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Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (Shapevine) by Alan Hirsch (1-Feb-2010) Paperback
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About the author
Alan Hirsch
93 books81 followersAlan Hirsch is the founding director of Forge Mission Training Network. Currently he co-leads Future Travelers, an innovative learning program helping megachurches become missional movements. Known for his innovative approach to mission, Alan is considered to be a thought-leader and key mission strategist for churches across the Western world. Hirsch is the author of The Forgotten Ways; co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come, ReJesus, and The Faith of Leap (with Michael Frost); Untamed (with Debra Hirsch); Right Here, Right Now (with Lance Ford), and On the Verge (with Dave Ferguson).
Alan is co-founder and adjunct faculty for the M.A. in Missional Church Movements at Wheaton College (Illinois). He is also adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary, George Fox Seminary, among others, and he lectures frequently throughout Australia, Europe, and the United States. He is series editor for Baker Books' Shapevine series , IVP's Forge line, and an associate editor of Leadership Journal.
His experience in leadership includes leading a local church movement among the marginalized as well as heading up the Mission and Revitalization work of his denomination. He has been on leadership team with Christian Associates, a mission agency planting churches throughout Europe. Alan is adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary and lectures frequently throughout Australia, Europe, and the U.S
Alan is co-founder and adjunct faculty for the M.A. in Missional Church Movements at Wheaton College (Illinois). He is also adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary, George Fox Seminary, among others, and he lectures frequently throughout Australia, Europe, and the United States. He is series editor for Baker Books' Shapevine series , IVP's Forge line, and an associate editor of Leadership Journal.
His experience in leadership includes leading a local church movement among the marginalized as well as heading up the Mission and Revitalization work of his denomination. He has been on leadership team with Christian Associates, a mission agency planting churches throughout Europe. Alan is adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary and lectures frequently throughout Australia, Europe, and the U.S
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May 18, 2025
A BOOK TO HELP DISCIPLES ‘GO DEEPER IN THEIR DISCIPLESHIP’
Alan and Debra Hirsch (yes, a husband/wife team) wrote in the introductory ‘Why Write This Book?’ section of this 2010 book, “We have both walked with Jesus for many years now and know personally just how difficult the path of missional discipleship can be. Following Jesus has a very clear cost. And the cost includes living a life that sometimes runs contrary to the culture around us. Serious believers who want to go deeper in their discipleship must be willing to constantly critique both personal and cultural assumptions for the sake of becoming more like Jesus. This book is about just that. Simply stated, we write to help disciples of Jesus become better and deeper disciples. In order to do this, we have selected from both our personal and ministry experience a number of ‘obstacles’ that, more than others, seem to trip up the people of God. It is these that we write about.” (Pg. 14)
They note, “The mission we are all called into will, to varying degrees, involve an active engagement with the poor and the marginalized. The Scriptures are clear about this. One cannot read the Bible without being confronted with God’s heart for outcasts of all varieties. While we have no specific chapter that deals explicitly with this, issues of justice and care for the poor will be found in many of the stories we share and are implied throughout the whole book. We are also conscious of the fact that many books have been written on this very subject, and we encourage the reader to explore them.” (Pg. 29)
They assert, “Conforming to Jesus in discipleship WILL make us godly and upright people, but let’s keep first things first. In fact, if we are going to be genuinely Christlike, we will not be conformists! For one, our Lord can hardly be called a conformist. He disturbed the status quo, railed against injustice and lack of mercy, hung out with highly questionable people, and fomented a revolution that called for the overthrow of religious oppression. He put Rome on notice that its time was coming. How can we who model ourselves after Jesus be any different?” (Pg. 49)
They state, “Discipleship clearly demands that we integrate an element of constant change and a substantial amount of risk into our lives. Following Jesus is never safe when it comes to our tamed, middle-class sensibilities. Simply encountering together the numinous Holy Spirit of God should be enough to create communitas; when we add the missional church dynamics described … above, we should EXPECT this form of camaraderie-fellowship to characterize our churches. Where the Spirit is, there will be wild community adventures.” (Pg. 96)
They recount, “We do inhabit a church of what some commentators call ‘Christianity Lite,’ and, by all accounts, it is us who have been acculturated---not the other way around. We have come to believe through hard experience and lots of reflection that the church has been deeply compromised by aspects of the prevailing culture. Christians now easily reflect the characteristics and the conditions of the wider culture. But what we have gained in relevancy we lose in witness and impact, for ‘though popular culture holds tremendous potential for good, unfortunately, today’s trend is towards a diversionary, mindless, celebrity-driven superficiality. Sadly this reflects our general societal condition, for popular culture can only rise to the spiritual, intellectual, and artistic heights of its average citizenry.’ This is not good news for missional Christianity, for if Christianity just mirrors its culture, what is the point of its mission?” (Pg. 109)
They argue, “One final point we wish to make about faulty views of church is one many of us entertain: that the church is meant to be a high-conformity community. While none of us would consciously believe this, the way the majority of our communities are configured show this to be the case. It seems to us that the more religious we get, the more exclusive we tend to become. But the gospel undermines religion; it is for the world, and it won’t be narrowed down for our own private concerns. God wants to be all inclusive… It seems that the great ingathering of the nations is constantly being hindered by people with a sinful tendency to close ranks, thus marginalizing ‘outsiders’ and people different from ourselves. But when it does this, the church cannot resist becoming a high-conformity, culturally closed, and ultimately oppressive clique. The church (both local and universal) is meant to be a motley collection of imperfect people included in the family of God by means of God’s sheer grace.” (Pg. 158)
They acknowledge, “The church has had a hard time reconciling sexuality as an aspect of Christian experience. Some very spiritual people have seriously misread the creational purposes of God in this regard and, as a result, have produced a harmful legacy for those who have inherited their defective theology. God created humans as sexual beings; in Scripture and in human experience, spirituality and sexuality are linked at a very deep level. To embrace one significant aspect of our humanity at the expense of the other MUST inevitably cause problems. Like it or not, we are very much spiritual and very much sexual. Failure to integrate these can cause us to live a fragmented life that operates between two irreconcilable levels: a disembodied spirituality that floats at least two inches above the earth AND a suppressed bodily sexuality that inevitably seeks to express itself in dark ways…
“It’s as though we believe our sexuality directly opposes our spirituality and that the more sexual we are, the less spiritual we must be. Or the reverse can also be true: the more spiritual we become the less sexual we are. While neither of these is true, one can certainly overcome sexual problems by deepening one’s spirituality. Our experience working with sexual addicts provides adequate testimony to this reality. We have observed many times dramatic decreases in sexuality ‘acting out’ when an individual grew in the ways of the Shema---in loving God and others. Relationships were the key; loving and being loved is what they really needed. As with most addictions, the presenting issue is just a symptom; the real issues are of the heart.” (Pg. 208)
They conclude, “This book has explored some of the cultural, theological, and missiological hindrances that keep us from becoming the untamed people we are created to be in Jesus. We need to move beyond our many distorted understandings of Jesus, God, self, church, sexuality, money, status, family, and mission to rediscover the sheer liberating power of the biblical gospel. We know you want it, because this is what every human being wants and is made for, Jesus sets us free! Now go and find it for yourself!” (Pg. 254-255)
This book will appeal to Christians (particularly those associated with the ‘emerging church’ movement) interested in discipleship.
Alan and Debra Hirsch (yes, a husband/wife team) wrote in the introductory ‘Why Write This Book?’ section of this 2010 book, “We have both walked with Jesus for many years now and know personally just how difficult the path of missional discipleship can be. Following Jesus has a very clear cost. And the cost includes living a life that sometimes runs contrary to the culture around us. Serious believers who want to go deeper in their discipleship must be willing to constantly critique both personal and cultural assumptions for the sake of becoming more like Jesus. This book is about just that. Simply stated, we write to help disciples of Jesus become better and deeper disciples. In order to do this, we have selected from both our personal and ministry experience a number of ‘obstacles’ that, more than others, seem to trip up the people of God. It is these that we write about.” (Pg. 14)
They note, “The mission we are all called into will, to varying degrees, involve an active engagement with the poor and the marginalized. The Scriptures are clear about this. One cannot read the Bible without being confronted with God’s heart for outcasts of all varieties. While we have no specific chapter that deals explicitly with this, issues of justice and care for the poor will be found in many of the stories we share and are implied throughout the whole book. We are also conscious of the fact that many books have been written on this very subject, and we encourage the reader to explore them.” (Pg. 29)
They assert, “Conforming to Jesus in discipleship WILL make us godly and upright people, but let’s keep first things first. In fact, if we are going to be genuinely Christlike, we will not be conformists! For one, our Lord can hardly be called a conformist. He disturbed the status quo, railed against injustice and lack of mercy, hung out with highly questionable people, and fomented a revolution that called for the overthrow of religious oppression. He put Rome on notice that its time was coming. How can we who model ourselves after Jesus be any different?” (Pg. 49)
They state, “Discipleship clearly demands that we integrate an element of constant change and a substantial amount of risk into our lives. Following Jesus is never safe when it comes to our tamed, middle-class sensibilities. Simply encountering together the numinous Holy Spirit of God should be enough to create communitas; when we add the missional church dynamics described … above, we should EXPECT this form of camaraderie-fellowship to characterize our churches. Where the Spirit is, there will be wild community adventures.” (Pg. 96)
They recount, “We do inhabit a church of what some commentators call ‘Christianity Lite,’ and, by all accounts, it is us who have been acculturated---not the other way around. We have come to believe through hard experience and lots of reflection that the church has been deeply compromised by aspects of the prevailing culture. Christians now easily reflect the characteristics and the conditions of the wider culture. But what we have gained in relevancy we lose in witness and impact, for ‘though popular culture holds tremendous potential for good, unfortunately, today’s trend is towards a diversionary, mindless, celebrity-driven superficiality. Sadly this reflects our general societal condition, for popular culture can only rise to the spiritual, intellectual, and artistic heights of its average citizenry.’ This is not good news for missional Christianity, for if Christianity just mirrors its culture, what is the point of its mission?” (Pg. 109)
They argue, “One final point we wish to make about faulty views of church is one many of us entertain: that the church is meant to be a high-conformity community. While none of us would consciously believe this, the way the majority of our communities are configured show this to be the case. It seems to us that the more religious we get, the more exclusive we tend to become. But the gospel undermines religion; it is for the world, and it won’t be narrowed down for our own private concerns. God wants to be all inclusive… It seems that the great ingathering of the nations is constantly being hindered by people with a sinful tendency to close ranks, thus marginalizing ‘outsiders’ and people different from ourselves. But when it does this, the church cannot resist becoming a high-conformity, culturally closed, and ultimately oppressive clique. The church (both local and universal) is meant to be a motley collection of imperfect people included in the family of God by means of God’s sheer grace.” (Pg. 158)
They acknowledge, “The church has had a hard time reconciling sexuality as an aspect of Christian experience. Some very spiritual people have seriously misread the creational purposes of God in this regard and, as a result, have produced a harmful legacy for those who have inherited their defective theology. God created humans as sexual beings; in Scripture and in human experience, spirituality and sexuality are linked at a very deep level. To embrace one significant aspect of our humanity at the expense of the other MUST inevitably cause problems. Like it or not, we are very much spiritual and very much sexual. Failure to integrate these can cause us to live a fragmented life that operates between two irreconcilable levels: a disembodied spirituality that floats at least two inches above the earth AND a suppressed bodily sexuality that inevitably seeks to express itself in dark ways…
“It’s as though we believe our sexuality directly opposes our spirituality and that the more sexual we are, the less spiritual we must be. Or the reverse can also be true: the more spiritual we become the less sexual we are. While neither of these is true, one can certainly overcome sexual problems by deepening one’s spirituality. Our experience working with sexual addicts provides adequate testimony to this reality. We have observed many times dramatic decreases in sexuality ‘acting out’ when an individual grew in the ways of the Shema---in loving God and others. Relationships were the key; loving and being loved is what they really needed. As with most addictions, the presenting issue is just a symptom; the real issues are of the heart.” (Pg. 208)
They conclude, “This book has explored some of the cultural, theological, and missiological hindrances that keep us from becoming the untamed people we are created to be in Jesus. We need to move beyond our many distorted understandings of Jesus, God, self, church, sexuality, money, status, family, and mission to rediscover the sheer liberating power of the biblical gospel. We know you want it, because this is what every human being wants and is made for, Jesus sets us free! Now go and find it for yourself!” (Pg. 254-255)
This book will appeal to Christians (particularly those associated with the ‘emerging church’ movement) interested in discipleship.
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