When Necessary Use Words: Changing Lives Through Worship, Justice and Evangelism by Mike Pilavachi (7-May-2007) Paperback

by Mike Pilavachi

Deep down we know There has to be more than singing songs on Sunday morning, handing out tracts at work, or helping out at the soup kitchen. How do we integrate worship, evangelism, and justice into our lives as a whole, rather than compartmentalizing all three? Mike Pilavachi wants to see all three elements come together! With humorous prose and fascinating stories, he shows how the natural outflow of worship is telling people about Jesus, and compassionately helping them navigate the injustices of the world. We can t invite someone to church and ignore their physical needs; nor can we give out food at the local church pantry and disregard people s spiritual hunger. Says A life of passionate worship means feeding the hungry, standing up for those who suffer injustice...We must preach the gospel at all times, speaking and acting out God s love to a hurt and broken world.

Paperback

First published May 7, 2007

Reviews

[Tess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a little scattered, and at first I had trouble zeroing in on what the point of it was. Sure, these anecdotes from Mr. Pilavachi's personal life are nice, but how are they useful to the rest of us? About halfway through the book, though, he gets down to business. There were a number of topics that really spoke to me. One was his discussion about how to actively serve people we come into contact with. He charges us to not be so busy, and to look up from our agendas and make eye contact with people. If we see someone who obviously needs something or seems to want to talk, we might be able to help that person out somehow. I ignore pretty much everybody I don't know, so this is really challenging for me. Also, he puts a lot of emphasis on serving those around us out of a spirit of love. When you get to know people in need, you genuinely do love them. You don't just look at them as possible numbers for your spreadsheet, converts to add to your resume. We weren't commanded to "have bigger numbers," we were commanded to love our neighbors. So this is all really simple stuff, but things we often overlook, and I think Pilavachi found a way to put these simple ideas that made sense to me.

[Scott Sivyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a little bit of an eye opener to something that I already knew but need to be remind of. We can not just go to the building we call church and not do anything the rest of the week. We need to be the hands and feet every day if we really want to be the church.

Mike uses 1 Corth 13:13 "...but the greatest of these is charity"

[Steve Carroll jr · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I agree with the author often I find the book itself to be a bit scattered. I was also looking for a resource that can be used. I found this book to little help in the way of a prattle resource that I can point others to.