10:10: Life to the Fullest, by Daniel Hill

Pastor Daniel Hill asks, "How can there be so many people who love God, have surrendered their lives to Christ, and yet still feel this persistent gap between their current spiritual reality and the fullness of God that they long for?" If that question hits home with you, you are Hill's target audience in 10:10: Life to the Fullest.  Many Christians can relate to Hill's observation that Jesus' promise of abundant life is out of sync with our everyday spiritual experience.  "Too often the words that describe our faith sound more like this: comfortable, safe, routine, and status quo.  Sometimes even mundane, mediocre, empty, and stagnant."  If I'm honest, I'd have to say that describes me.

Hill boils down "the secret to fullness of life" to "the essence of a single word.  Faith." He describes faith as having three dimensions: faith and fear, faith and intimacy, faith and mission, and spends a few chapters fleshing out each of these dimensions.  Each of these builds on the others, and I think Hill's strongest chapters are those that deal with mission.  I would say he feels most passionate about mission, but he also makes it clear that without the building blocks of overcoming fear (Did you know that "fear not" is the most frequently repeated instruction in the Bible?) and seeking intimacy with God, mission loses power and effectiveness.

There were points at which Hill's exposition of his thesis lost traction.  10:10 sometimes had the feel of being a sermon or sermon series that he was stretching into book length and needed some filler.  But the core ideas and message of the book are powerful and right on.  And I will say this, as a measure of the book's impact: more than any book I've read in a while, at several points I was compelled to put the book down and spend some serious time in contemplation and prayer.  I would guess that Pastor Hill, upon hearing that, would consider his mission accomplished with this reader.

Hill, pastor of River City Community Church in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, sounds like the kind of pastor of the kind of church I'd like to attend.  And 10:10 is the kind of book I need: a realistic, yet challenging spur for Christians to reflect on their spiritual lives, to ask why this abundant life doesn't seem so abundant.  It's a nudge to get me heading in the right direction.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!