Eats with Sinners: Reaching Hungry People Like Jesus Did

First of all, I would like to extend a heartfelt "Thank you" to Arron Chambers and his publisher for sending me a copy of "Eats With Sinners" to review for them. I have always been grateful for this generosity, and I am trying to improve at being consistent in taking the time to thank these wonderfully giving individuals in a public forum. I really appreciate your time, effort and expense in making a reviewer copy available to me. "Eats With Sinners" by Arron Chambers is an engaging non-fiction work that infects the reader with the desire to be a more effective witness. Centered around a meal motif, this "study" on evangelism is divided into 13 chapters. Each showcases a different "ingredient" necessary for developing relationships with the lost for the purpose of evangelism. There is a different recipe in each chapter, challenges to share a meal with someone to introduce them to Christ and begin building a friendship. There are also suggestions for developing yourself and creative methods for bringing the Gospel message to those around you. This is definitely a book I will refer to often, and not just because several of the recipes look yummy! I will be trying the Red Beans and Rice this week. There are some uber-imaginative techniques that can be used to establish a dialogue about Christ with just about anyone, anytime, anyplace. And when it comes to sharing Christ, I can use all of the help and encouragement I can get. These methods don't quite fit my personality and upbringing - meals were very intimate social occasions in my family. It will take a bit of practice to fully employ the practices suggested in this book, but I'm already laying the groundwork with a couple of co-workers with regard to Christ and dining together. I can't wait to see what Jesus does with these relationships!

Jesus gave us this command in Matthew 28:18-19: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Arron Chambers ([...] ) is the senior pastor of Journey Christian Church ([...]) in Greeley, Colorado. He lives out this command. His life goal is: "To go to Heaven and take as many people with me as possible!" His latest book, `Eat with Sinners: Reaching Hungry People Like Jesus Did' provides us with a biblical model for evangelism that was exemplified by Jesus. In His day, sharing a meal with someone meant that were acknowledged as an equal. It was an act of intimacy, as pointed out by Pastor Chambers. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, regularly were outraged at Jesus for the company He kept. The Hebrew word for Pharisees is `set apart' - and they lived that out, judging others and placing themselves above - and apart from - the crowd. Jesus set out to point out the hypocrisy and self-righteousness of these rules followers. The first rule for Jesus is found in Matthew 28:36-40, in response to a question from a Pharisee: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Pastor Chambers points out the fact that "Jesus eagerly ate with sinners on earth because he longed to eat with them in heaven. Jesus referred to himself as the bridegroom (Luke 5:34,35) putting on a great banquet meal (Luke 12:36; 14:13, 16, 17, 24) that one day he will eat in the kingdom of Heaven with everyone who accepts his invitation" (p. 13). `Eats with Sinners' gives us thirteen ingredients (in the form of chapters) that Jesus used in His recipe to reach lost people. The list is integrity, accessibility, grace, faith, intimacy, tolerance, resolve, urgency, mercy, humility, investment, joy, and vision. In the chapter on Urgency, Arron has this to say: "The sun is shining. The harvest is ready.... We must - with a sense of urgency - work to bring the harvest in.... The Mennonites have a saying: `We are living in the time of God's patience.' God is patiently waiting for us to open our eyes, to notice that the harvest is ready, and to help him bring it in before it's too late." (p. 131) `Eats with Sinners' is reaching me at a time when the Lord is showing me time and time again in a myriad of ways how much He loves us. I have the tendency to judge and criticize others, and not extend the compassion and love as the Lord expects. As Christians, we can also fall into a Christian clique in which we rarely connect with or interact with non-Christians. Jesus met wit

I just finished reading Arron Chamber's new book, "Eats with Sinners". Once again Arron's thoughts are provoking, stirring, and makes me examine my walk with Christ. As a Youth Minister I am always reading and being encouraged by other Christians in their writing, but Arron not only encourages, but challenges. As I look at my life and look at the people I socialize with most of the time it is with Christians, and while socializing (i.e. fellowship) is not inherently a bad thing, it is why and what I was called into. One of the best Chapters was Chapter 8 on the topic of "URGENCY", Arron reminds us what Jesus talks about in Luke 10 " The harvest is plentiful..." so many times we examine ourselves in the few of others, or we (well I being a Minister) examines churches and it can be depressing knowing your attending was 300 while the church done the street had 4 services with 300 per service, but Arron reminds me that there are so many people lost I need to stop worrying about the church down the street or the Christian sharing his faith, instead I need to pray for that church or that person and continue to reach people with the Gospel. Every Pastor, church leader, Elder, needs to read this book, needs to bring it to the attention of other leaders in the church, and then needs to take it to the church and get them to see that "eating with sinners", building relationships with those not in the church, and taking the Gospel where other people are not willing to go is exactly what Jesus would want us to do. Thank you Arron for encouraging and challenging my walk with Christ.

Eats With Sinners is an excellent reminder of the example given to us by Jesus to "seek and save the lost." This book provides a swift "kick in the pants" to all Christians to not get too comfortable serving exclusively in our own "Christian" circles, but to make the time to go out and meet lost people (people who are simply not where they need to be) where they are in their circles. There is no place (or time) for followers of Christ to be legalistic. Thanks for the reminder!

I believe that Eats With Sinners is a book that is going to have a great impact on how we reach out to people that are hungry, and are hungry for Jesus but just don't know it yet. For me it brought out how important it is for us as Christians to reach out and it also brought out the urgency, one line that really blew me away was "it is later than it ever was." Another chapter that is important to me is about Luke 14:1-24, it was the inspiration and motivation for a group in our church to serve a dinner on Christmas Day for the homeless, the lonely, the needy, those that have lost hope, those hungry for Jesus, etcEats with Sinners: Reaching Hungry People Like Jesus Did. Thank You, Arron Chambers, for writing this book. Delmar