The Great Giveaway by David Fitch, Baker Books, 2005.

The Great Giveaway was written by David Fitch, founder and pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community, which is part of the Christian Missionary Alliance Church. Frustrated with his experience with evangelicals, Fitch moved away from the church only to return at the age of 30 with a desire to see change in evangelical churches. In the introduction to The Great Giveaway, Fitch provides his thesis as “evangelicalism has ‘given away’ being the church in North America (13).” In other words, the church has exported its responsibilities to organizations outside the church and has been influenced too much by modernism.

Fitch explores eight areas he believes the church has “given over,” beginning with how we define success. He proposes a change from quantifying success through numbers that are not sufficient measures to instead focusing on taking “that first decision from immature beginnings into its full fruition into baptism…and a life of service to Christ and his kingdom (37).”

Secondly, he examines our means of evangelizing and ways they’re lacking. Postmodernists want to see truth lived out. Fitch advocates hospitality as outreach and says pastors should teach “how to show mercy, pray for the sick, and do justice to those we meet every day (61).” This chapter was especially powerful to me, because in my interactions with non-Christians they might be perfectly willing to listen to what I say about my faith, but what really captures their attention or loses it is the ways Christians live out their faith. In reaching out to my neighbors, it seems I would be much more effective is living out God’s truth among them than just walking up to someone and talking about God with no relational basis.

In his chapter on leadership, Fitch says the focus of the church on leadership and how its done in the business world has been faulty and that evangelical leaders have mistakenly used Jesus as the “model CEO (80).” He describes the model Jesus gave us as embodying “servanthood, humility, and grace” rather than the modern-day leadership skills attributed to him (94).” With regards to worship, the worshipper needs to be immersed in the experience rather than just experiencing a temporary high and then reverting to life as usual. He also downplays expository preaching and promotes the value of preaching that would “renarrate for us the world as it is according to Scripture…(141).”

Fitch also expresses the need for our approach to social justice to shift from democratic capitalism to a desire to see God’s righteousness expressed on earth. Because I have many relatives involved in the field of psychology, I was more skeptical reading his chapter on spiritual formation. While Fitch raises good questions about why the church is not ministering more to people’s spiritual needs, his criticism that Christian psychologists are merely adding a little bit of their faith to their secular theoretical frameworks for psychotherapy seemed to be a generalization.

I would agree with Fitch that many of the methods of evangelicals in the past are outdated and ineffective. The most powerful way for me to be a light on the street where I live would be to take back some of the functions the church has given away and show God’s love by showing mercy and fighting for social justice for my neighbors.