The Gift of the Outsider: What Living in the Margins Teaches Us About Faith

by Alicia J. Akins

Embracing the Spiritual Lessons of Unbelonging

Too often, cultural belonging becomes a battle, and its winners gain the access, comfort, safety, community. Yet for those on the margins—set apart from their culture by differences such as ethnicity, class, ability, and faith—God offers something even greater.

The Gift of the Outsider celebrates the blessings found in unbelonging—and calls Christians of all backgrounds to love and listen to their community’s outcasts. As a Christian, a Black American, a woman, and an expatriate, author Alicia J. Akins offers heartfelt reflections on her own experiences as an outsider. She illuminates how we can cherish the unique gifts that God bestows on those who endure loneliness and adversity encourage and humbly receive the invaluable insights outsiders of all kinds have to offer delight in how the differences within God’s people reflect his majesty—and how Christ’s reign unifies all believers Compassionate and biblically grounded, The Gift of the Outsider enriches today’s broader conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion, and is sure to encourage and challenge outsiders and insiders alike.

Genres: Nonfiction, Christian

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2023

About the author

Alicia Akins is a writer and recovering expat based in DC. After living and working in Asia for five years, she considers it a second home. She is a Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies student at RTS, Washington and serves as a deaconess in her church, Grace DC Downtown. You can find more of her writing at FeetCryMercy.com​ and follow her on twitter ​@feetcrymercy.

Reviews

[Lori Hershberger]

I grew up on the inside of a tight-knit religious minority that was on the "outside." Because of this, I've experienced both life on the inside and on the outside. I have felt very alone and on the outside, and yet this book has opened my eyes to ways that I've been on the inside too and subtly pushed away outsiders.
As a bit of a cultural chameleon, usually my strategy is to adapt to the prevailing culture, which can be good or it can be bad. But in this book, Alicia Akins talks about all the things insiders can learn from outsiders, and how being on the outside can be a gift. Those who are on the outside are not necessarily called to adapt to become insiders, even when it is possible.
This book has broadened my perspective.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can outsiders find a home in the church? In The Gift of the Outsider, Alicia J. Akins writes what living in the margins teaches us about faith. In just over 200 pages, this book celebrates the blessings found in unbelonging while calling Christians to love and listen to the outcasts of this world.

The book begins with Akins speaking up about “insider culture” at church. As someone who has attended the same church for my entire lifetime, I was reminded that I must be proactive in understanding the viewpoints of newcomers and outside perspectives.


A Christian, Black American, Woman, and Expatriate

Akins is able to use both the Bible and her experiences as a Christian, Black American, woman, and expatriate to help us understand. When looking at materialism, she points us to Amos 6:4-7, Luke 12:15, Revelation 18:7, and more. She shows how the gift of lack provides better conditions for a poor spirit to grow, even mentioning of her own extended season of lack.

I was most moved to read the chapter dedicated to “Devotion: The Gift of Singleness.” She is direct in saying that singles and other unmarried people are often overlooked in the church. She shows that singles have the gift of dependence on God and independence on Christian community. She declares that her goal is to abound in her season of singleness, trusting in God to provide all and being a witness for Christ in the world.


Connected in Christ

Reflection questions are included at the end of every chapter, making this a great book for small groups or personal devotions. Her questions are pointed, yet helpful. For instance: “How often do you wonder about who the least comfortable person in the room is and what it might take to share the burden of discomfort?”

The book ends by taking a hard look at the gifts of suffering, including endurance, lament, and grief over injustice. She challenges churches and their majority members to have the humility to listen, recognize concerns, repent of sin, be open about our weaknesses, and receive challenges to the status quo as opportunities to grow. She calls us to be connected in Christ.


I received a media copy of The Gift of the Outsider and this is my honest review.

[Michelle VanLoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thought-provoking, soul-stretching, wise, prophetic book is about the gifts outsiders bring to us as individuals, church communities, and cultures. Excellent reflection questions at the end of each chapter call us to apply and live the message. We will not mature, nor will we learn to see beyond our comfortable social and faith silos, without doing the work Akins prescribes. She writes with insight, a good measure of self-depreciating humor, and lived experience that has given her wisdom we all need right now.

[Dorothy Greco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Akins' brilliance as a writer/thinker shines through here. She leans on her experiences as one often living on the margins to explore the inherent value such individuals can bring to relationships and institutions. This book will not only validate those who, like Akins, find themselves living as outsiders, but should also cause those on the inside to evaluate how they treat and perceive people who see life from a different vantage point. The book is seeped in Scripture, beautifully written, insightful, challenging, and encouraging. Everything I want in a book!

[Prasanta Verma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Akins presents us with a thoughtful and wise offering on the gifts of being an outsider. The author draws from her own experiences of being an outsider in several contexts, such as in places of worship and in other countries and cultures. We're presented also with the gifts of suffering, and are challenged at a deeper level to consider what we can do if we are outside of dominant culture, or for those who are on the inside, to consider the value of other perspectives. Discerning, wise, and perceptive, Akins is a brilliant voice we need now more than ever.

[Letitia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so pleased to read this second book by Alicia Akins, and honestly, I got way more out of it. It is undoubtedly somewhat due to content, because let's face it, when have I not felt like an outsider? But it's also because Akins has clearly grown as a writer and I found the maturity of her writing voice very easy to connect with. I especially liked the elements of her personal story that she shared, and the frankness with which exclusion and cliques in the church are discussed.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful approach with such practical applications. Both those who feel they don't belong and those who do (but may not realize they're insiders) will find grace and challenges in the pages.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the day and times we live in, this book gives us an extremely broad perspecdtive.