to how each of us are called to ‘live sent’, all of us are letters of love from God… and those we encounter whether we know it or not are letters to us as well.
Dukes drills down being ‘missional’ as something in the fabric of our being. It’s not simply doing more ‘mission’ projects or trips (while of course that’s needed as well). Missions is not something to add to your schedule, “it is your schedule” It’s what you’re already doing, but how you convey God within all of that is what truly makes you personally a love letter from God to others.
One of the best concepts in presented in the book I felt was the idea of the church being decentralized. Not simply geographically or in our influence, but that the dreams of our church would not be whatever the leaders are cooking up, but that as leaders we’re here to cultivate YOUR god given dreams. It’s one thing to agree and follow along with a general direction of a church’s leadership, is a completely different thing to be passionately fueled and sent by the unique call God has on your life.
May we all live sent.
Jan 26th, 2010
RyanBraught
So this week was a fairly full week and I didn’t get around to posting a second reflection on the book “Live Sent” by Jason C. Dukes. But here are some more “random” thoughts about the book and some quotes that I especially resonated with.
First off, I would say that one of the best chapters in the book relates to discipling, or “discipleship”. This chapter was a much needed part of the book, and a much need part as we think about Veritas and our future. Rethinking the idea of Discipleship being individualistic, cognitive-only, and done in a class with a beginning and end point. Afterwards you are a disciple and you have your certificate to prove it. He says that “Discipling is learning and living the ways of Jesus so that others learn and live His ways, too, so that others learn and live His ways, too, and so on.” Jason says that discipling is a “process, a multi-tasking kind of process that has as its core value the necessity of doing life together.” He frames discipling around 3 elements:
1. A first element I would suggest for the discipling process is relationship.
2. A second element I would suggest for the discipling process is discernment
3. A third element of discipling I would suggest is release. (this third part to me is so needed and follows Jesus model of sending out the 12 and the 72.) Jason expands on this by saying, “Church leaders must be willing to measure success not by how many people they can draw and manage, but by how many they can release and relate with and coach to be discipling far beyond their influence and control.” And one way to do that is by watching the calendar of the church, “We will not busy you with church activities, but rather we will equip and release you to be the church within yoru daily and weekly activities.”
Here are some other quotes from other parts of the book in regards to living a sent/missional life:
“You were made to know life abundantly, and life abundant happens when you live beyond yourself.”
“If we rethink our ‘live’ and embrace wholeheartedly a life lived beyond ourselves rooted in the ways of Jesus, then it will influence the way we define success in life.”
“He trusts you with the responsibility of sharing His love with the world and being a significant part of His restoring humanity.”
“Getting to know the people of the culture we have been sent into and knowing the effective ways to connect with and communicate with them is called “contextualization”…..”Unless you are befriending them, eating with them, drinking coffee with them, encouraging them, learning from them, and giving yourself away to the people of yoru culture, you are not contextualizing.”
“The health of a local church is actually not based on the number who ‘attend’ but rather the way in which people love one another and are walking relationally in life.”
Another great section of the book in my opinion was chapter 7 entitled “Stay on the postal route (or wireless travel. Our spheres of influence in daily living.) In this chapter he lays out the spheres of influence that you have in your daily life and how to live sent in the midst of those spheres. His spheres of influence include: family, Neighborhood, Marketplace, World, and the Web. Ths is a great reminder, especially the family and Web part, as sometimes I forget about living sent to my wife and children, and extended family, and I almost have never thought about living sent on the web.
I’m sure there are more quotes that I could write about. More thoughts I could write about. More ways of Living Sent, but I think these are enough for now. I have finished Live Sent and will be moving to the book “Thy Kingdom Connected:What the Church can learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks” by Dwight J. Friesen. I will be blogging about this book in the near future as I read it.
Ryan Braught
http://www.veritaspa.org
Twitter: RyanBraught
Jan 29th, 2010
kmcdade
Blog post from http://whatsthemission.wordpress.com.
I chose this book to review because I thoroughly agree with the metaphor: our own lives carry the message of Christ to all, better than any sermon. Dukes’s message in the book is that the church has to be more than Sunday morning worship (which others have said), but even more, that it has to go beyond other forms to which we have restricted church and religion, and into the function of living sent.
I found the first part of the book frustrating to read. Much of it is philosophical, biblically-based explanation rather than real-life stories. I’m familiar with the Bible passages and explanations already. It might be different for someone who isn’t; but it’s hard for me to see it through that lens.
There’s one chapter at the end packed with stories of real people who are living sent. I would have liked to see these stories fleshed out more and included throughout the book, rather than being crammed into one chapter.
The PS for pastors and other church leaders is, in my opinion, the best part of the book! It’s snarky, practical and to the point.
In summary, I wholeheartedly agree with what the book says, but wish there were more emphasis on detailed real-life stories.
Jan 30th, 2010
edan0889
“Think about your life filled with other people and how they actually bless you. They paint a picture that is ripe with colors and bursting with sounds and they populate your world for a reason: so you can love them. Don’t worry about them loving you back… that isn’t what it is really about.” – 10/22/08
This was from one of my first posts on my blog and it seemed appropriate as I thought on this book:: Live Sent: You Are A Letter by Jason C. Dukes. In the near future I am going to recommend it to a few friends so we might look into it a little deeper.
From the Product Description on Amazon.com:
You are a letter. Your everyday life is more than just a story being written. You were created to receive and send a message intentionally into the lives of the people you do life with daily. That’s how humanity works. Together. That’s how love is demonstrated and how relationships happen and how people find abundant life as they were intended to find it. We live out our intended purpose and mission when we live beyond ourselves. Are you giving yourself away in the daily, being to other people the letter of God’s love that has been written on your heart? We must be that letter together. Our community needs us. Our world needs us. Let’s live sent.
http://edan0889.blogspot.com/2010/01/live-sent.html
Jan 31st, 2010
prolepticlife
Live Sent, by Jason C. Dukes, pastor of Westpoint Church in central Florida, is a fairly new book published by Wheat Mark out of Tucson. The title sums up the theme pretty well. Dukes writes to encourage believers to see themselves as letters from God to the world around them. He wants them to see the church as more than just a weekly gathering, but as a people sent on mission into the world with a message from God.
The idea of a letter is carried consistently throughout the book. Dukes builds on it as he writes about junk mail, destination, postal routes, etc. Sometimes he changes the analogy to electronic forms of communication like email, but makes the same basic point – you are a letter sent from God and you need to live that way.
The author seems to think that the main hindrance to “living sent” is not thinking very highly of self. So he spends some time arguing that you are not junk mail and that you were worth dying for. He finishes the chapter about junk mail by stating you are “intended to live sent to a world who desperately needs to know they aren’t junk mail either.” He carries that idea forward into the next chapter, “When mail gets blocked,” where he writes; “People simply do not feel like they are worth enough to live sent…God thinks you are worth dying for.”
The book has a chapter on moving away from the idea of discipleship (programmatic church idea) to disciple-making (biblical concept modeled by Jesus). While there is not a great deal of detail about this needed exhortation, it is a good starting point to encourage a more biblical concept of the Great Commission.
I thought that the main thesis of the book is an important and needed subject to explore. In an increasingly anti-institutional culture and at a time when attractional evangelism is becoming less and less effective, the church body needs to have a paradigm shift. Believers need to move from a “come and see” mindset to a missional “go and tell” attitude. Or as the author says it, we need to “live sent.”
Having said that, I found myself struggling to finish reading the book even though it is relatively short. I was somewhat put off in the beginning by the grammar. Run-on sentences interspersed with incomplete sentences made it hard for me to follow the line of thought at times. It seemed to me that the book was a transcription of what the author might have said rather than what he could have written. If you aren’t as anal about that sort of thing as I am, you might enjoy the book more than I did.
For me, the book also lacked in the way of personal application. I finished wishing I had been given more practical ideas on carrying through with the concepts presented.
Feb 1st, 2010
JaimeeHolmes
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2010
Live Sent— you are a letter
I got this book, by Jason C Dukes in the mail through viralbloggers.com. I haven’t completely finished it. It came at sort of an interesting time for me, so I have been kind of trudging through it bit by bit… taking my time to really read and digest.
My initial impression of the book was actually not super positive. I am sort of anti-gimmick, and the “hipness factor” seemed overdone to me at first… I was afraid this would be an easy to hear, easy to read type of book.
I was dead wrong.
It looks easy. It looks fun. It looks hip.
Maybe I’m the only one (I doubt it, and I hope not), but I am having a really difficult time reading of just the stark, real, raw way that God loves me… And this is only the beginning of the book! Mr. Dukes goes on to explain that Because God loves you in this way (He loves us, period. He chooses to love us. He loves us so that we will love.), we can turn around in His strength and love others in the same way… we can “live sent.”
I want to give you just a little taste of the book and writing style. This is really good stuff. No wasted words. And like I said, I haven’t finished it yet, but I feel like I can already recommend it.
“Herod wouldn’t see a young husband and pregnant wife returning to Bethlehem for the census as a threat to his reign. He would have been looking for a charismatic leader with a following. Herod wouldn’t look for a baby in a manger. He would have looked for someone staying in palatial accommodations. The problem is most of us don’t look below the radar in that way either. We have made godliness out to be prosperity and appearing to have it all together. Not an outcast couple who had to make it on the very least.” (pg 33)
“He love us, period.”
“He chooses to love us.”
“He loves us so that we will love.”
[do you actually believe that He loves you unconditionally?]
[do you think that love and respect and trust must be earned, or must they be given?]—OUCH (my words!)
[do you love people for how it makes you feel, or do you love them as a catalyst that causes them to love, even if you never get anything in return for your love?]
And just one more, and I thought this was really huge…
“When you commit to love someone—marriage, friendship, child, whatever—are you committing to love them for what they become and what they get out of it, or for how you feel and what you get in return?” (pg 39)
I can’t sit here and quote the whole book for you. Go get it.
Here’s some linkage to check out.
Book Blog
Personal Blog
Jason speaking at the LIVE SENT 2009 Conversation
Live Sent YouTube channel
Feb 2nd, 2010
Mark
Jason Dukes gets it!
I’ve just finished reading his wonderful book, Live Sent: You Are a Letter, and found myself saying, “That’s so true! Amen brother!” the whole way through.
Dukes, who describes himself as a follower and a leader, a learner and a teacher, a writer and a dreamer, a pastor and an entrepreneur and someone who tries to live sent daily, has captured the heartbeat of what the church ought to be.
Church is not a “what”, Duke declares, It is a “WHO!”
Church is not a place and time on Sunday morning. Church is the people of God — sent into the world as letters of grace.
Church health is not measured by how many people show up on Sunday morning — but how the people show up to bring God’s love everywhere they go.
Dukes advocates a decentralized approach to ministry — encouraging people to LIVE the mission every day.
This does not mean trying to find time in your schedule to fulfill God’s mission — your WHOLE schedule IS God’s mission!
Feb 4th, 2010
Jeremy Jernigan
As with the other reviews previously posted, I saw the title of this book and immediately connected with his point. However, not even a few pages into it and I was overwhelmed with the amount of cliche metaphors that fill this book. It’s not that I disagree with what he is saying, it’s just that it seems fairly obvious to me and it is communicated in a cliche way. Yesterday, my wife looked over my shoulder when I was reading and literally laughed at the title of the chapter on the page I was on.
I feel like he milked his “live sent” metaphor throughout the entire book and it felt extremely redundant. I’m surprised this book came out in 2009, I would have guessed the early 90’s based on the issues he is addressing. Again, nothing that I disagreed with, just conversations that don’t seem to be new or very relevant anymore.
With that said, I did love chapter 2 as it seemed to stand out from the rest of the book. I really liked his idea that “It’s not what you teach. It’s what you emphasize.” That is a great reminder to focus on with everything else that seems to take up so much time and attention.
All in all, the message of the book is solid albeit communicated with very cliche metaphors. If you don’t mind that, you might really enjoy it.
Jeremy
http://tomorrowsreflection.com/reading-list/
http://twitter.com/jeremyjernigan
Feb 6th, 2010
theresaseeber
I am reading “Live Sent” by Jason C. Dukes. It is amazing how it is changing my life, and this not at all in the way I expected. I knew going into this read that it would be about “being missional”, about living out our faith in Jesus every day in practical ways – serving and loving others, and serving and loving Christ. But I didn’t think it would so greatly impact my marriage as it has. Especially since it is not, in fact, a book on marriage relationships.
A strong theme in this book is the need for realizing our own personal value. We are valuable, and many people have a hard time really grasping that. But it is crucial to know we are a valuable vessel for the delivery of the love and grace of God in order to fully live into that.
I didn’t struggle with that so much as what it led to. If I am so very valuable then so is everybody else around me. Like my husband, who I have struggled with so much lately on so many different levels. For instance, in Chapter 4 Dukes asks “Do you think that love and respect and trust must be earned, or must they be given?” I knew that I fully believed they must be earned, and had this sinking feeling he was about to correct that assumption. I was right. He points out that Jesus never waited around for us to earn those things, and that although his love is better and more gracious than any we can give, we are actually commanded to love like he does. What does that mean? That means “we must love out of who He is in us” and that means giving love and respect and trust even to those who don’t deserve it.
That really shook me up. But he wasn’t done yet. Not even close. The next section asks whether we love for how it makes us feel, or as a catalyst for the beloved to excel even if we get nothing in return.
I had to stop at this point and spend some serious time contemplating my marriage. Was I giving the respect, love and trust to my husband that I needed to? Or was I withholding my love, respect and trust over issues I was unable to forgive, unable to let go of? Was I giving a love to him that was a catalyst to help him be a better man, a better giver of love himself? Or was I so caught up in feeling held back that I was, in fact, holding him back? The answers were, unfortunately, the latter ones.
It has taken time, prayer, and serious issue-tackling with my husband, but these messages of living a life “Sent” by God are changing the very fabric of my relationship with him. Which frankly is amazing, since like I said, this isn’t even a book about having a better marriage. But how can I live sent to anybody if I can’t even live sent to my own spouse? We are to be known by our love for one another.
I do want to point out that I don’t endorse blind trust, especially of people we don’t know very well. But the kind of trust that is required to make a marriage work, or a friendship last, this is the kind of trust that I feel the author is urging us toward.
I think this read is a must for anybody who wishes to live a life sent by God into the lives of others, who want more than just a life-insurance, membership-based, attendance-driven Christianity. It is possible to BE the church, on more levels than I had previously realized were possible. Let this book stretch you. It will be a beautiful thing.
Originally posted at my blog:
http://eyesofhope.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/live-sent-you-are-a-letter/
Feb 9th, 2010
Debby Albrecht
Debby Albrecht
I am a part of the Ooze Viral Bloggers group and I recently received a copy of Live Sent – you are a letter by Jason C. Dukes to read and blog about.
I just finished reading it and I have to admit that this book was more challenging than I expected. I have spent all of my life in and around the church and I have to admit for most of that time I would have agreed with the statement, The church is not a place or an event. She is a who. The church is people. but didn’t live or lead like I believed it. The church has most often been the place I worked or the place we attended on Sunday. The big challenge of this book is to live like we are the church, whether we are gathered together or living and working in the world around us.
Sunday mornings can no longer be viewed at just “fueling stations”, they must be thought of as Post Offices, gathering and sorting mail in order to send out letters. This statement from chapter 2 sums it up for me.
This author could have benefited from a better editor, but Live Sent is still worth reading.
Originally posted at my blog:http://debbyalbrecht.blogspot.com/2010/02/live-sent.html
Feb 20th, 2010
ahub101
Review: Live Sent. you are a letter.
In his new book, Live Sent, Jason Dukes encourages Christians to live out their relationship with Jesus constantly. There are four ideas that Jason highlights in order to help the reader to “live sent”, that is, to live as a Christian focused on loving God and others, rather than having a self-serving faith like so many do today.
“First, in order to live sent, there may be some things we need to rethink. Foundational stuff. Life. Church. Relationships. Intention.
“Second, living sent is all about trusting your value. The primary hindrance for a follower of Christ who is made to live sent is that he/she does not trust their God-given value. What we need to understand is that our value is not appraised, it is declared. Trusting what God has declared about us and that He has entrusted His message to us for delivery is crucial to being the letter He made us to be.”
Third, “Living sent is all about doing life together. The epic of humanity… should be seen most beautifully within the movement Jesus started that He called His ‘church.’ Unfortunately, this is too often not the case. We tend to just be letters to each other [within the church] and miss the importance of being letters into culture.
“Finally, living sent is all about giving ourselves away intentionally. Jesus gave Himself away with restorative intent. We know what love is in that Jesus gave up His life for us, so we should give up our lives for others (1st John 3:16). It’s one thing to want to serve because of how it makes us feel. It’s another altogether to love and serve completely for the sake of what happens in the life of the ones we love and serve.”
As I read Live Sent I found myself being moved more and more to loving people all the time, to getting out of the shell I sometimes hide within, and getting to know and love others who I have not bothered with because of some sort of spiritual laziness. I was pleasantly surprised to be encouraged in this way.
However, there are two major problems with the book. The first problem is literary. To be frank, it seems that the author published his first draft without taking the time to correct grammatical errors and tighten up his prose. Of course, the book is written with the mood of a friend talking casually with a friend. I understand that. But writing is more than stringing words together. Also, the author could cut the book almost in half if he would have tightened up his sentences and stopped repeating himself, as if his audience would have trouble following:
“Your story matters, too. As do all stories of living sent. So capture them creatively and redundantly.
“Your story matters, too. As do all stories of living sent. So capture them creatively and redundantly.”
The above quotation is from page 139 of Live Sent. Of course Jason is being funny and friendly as he beats us with redundancy, but this makes for poor literature.
The other problem with the book is that it buys into a philosophy that seems weak. I was glad to read that Jason combated the problems of 19th and 20th Century evangelicalism, but I am not so sure that the system he buys into is much better. I think that Jason’s good ideas can find a home in a better philosophical system.
Part of the problem is that Jason often reacts too strongly against the negative trends of 19th and 20th Century North American evangelical Christianity. For instance, many people are tempted to relegate their relationship with Jesus to special times, places, events, and people. Although he takes issue with all of these I would like to highlight his view of the church, expressed early in the book, on page 11. Jason writes, “The suggested statement of how church has been defined implies that we go to church on Sundays to WORSHIP, as if that is the only time during the week that we worship.” Here, Jason is reacting against the idea that many people reduce their relationship with and worship of Jesus to a two-hour time-slot on Sunday morning. Of course, the reaction against such a reduced Christianity is valid, but does this mean that we should reduce the importance of meeting on Sunday mornings? No.
The kingdom of God requires that we worship God in practical and theoretical ways. For instance, it is important to love our neighbours in their practical, day-to-day lives. This is a way that we love God. But it is also important to praise God by having what I call a “philosophical awe” directed towards him. This can be as simple as seeing a beautiful sunrise and being filled with awe at God’s beauty, goodness, and ability to create. But our best and most consistent form of expressing philosophical awe is at special times, such as in quiet prayer, reflecting on the words of the Bible, or through songs of praise and worship.
The leveling of places, times, and actions is detrimental to the Christian life. I appreciate Jason’s insights into the problems of a form of Christianity, but he need not toss the baby.
Despite the two major criticisms listed above, I am very pleased that Jason Dukes reminded me to live less selfishly, to care for others, and to encourage the “sending out” and not just the “gathering in” of Christians. Nothing new, but a good reminder.
http://important-topics-ahub.blogspot.com/
Feb 20th, 2010
Warren Wade
I can appreciate simple metaphors. I sometimes really enjoy little one-sentence summaries that boil down a complex idea into a quip. “Kill two birds with one stone” means “be resourceful” or “be effective” or something like that. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” means “it’s not impossible but when you focus on money, etc it’s more difficult to keep the Kingdom in your sights.” To that end, I appreciated Jason Dukes book “Live Sent: You are a letter.”
One concept that this book helped elucidate (nice, huh?) a little bit more for me was the semantical relationship involved in letter writing (and, by extension, Christian living): what I understand of myself as a letter or what’s written inside me and how someone perceives me as a letter and (again, by extension) the author as a writer or how they interpret what’s they’re “reading.”
What I mean is, I can think that I have the manifesto of God written in me but, if the language (and life) that is used to express the letter do not reflect the intentions of the writer than my letter gets misread. Conversely, I could be a pretty terrible letter and that’s going to affect how people perceive me (as a Christian) and thus the God I claim to represent.
I appreciated that Jason didn’t spend too much time defining the language, font, style, and layout that our letter has to be written. He was more playful than that.
All that being said, I have to say that I think that this book was too long. The simplicity of this metaphor could have been accurately represented in fewer pages. I’m saying this not because I wanted to read less but because there was a significant amount of time spent being somewhat tangential. In some books, that sort of stream-of-consciousness is appropriate and makes the writer more familiar. It kind of detracted from the message for me.
As always, I’d still recommend reading this book. Jason seems very well grounded. His life, mission and message are appropriate and timely. Today, many people are getting “Dear John” letters from God because of who they are. Let’s be more “John you are dear to me” letters.
Christ’s peace and God’s shalom.
Feb 22nd, 2010
kevinstewart
You are a letter. Your everyday life is more than just a story being written. You were created to receive and send a message intentionally into the lives of the people you do life with daily. That’s how love is demonstrated and how relationships happen and how people find abundant life as they were intended to find it. We live out our intended purpose and mission when we live beyond ourselves. Are you giving yourself away in the daily, being to other people the letter of God’s love that has been written on your heart? We must be that letter together. Our community needs us. Our world needs us. Let’s live sent.
This is what Jason C. Dukes is proclaiming to the world in his new book Live Sent. I really enjoyed this book and its not just because the writer is from New Orleans. Hope you will pick it up and read it too!!
Original post: http://kevinstewart.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/live-sent/
Feb 25th, 2010
Neal Taylor
I must admit that when I received Live Sent: You Are A Letter by Jason Dukes (Wheatmark, 2009) I opened to the table of contents and groaned at the seemingly overuse of the mail/letter metaphor that Dukes has based Live Sent around. That lead to a reluctance to start reading spawned by the groan. However, I struggled through, and while this review is late for The Ooze Viral Bloggers, this has been due in part to that reluctance to read, and more in part due to my busyness lately!
So, little by little I continued reading, and after the first few chapters, 0_an introduction (you are a letter), 1_rethinking your “live” (the bulk mail called humanity) and 2_rethinking church (gathering to send) I did feel the mail metaphor was a little over used but in light of the content and the intended audience which I gathered to be your average church folk, I thought the content quite appropriate. In fact, I would assume that this book is excellent for the folk who love Jesus, are getting frustrated with their pew sitting and want to do more and aren’t interested in the heavier theological texts of Hirsch, Frost, Cole and others.
Overall, I enjoyed Live Sent: You Are A Letter by Jason Dukes (Wheatmark, 2009) and in fact have recommended to a few friends who are getting frustrated with legacy church. But I believe that this book should have a far wider audience – and should be read by leaders, and those aspiring to be leaders in churches. Pastors need to read this before leading a group, and should go further with the various theological texts on offer.
The standout section for me was the chapter on discipling versus discipleship. Dukes writes, “We have made ‘The Great Commission’ given to us from Jesus, into nothing more than a program we can package and sell and pull off in 2 hours or less on a Sunday or Wednesday. This is not ‘discipleship’.” Dukes goes on to show our misuse of the non-biblical word, discipleship. He argues, beautifully, that language is important, and defines our beliefs. “…Jesus never divided the concepts we call ‘evangelism’ and ‘discipleship’. In fact, He seemed to speak of the two as parts of the same process. He called that process “discipling’. And He said that ‘AS WE GO’ in everyday life (not just programmatically or scheduled), we should be discipling.”
Live Sent: You Are A Letter by Jason Dukes (Wheatmark, 2009) is an excellent resource and an excellent primer for discussing authentic following of Jesus, especially those seeking a missional (sent) life. From what I can tell about Jason from the book and my research online, he has distilled many lessons in life and captured them in a metaphor that is simple and understandable. If you get a chance read this, and if it piques your interest, search deeper!
Original Post: http://www.handtotheplough.com.au/2010/03/01/review-live-sentyou-are
Mar 1st, 2010
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