Saturday, May 8, 2010

Plan B – What Do You Do When God Doesn’t Show Up The Way You Thought He Would?

Plan B – What Do You Do When God Doesn’t Show Up The Way You Thought He Would?
Written by Pete Wilson
Published at Thomas Nelson

About the book Learn how God often does His best work in our most hopeless situations.

What do you do with a shattered dream? Or an unmet expectation? What do you do when your life isn't turning out the way you thought it would? What do you do when you have to turn to Plan B?

In Plan B pastor and author Pete Wilson uses real life stories of disappointments and hurts along with the biblical stories of men and women like David, Joseph, and Ruth to help readers come to grips with the truth that they will face situations that in themselves they are completely unable to handle but that in them God is simply trying to get them to surrender their plans so that they can receive His. He identifies our common responses to difficulties and offers hope, helping us to
  • Understand what God might be up to
  • See how surrender helps us to receive God's plan
  • Embrace the community of believers
  • Reconcile a God of love with a life of tragedy and suffering
Wilson points readers to the cross as not just the starting line but the centerpiece of our story with God and shares that it is there we turn in our Plan B and find the undeniable relationship between crisis and our hope followed by true spiritual transformation. "God wants to live inside the questions" says Wilson and then reminds us that "the cross is proof that He does not always change the circumstance but that He always has a purpose in every circumstance. He will never let go of us. He will hold us and His cross will be an anchor for us."

Who is Pete Wilson?
Pete Wilson is the founding and senior pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN, the second church he has planted in the last seven years. Pete graduated from Western Kentucky University with a degree in communications then attended seminary at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY. His desire is to see churches become radically devoted to Christ, irrevocably committed to one another, and relentlessly dedicated to reaching those outside of God's family.

He is married to Brandi and together they have three boys. When not spending time with church or family he enjoys playing golf and playing golf and playing golf.

My Thoughts
Did you ever had a dream starting and then deflate as you pursue it? It happened to us more recently as we were planting a different kind of church for different kind of folks. We were reaching out to people in the rave community and anyone who loves to worship God by dancing and drawing. Did we had success? I would say so as more than 100 people were coming to the raves we were putting on and we had a lot of people coming in the church during the services.

Our problem? Probably the lack of leaders, wanting to do it too fast, no network support for my husband and I and not enough people during the services to be able to blend in the crowd if you wanted to check it out.

So we are back at the drawing board and trying to seek God about what to do next. Our leadership team all sense that we should pursue somehow. Consequently, we are planning a Christian rave for July, September and November.

But when the dream had to be closed down back in November, we didn’t know what to do. Depression was looming above us (fortunately at different times) and we were wondering why God would allow this to happen if He blessed us with so many things regarding the church since the beginning – including the incorporation and the insurance that were granted rapidly. What was the plan B for our church plant?

Honestly, we still haven’t figure out the plan B. We are still seeking God and His wisdom. We sense that He wants us to persevere through the difficulties and discouragements. We have grown a lot in the past few months and we are still growing. We have different options to consider and we pray more as well.

Sometimes, God is teaching us something even though we can seem to see it right away. It takes time and perspective to understand what He was doing in us and around us. And Plan B will help you to decorticate the situation and try to go past the feelings attached to the crisis. The author brings interesting stories to life both from real life and from the Bible. While you read this book you will be more open to see God in the midst of your crisis and realize that you are not alone after all.

I am enjoying this book as it helps me to finalize my healing period that was needed in our situation. I see hope again. I see God’s hand guiding our team. I sense that He approves of us and wants to bless the team. Only time will tell what will happen for our church plant. I pray and hope that somehow people will be drawn to it.

But please don't take only my word for it. Listen on how the author himself describes the book.



This review was possible because I received a copy of Plan B from Graf-Martin.

Plan B is available everywhere even at amazon.ca.

 

1 comment:

  1. Thanks so much for the fantastic review. Praying for your current situations.

    ReplyDelete