Saturate, Jeff Vanderstelt

Jeff Vanderstelt was working at one of the most influential churches in America, Willow Creek Church in Illinois, when he felt God calling him to something different.  So he moved across the country to Washington to plant a church.  In Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life, Vanderstelt describes his shift from the "church on Sunday" mentality to a lifestyle of full-life discipleship.

For Vanderstelt, life is a mission.  Jesus "lives for us and, by his Spirit, he lives in us and works through us."  Our lives should be saturated with Jesus so that we can saturate our communities with Jesus's love.  Throughout the book, Vanderstelt tells stories of people whose lives reflect this perspective, believers who "engage in the everyday stuff of life with the goal of seeing Jesus saturation for everyone in every place."

To Vanderstelt, "all of life is mission and everyone is a missionary.  Life is the mission trip."  I love his vision.  I love this model for the church.  In rare moments in my Christian life, I have been in communities like this.  This attitude and these communities are all too rare.  Vanderstelt gives fabulous examples and provides a model for living on mission, but, as inspiring as he is, he doesn't sufficiently address some of the mundane "everyday stuff of life." 

Sometimes with long commutes, long work days, and several evenings a week with family commitments, even the most missional believer is worn out at the end of the day with little reserve for missional living.  Maybe this is the topic of the next book, making life changes that free up your mind, spirit, and calendar for missional living.  Or maybe my focus is off.  I was just left with a sense of "Wow, I wish my life were like that, but it just isn't and I don't see it happening for me."  With this in mind, please don't hear me saying I disagree with Vanderstelt or don't value his teaching.  I'm just saying some people like me might need more than this book, we need a life coach to help us figure out how to carve out time and rearrange priorities. 


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