This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom
of God by Rick McKinley
Rick McKinley, Pastor of Imago Dei Community, is the leader
of a congregation that has left its footprint in the Portland area by its
social activities. This book, This Beautiful Mess, is a revised and updated
version of the same book originally published in 2006. The goal of the book is to see “A vision of a
King who is loving and good and who reign has changed everything. A vision of a new realm of activity in His
power that is breaking in and yet is not without opposition. A vision desperately needed for the people of
God today” (xvii). Having just finished
The Next Evangelicals, I was somewhat familiar with the movement in Portland of
evangelical churches to engage the city, a town with a very secular bent. The kingdom mindset that Rick has in mind is
one that is a force to wreckon with and takes place with ordinary people doing
kingdom minded things on a regular basis.
Highlights
What I really enjoyed about this book is that Rick asked the
right question’s in each of his chapters.
In the chapter on money entitled Stamp of Empire. Very quickly most of us rush through the
check-out line to purchase our clothes, seldom do we ask, “Will this
transaction be a good deal for everyone?” (124). In other words, is my purchase of these jeans
good for the person who made them in a sweatshop 5,000 miles across the globe,
or is my consumer habits bringing down some girl in Malaysia? These type of moral and theological questions
affect the way we steward the money God provides for us. In another example, it is wise to invest some
time and research to finding out how much of your charitable donations goes to
helping that particular need and how much goes to administrative costs. Another question that Rick highlights is the
push to ask, “How can we money simply as a way to bring about God’s goodness
and healing to others” (124). These
kinds of questions get at the motivation and heart of financial spending, and
in turn, also point out the idolatry of our lives being consumed with it.
In the chapter on Sharing the News About Our King, Mike
delves into the topic of sharing our faith to others. He makes it clear that when we are living the
Jesus life, the sharing of our faith flows out of the events and activities in
every sphere of life. Why is this so
important? Often, we get the idea that
if we share a few facts about Jesus and lead someone to a rote prayer, then
this is the end of sharing our faith.
But, if we begin with sharing our tangible experience of God’s grace in
Christ through stories of his unfailing love, his pursuit of our children, our
marriage, then people see that faith in Jesus matters for all our life and not
just one faith compartment (90-91). In
real life, this kind of sharing our faith hits the ground running as we face
the death of a loved one, cancer, and many different kinds of horrific evil
because we walk through tragedy with the same faith that we walk through
celebration. We weep at the rejection of
Jesus and at the moving away of a friend, for walking with Jesus gives us the
grace to open our entire lives to Him.
Lastly, Rick’s chapter on Hardships involving suffering was
spot on. He comments that, “First, we
are seeing that we need to suffer with those who suffer” (137). Western Christians are not necessarily involved
in the kind of physical, spiritual, and social suffering that many people in
other countries go through. Yet, as Rick
points out, we can carry the burdens from others who suffer by connecting in
relationship with them, finding out what it is that they need most, and
providing prayer support for them. Giving money is a good thing but also being
relationally involved means a great deal to people dealing with suffering.
I really enjoyed this book and hope others will be encouraged
by it. Rick has a kingdom focus that
sees God’s sovereign grace at the heart of all things.
Thanks to Waterbrook/Multnomah for the complimentary copy of this book in
exchange for review.
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