Fiction? But what Truth!

Going Deep by Gordon MacDonald is a book that I wanted to read on my kindle and I'm grateful. I found it to be so timely and meaningful in my life and wonder if it is for many others and their churches. Basically the main issue is how can the church train not just leaders but deep people, people with substance that will disciple others and cultivate a congregation of people that love God and spur others

This is a fictional exchange between the pastor and his congregation and elders where at a ballgame he's asked "What's your church's Elevator story?" Not sure what this really is he asks and finds out that its what you say while on an elevator, in a limited amount of time how can you succinctly and persuasively tell why your organization is so important or valuable. In the process of figuring out what's the church's elevator story, he realizes that the key is training and having "deep people. "Deep People" is from a Richard Foster quote that another characters gives the pastor, it says, "

The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people." -Richard Foster" 

So GMAC sets out to figure out how the best way to cultivate "deep people' In his congregation, what works and what doesn't work.  

He brings up some really great and insightful things. One of the exchanges I especially resonated with was on page 108-109: 

Mercedes got very serious all of a sudden. She leaned toward me and said quietly, "This is one of the things that has always bothered me about how some people treat the church, Pastor Mac. Because we don't want to offend anyone in the church, we do no ask much," she said. "People in the church come and go as they please; they arrive late, leave early, maybe not show up at all. They are asked to to prepare things, and often they do not. They are challenged to get into the action, but they sit back and let someone else do the work. No one can respect an organization like that.  "If people here acted like a lot of people do at church.... Let me be honest with you: I'd have to fire them or be fired myself. Yet everyone at church says that what we do there is the most important thing. We talk about life and death, God and Heaven, eternity..... abundant living. Forgive me Pastor Mac, but it sometimes seems to me that people are lying to one another... just saying meaningless words. What gets your top loyalty shows what you really believe." (bold emphasis my own)  I enjoyed this book.

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