Sub-merge

by John B. Hayes, John Perkins (Foreword)

It's time to change the face of poverty, to live our faith authentically, and to get involved with the people who need help. It's time to sub-merge ourselves, to go deep--beneath the surface of shallow living--and make a difference in our world! Follow author John Hayes as he lives out his faith on some of the toughest streets and poorest ghettos in the world. Learn what real compassion looks like in the trenches. Discover why people of faith cannot ignore the poor and how the St. Francis model of compassion can help alleviate suffering today. You'll also be energized to action through an inside look at the workings of InnerCHANGE, a mission organization that seeks to work among the poor, rather than just offering aid and handouts. Readers will come away with practical ways they can work for justice and find significance in the process.

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 11, 2007

Reviews

[Mitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book earns two stars due to having approximately that amount of good content. I do like the approach the author takes to living in and among the poor in order to preach the Gospel and to help them...that shows a lot of compassion and dedication to both God and people.

However, the author does a number of things poorly. In no particular order, these are:

1. He is overly fond, as many preachers are, of making word plays regardless of whether they convey truth best or not. This is a common practice; saying things like 'the ideal, the ordeal and the new deal' to describe varied conditions is fitting an artificial construction on top of real life. Also, can we just drop things like 'grace space', 'journey people' and 'incarnational process'? I question whether such specialized vocabulary is necessary beyond making his mission sound more impressive.

2. Through experience, he and others have required that people devote years of their lives to pursue this somewhat new form of monasticism. He doesn't offer any other way to people to help the poor. No doubt he has good reasons for this, but it is limiting. Most people are not called to be that extreme.

3. His repeated format of injecting a second story on half pages is distracting and annoying. He has one narrative going, then inserts a second one in highlighted print on the same page...and both go on for several more pages. This interrupts the reader's focus and requires flipping back and forth to achieve continuity. It's just poor construction.

4. He goes beyond the Biblical text multiple times. When you see words like 'I suppose', 'I imagine' and 'We suspect', you know he's going into private speculation and the Bible does not say what he claims to be true. This is opening him up to error as he seeks to bolster his stances with his opinions.

On the other hand, I like the fact that he quotes both Christian and non-Christian sources, and his stories about real interactions relieve the excess Christian vocabulary. There are solidly good messages here; I just wish they weren't mixed in with unnecessary, pretentious and erroneous narrative practices.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because my friend William Wallace works for InnerChange, the ministry this book is presenting.

There are two things I really liked about the book: The prayer-walks around the places where people in this ministry work. To pray for the place where you live walking around it is a beautiful discipline. The second one is the passion of those in incarnational ministries, living and sharing among the poor.

On the personal side, there is a chapter, maybe the former to last, in which Hayes tells the story of one of his visits to Cambodia when they prayed for a sick woman about to die the day before he came back to the US. After coming back, they received a letter from a pastor friend in Cambodia saying the woman had died. It was crushing for him and this, together with other situations in life, sent him through a state of depression. After a few years, he went back to Cambodia where he heard from his pastor friend that the woman who died at the time was a different woman. The one he prayed for was still alive. It shocked me, it touched me, and I cried.

In the last chapter I enjoyed seeing how many people from several elite universities are dedicating themselves to live and serve among the poor to bring Christ to them. Inspiring. I'm thinking...

[Virginia Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

This book is helpful for those who want to see gaining change happen in the lives of the poor, and it doesn’t glaze over the difficult required.

[Roger Burk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hayes describes the calling and to some extent the methods of InnerCHANGE, a mission order he helped found to live "incarnationally" among the poor of the world. The idea of joining the poor in this way is compelling, and Hayes seems irked that more Christians don't follow it. Perhaps Jesus is too. He links his order to the Franciscan and Dominican orders that have long had a ministry among the poor, though InnerCHANGE is evangelical in outlook (apparently with some Catholic members), not celibate (in that it includes married couples), and does not have life vows. Hayes does not explain why the order is scattered so widely around the world--clearly a lot of resources get used up traveling to exotic locations. Exactly what the members of the order do once they set up housekeeping among the poor is obscure, beyond looking sadly at the sin and misery around them, praying, chatting up whoever will listen, and maybe running a clinic or hospice. But clearly this is God's work, and one must wish them success, growth, and many volunteers and other helpers.

[Benjamin Shurance · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine, fine book on the shape of Christian living and incarnational mission among the poor. Personal and biblical stories illustrate the call to a life of justice, mercy and contemplation.