{"id":415,"date":"2014-04-02T09:41:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T09:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegospelplant.wordpress.com\/?p=415"},"modified":"2014-04-02T09:41:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T09:41:28","slug":"growing-up-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/growing-up-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: ‘Growing Up’ by Robby Gallaty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"growing-up\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve come to realise that when people don\u2019t know what to do, they don\u2019t do anything\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Robby Gallaty<\/p>\n

Robby \u00a0is the Senior Pastor of Brainerd Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church located in the Belvoir community of Chattanooga, TN.\u00a0In Growing Up Robby shares vulnerably his rocky past of drug addiction and shares how Jesus used this and radically changed him.\u00a0In 2002, he experienced a Paul-like conversion and\u00a0surrendered his life to Christ, changing his life forever. He is also the\u00a0author of\u00a0\u00a0Unashamed: Taking a Radical Stand for Christ<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Creating an Atmosphere to HEAR God Speak<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This quote from Robby in the introduction\u00a0\u00a0is a sad but true statement, are we as Christians\u00a0actually informing people of what we have been called to do? \u00a0Are we communicating effectively what it means to truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ? Looking at the current state of the church in the West the answer is no, but there is small pockets of disciple living and creating amongst us.<\/p>\n

After reading this book I am certain\u00a0it will be an outstanding resource to go through for years to come. Ed Stetzer \u00a0(the man with the goatee and author, speaker, researcher, pastor, church planter, and Christian missiologist) calls it a “Church tested,\u00a0scripturally\u00a0rich<\/em>” book and I would agree with him. It is encouraging when you turn the pages to see every idea and model built on a biblical foundation. \u00a0The one thing this book is not designed to be is to only be read and put on a shelf; it\u00a0is not a one time read and is a book I would recommend to be\u00a0used for future study both personally, in small groups and in discipleship groups. Each chapter has questions to reflect on\u00a0and in the back of the book you will find a vast range of\u00a0resources in which to use in your group. Robby\u00a0strongly encourages discipleship groups of\u00a03-5 people \u00a0as the optimal environment for\u00a0making disciples. Scripturally and functionally he explains how\u00a0these groups\u00a0work and does this in a very clear way. A lot of us can feel like asking, ‘How do I do discipleship?’ and this is a very practical book that will not leave you without answers.<\/p>\n

At times the book can seem very prescribing, for example Robby states,\u00a0\u201cto fulfil its purpose and be profitable, each meeting must<\/em> be focused on the disciple-building activities discussed throughout this book\u201d. This is a very minor critique\u00a0but it could look like this is the only method by which to carry out The Great Commission for a new believer,\u00a0however I know this is not the intention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>
\n– Dietrich Bonhoeffer<\/p>\n

Being a disciple means making disciples: it means sacrificially \u00a0investing in people and yourself, following Jesus and His gospel mission; that’s what gospel centred<\/strong> discipleship is all about. \u00a0It can be messy, imperfect, but life changing. Robby is a good guy and bold leader that God has used to teach me through this book and it is an amazing resource and gem for those seeking to grow in their own discipleship and discipleship of others. This is a must have book and I \u00a0hope that in reading this book it challenges your heart and thinking on how you do<\/em> and view<\/em> discipleship.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you for emailing me the\u00a0book brother.<\/p>\n

Info on the book can be found on<\/strong> \u00a0 >>>> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Growing-Up-Disciple-Makes-Disciples-ebook\/dp\/B00GHB68OS\/ref=la_B002GF1LPA_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396426214&sr=1-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ve come to realise that when people don\u2019t know what to do, they don\u2019t do anything\u201d\u00a0 – Robby Gallaty Robby \u00a0is the Senior Pastor of Brainerd Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church located in the Belvoir community of Chattanooga, TN.\u00a0In Growing Up Robby shares vulnerably his rocky past of drug addiction and shares how Jesus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,120,68,97,16],"tags":[77,2,3,105,21,7,9,14,15,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book-review","7":"category-discipleship","8":"category-faith","9":"category-leadership","10":"category-religion","11":"tag-bible","12":"tag-christ","13":"tag-christian","14":"tag-discipleship","15":"tag-faith","16":"tag-god","17":"tag-gospel","18":"tag-jesus","19":"tag-leadership","20":"tag-religion","21":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themajestysmen.com\/thegospelplant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}