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Staying is the new Going; Choosing to love where God places you
"Staying is the new Going" is a call back to the places we already live. From city planning gurus to soccer moms to church leaders everyone seems to desire a return back to the ordinary places where we already live. In a world looking for the extraordinary, how do we live faithfully present in the ordinary moments and places?
This is a call to reconsider the old paradigm of "Go Forth!" and instead trade it for staying forth. Part confessional, part narrative, part challenge this book is both encouraging and challenging. A far cry from the "do more and God will love you" message we often tell ourselves, this book simplifies mission and tells stories of others who are living faithfully present in small and unique ways. Join other fellow strugglers in a journey that might just take you nowhere.
This is a call to reconsider the old paradigm of "Go Forth!" and instead trade it for staying forth. Part confessional, part narrative, part challenge this book is both encouraging and challenging. A far cry from the "do more and God will love you" message we often tell ourselves, this book simplifies mission and tells stories of others who are living faithfully present in small and unique ways. Join other fellow strugglers in a journey that might just take you nowhere.
172 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2015
18 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
About the author
Alan C. Briggs
5 books24 followersAlan Briggs is a dude, a dad, an author, adventurer, involved neighbor, pastor and an accidental head of an elementary school board. He is a consultant, life coach, speaker, pastor and Director of Frontline Church Planting. He is also the Multiplying Pastor at Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs where he makes disciples and trains leaders to multiply.
His speaking and writing focus on equipping and unlocking the saints for effective ministry inside and outside the family of God. His books "Staying is the New Going" (2015) and "Guardrails" (2016) focus on the people of Jesus "making a scene" in the world. His next book, "Everyone's a Genius", releases in September.
He and his wife, Julie, have four kids, two adopted and two biological, and are growing roots in their city. He loves the church and is passionate about equipping leaders and churches to multiply through relational, experiential and formal learning. He loves climbing, camping, grilling and connecting with his neighbors.
His speaking and writing focus on equipping and unlocking the saints for effective ministry inside and outside the family of God. His books "Staying is the New Going" (2015) and "Guardrails" (2016) focus on the people of Jesus "making a scene" in the world. His next book, "Everyone's a Genius", releases in September.
He and his wife, Julie, have four kids, two adopted and two biological, and are growing roots in their city. He loves the church and is passionate about equipping leaders and churches to multiply through relational, experiential and formal learning. He loves climbing, camping, grilling and connecting with his neighbors.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 13, 2019
This is for everyone who struggles in place.
If you feel called to serve at home and your community then stay.
I came back home because I knew that’s where I knew that I was needed and had to be.
And this book emphasizes one of my lines that I say. “If you go away and come back, I’ll leave the porch light on for you”.
This is also a good book for young people trying to find a meaningful purpose in life.
There will always be stayers and goers. And it is not a choice taken lightly.
If you feel called to serve at home and your community then stay.
I came back home because I knew that’s where I knew that I was needed and had to be.
And this book emphasizes one of my lines that I say. “If you go away and come back, I’ll leave the porch light on for you”.
This is also a good book for young people trying to find a meaningful purpose in life.
There will always be stayers and goers. And it is not a choice taken lightly.
January 23, 2024
I liked this book a lot. The title alone is worth the price! This also set the stage for my creation of a neighborhood mission trip series. Let me share some of my favorite quotes from the book:
For a long time now, mission has been framed as a far-off endeavor, a trip requiring a passport, a plane ticket, and a lot of packing, but God's mission is active everywhere, which means God's mission is active among your family, your friends, and community. For God's work to become tangible, it must first become local, invading our everyday thinking and the places we inhabit.
The ideas and dreams you have are good. They just need to be connected to actual living, breathing people with souls. This is why we pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth or in my place as it is in heaven." For a long time now, mission has been framed as a far-off endeavor, a trip requiring a passport, a plane ticket, and a lot of packing, but God's mission is active everywhere, which means God's mission is active among family, friends, and community.
For God's work to become more tangible, it must first become local, invading our everyday thinking and the places that we inhabit. The place you already live is the most obvious place to begin your mission, but it is also the most overlooked place for mission trips and ministry. The church was born to a spirit-filled group of disciples who expected to see the gospel spread from their place to the whole world. Acts 1:8 reads, "But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be witness in my Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria into the end of the world."
When rightly applied, the gospel propels us in an outward direction. Join the mission of God, burst through our comfort zone, and calls us into non-traditional ways of loving people. We are invited to be sent ones taking on Jesus' mission to seek and save the loss, but also taking on Jesus's incarnational posture. In their book, The Leap of Faith, Michael Frost, and Alan Hirsch observe that Western churches are suffering from a sense of suburban homelessness, never at home in its local neighborhood. "They're describing the essence of displacement. We have a place, but we are somehow removed from it. We are the ones that are displaced."
Rethinking mission trips. The idea of long-term commitments applies not only to our particular place, our global mission efforts can sometimes drift into a form of conquering. We put a pin on a map and say, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt." While there is certainly nothing wrong with mission trips, we can accidentally slip into mission tourism, attending the mission's vacation of our choice.
Emily T. Wierenga, author of Atlas Girl, reflects about religious tourism. She writes, "On these trips, we view another part of the world, how they live, and we have our hearts move for the things that move God." These trips usually help us, but not necessarily them. That's okay as long as we don't inflict harm in the process, so long as we don't go there to use the locals, so long as we don't go there with the wrong motive or impression to erase some guilt that we have or to do an active service that will somehow fix the world. Not only do these attitude shame versus dignify the national, but they also prevent us from understanding the humility of our situation or the majesty of God.
I suggest that we ask ourselves this question. Will our church or organization continue to follow up with the people we've met with the intention of developing a long-term relationship? If not, what we may be doing is more mission tourism than world missions. The goal of any mission trip is to join God's mission. Joining God's mission does not necessarily require a trip. Living in the outward direction is a posture, not a destination. The gospel propels us away from churches, our desires, and our security. When the decision to stay in a place is understood missionally, the impact of faithful presence usually increases.
Today, the opportunities for reaching the nations can happen by going or by staying. Decades of globalization have brought the world to us. Many Christians have a heart for the nations, buy fair trade products, wear TOMS shoes, sponsor a child, pray for unreached people groups, but many of these same Christians can't tell you the names of their neighbors. We have accidentally depersonalized missions by imagining villages halfway across the world instead of our next-door neighbors.
Don't use global engagement as an excuse for local disengagement. We need to continue praying for serving and traveling to other nations to show and tell of the life transforming story of Jesus, but be careful of ministry wanderlust lead you to miss the people right here under your nose. We need to use the resources God gave us to help those who are close and those who are far away.
Staying does not conjure the same emotions or fundraising efforts. Committing to stay in one place and work for its good might be the most counter-cultural, transformative thing we can do. We must be careful to not be all mission and no incarnation. We have opportunities to make disciples as we weave through our days in the coffee shop, on the bleachers at our kids' soccer practice, during an awkward conversation with a co-worker, or on our driveway talking with neighbors.
These are all necessary stops in the neighborhood mission trip. The beauty is always in the moment when they say, "I'm realizing I can be a missionary right here in the city. I don't have to go overseas, although someday I might get to go overseas, bingo." As we equip people for mission, local training can function as both a strategy to reach your place for Jesus and a training ground for the future.
Most spiritual conquest and colonization liken people to projects that we must accomplish and these vulnerabilities are aggravated by a short-term, unrooted posture toward a place. If we are relationally investing in people today but gone tomorrow, we can leave people feeling abandoned and devalued. Jesus used parties as opportunities to make theological statements of who is welcome, who is worth risking our reputation for.
In Luke 14, he tells the parable of a banquet feast. That's Luke 14:16-23. The first thing to note about this parable is the age-old plight of busyness. Let's not blame Western culture for our busyness. It's right here in the pages of scripture. Don't get discouraged when people turn you down and seem to be terminally unavailable. Keep inviting them and look to find others who want to accept your invitation.
Staying is most powerful when going is the most logical thing to do. After Hurricane Katrina, I led one of many teams that went down to help with rebuilding. We went to a small rural strip south of New Orleans. The damage was devastating. There were cars and trees, huge shrimp boats blocking the road into town. Some of the families we met had been there for generations. They had no plan of leaving. Then many people thought twice about staying. I remember gutting a church building. After our work one day, a local pastor told me he had reached out to the church's pastor and received no calls back. The whole congregation was probably gone for good.
Living a life of mission is hardest when you have nowhere to hide. Proximity allows others to view pieces of your lives through a glass house. Family and friends and neighbors see us in our grumpiest moments. Here's the good news though. Others have nowhere to hide either. After entering our neighborhood and rebuilding relationships with a serving posture, we began to develop friendships. This was exciting. We were finally getting somewhere, I thought. Then we experienced a strange step, being served in return. The gospel makes the most sense in proximity. Perhaps this is because proximity invites us to taste what Jesus tasted in coming to earth.
Christians can turn our homes into fortresses away from the stress and worries of the world. We can't end up being so busy attending church events and gatherings with other Christians and teaching a Bible study that we just want to collapse on the couch and turn our time off. If people don't know Jesus enter our homes, we have the chance to immerse them in a loving family and community.
I hope they smell the aroma of Christ, not the mothballs of stress and discontentment. If our homes begin to function as castles, our kids, our family, our neighbors will never get to experience how the gospel tastes. How sad would it be if our neighbors only know us as the ones who drive to church on the weekends but never bring the gospel home with us? We can take comfort that the bar for community in North America is set really low. This is good news. Any attempt at a faithful presence, no matter how small, will be noticed.
In case you're wondering, God is already at work in your friends, your neighbors, and your city. You don't need to take Him anywhere. The battle for people is not your battle, it's His. It's not your ministry, it's His. We are returning to things, people, and places that we have drifted away from. This will bring us to our knees in independence upon our God as He brings us into relationship with those around us. Our eyes have been veiled for too long, pointing too high on the horizon.
For a long time now, mission has been framed as a far-off endeavor, a trip requiring a passport, a plane ticket, and a lot of packing, but God's mission is active everywhere, which means God's mission is active among your family, your friends, and community. For God's work to become tangible, it must first become local, invading our everyday thinking and the places we inhabit.
The ideas and dreams you have are good. They just need to be connected to actual living, breathing people with souls. This is why we pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth or in my place as it is in heaven." For a long time now, mission has been framed as a far-off endeavor, a trip requiring a passport, a plane ticket, and a lot of packing, but God's mission is active everywhere, which means God's mission is active among family, friends, and community.
For God's work to become more tangible, it must first become local, invading our everyday thinking and the places that we inhabit. The place you already live is the most obvious place to begin your mission, but it is also the most overlooked place for mission trips and ministry. The church was born to a spirit-filled group of disciples who expected to see the gospel spread from their place to the whole world. Acts 1:8 reads, "But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be witness in my Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria into the end of the world."
When rightly applied, the gospel propels us in an outward direction. Join the mission of God, burst through our comfort zone, and calls us into non-traditional ways of loving people. We are invited to be sent ones taking on Jesus' mission to seek and save the loss, but also taking on Jesus's incarnational posture. In their book, The Leap of Faith, Michael Frost, and Alan Hirsch observe that Western churches are suffering from a sense of suburban homelessness, never at home in its local neighborhood. "They're describing the essence of displacement. We have a place, but we are somehow removed from it. We are the ones that are displaced."
Rethinking mission trips. The idea of long-term commitments applies not only to our particular place, our global mission efforts can sometimes drift into a form of conquering. We put a pin on a map and say, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt." While there is certainly nothing wrong with mission trips, we can accidentally slip into mission tourism, attending the mission's vacation of our choice.
Emily T. Wierenga, author of Atlas Girl, reflects about religious tourism. She writes, "On these trips, we view another part of the world, how they live, and we have our hearts move for the things that move God." These trips usually help us, but not necessarily them. That's okay as long as we don't inflict harm in the process, so long as we don't go there to use the locals, so long as we don't go there with the wrong motive or impression to erase some guilt that we have or to do an active service that will somehow fix the world. Not only do these attitude shame versus dignify the national, but they also prevent us from understanding the humility of our situation or the majesty of God.
I suggest that we ask ourselves this question. Will our church or organization continue to follow up with the people we've met with the intention of developing a long-term relationship? If not, what we may be doing is more mission tourism than world missions. The goal of any mission trip is to join God's mission. Joining God's mission does not necessarily require a trip. Living in the outward direction is a posture, not a destination. The gospel propels us away from churches, our desires, and our security. When the decision to stay in a place is understood missionally, the impact of faithful presence usually increases.
Today, the opportunities for reaching the nations can happen by going or by staying. Decades of globalization have brought the world to us. Many Christians have a heart for the nations, buy fair trade products, wear TOMS shoes, sponsor a child, pray for unreached people groups, but many of these same Christians can't tell you the names of their neighbors. We have accidentally depersonalized missions by imagining villages halfway across the world instead of our next-door neighbors.
Don't use global engagement as an excuse for local disengagement. We need to continue praying for serving and traveling to other nations to show and tell of the life transforming story of Jesus, but be careful of ministry wanderlust lead you to miss the people right here under your nose. We need to use the resources God gave us to help those who are close and those who are far away.
Staying does not conjure the same emotions or fundraising efforts. Committing to stay in one place and work for its good might be the most counter-cultural, transformative thing we can do. We must be careful to not be all mission and no incarnation. We have opportunities to make disciples as we weave through our days in the coffee shop, on the bleachers at our kids' soccer practice, during an awkward conversation with a co-worker, or on our driveway talking with neighbors.
These are all necessary stops in the neighborhood mission trip. The beauty is always in the moment when they say, "I'm realizing I can be a missionary right here in the city. I don't have to go overseas, although someday I might get to go overseas, bingo." As we equip people for mission, local training can function as both a strategy to reach your place for Jesus and a training ground for the future.
Most spiritual conquest and colonization liken people to projects that we must accomplish and these vulnerabilities are aggravated by a short-term, unrooted posture toward a place. If we are relationally investing in people today but gone tomorrow, we can leave people feeling abandoned and devalued. Jesus used parties as opportunities to make theological statements of who is welcome, who is worth risking our reputation for.
In Luke 14, he tells the parable of a banquet feast. That's Luke 14:16-23. The first thing to note about this parable is the age-old plight of busyness. Let's not blame Western culture for our busyness. It's right here in the pages of scripture. Don't get discouraged when people turn you down and seem to be terminally unavailable. Keep inviting them and look to find others who want to accept your invitation.
Staying is most powerful when going is the most logical thing to do. After Hurricane Katrina, I led one of many teams that went down to help with rebuilding. We went to a small rural strip south of New Orleans. The damage was devastating. There were cars and trees, huge shrimp boats blocking the road into town. Some of the families we met had been there for generations. They had no plan of leaving. Then many people thought twice about staying. I remember gutting a church building. After our work one day, a local pastor told me he had reached out to the church's pastor and received no calls back. The whole congregation was probably gone for good.
Living a life of mission is hardest when you have nowhere to hide. Proximity allows others to view pieces of your lives through a glass house. Family and friends and neighbors see us in our grumpiest moments. Here's the good news though. Others have nowhere to hide either. After entering our neighborhood and rebuilding relationships with a serving posture, we began to develop friendships. This was exciting. We were finally getting somewhere, I thought. Then we experienced a strange step, being served in return. The gospel makes the most sense in proximity. Perhaps this is because proximity invites us to taste what Jesus tasted in coming to earth.
Christians can turn our homes into fortresses away from the stress and worries of the world. We can't end up being so busy attending church events and gatherings with other Christians and teaching a Bible study that we just want to collapse on the couch and turn our time off. If people don't know Jesus enter our homes, we have the chance to immerse them in a loving family and community.
I hope they smell the aroma of Christ, not the mothballs of stress and discontentment. If our homes begin to function as castles, our kids, our family, our neighbors will never get to experience how the gospel tastes. How sad would it be if our neighbors only know us as the ones who drive to church on the weekends but never bring the gospel home with us? We can take comfort that the bar for community in North America is set really low. This is good news. Any attempt at a faithful presence, no matter how small, will be noticed.
In case you're wondering, God is already at work in your friends, your neighbors, and your city. You don't need to take Him anywhere. The battle for people is not your battle, it's His. It's not your ministry, it's His. We are returning to things, people, and places that we have drifted away from. This will bring us to our knees in independence upon our God as He brings us into relationship with those around us. Our eyes have been veiled for too long, pointing too high on the horizon.
July 5, 2024
Challenged and empowered to become a faithful presence where the Lord has me.
The book felt repetitive but it was helpful to have the reminders and many real life examples/stories!
The book felt repetitive but it was helpful to have the reminders and many real life examples/stories!
January 27, 2022
I'm giving this a four star rating because it was conviction forming and gave me a new frame to think about the question of ministering in a place. While I don't agree with the form of how things are put, the substance was challenging and examining. I think I will have to read through it again and reabsorb because it is such a paradigm shifting book.
April 13, 2018
Oh my, life-changing book. The title pretty much sums up the mission of our particular family the past 2 years and the book puts into words the philosophy of place and outreach and decision-making filters that we have developed the past several years. Still learned a lot from the book and was renewed in purpose and passion. The metric questions in the last chapter were really helpful for us too, we are making a spreadsheet to track them in our own lives. Another big take away was that we are called to be faithful, God does the work of turning our faithfulness into fruitfulness in His timing.
January 20, 2016
Easy
I greatly enjoyed the drama of decision as the author processes his experience in staying and allows the reader access to the prices of learning to become a part of a much bigger whole. Life is so much bigger than all the answers we rehearse and Staying takes on the author's journey through place
I greatly enjoyed the drama of decision as the author processes his experience in staying and allows the reader access to the prices of learning to become a part of a much bigger whole. Life is so much bigger than all the answers we rehearse and Staying takes on the author's journey through place
March 5, 2021
If you liked The New Parish you’ll love Staying is the New Going!
If you have a nagging sense of adventure you think is calling you out, yet feel torn about where you’re at and what God has called you to there, this book will encourage and inspire you.
Wherever you are, Alan’s book will challenge you to reconsider the notion of “staying forth” reminding you that “Like incarnation, longevity is not passive” and “There are no incarnational strategists, only practitioners.”
Briggs is clear, his work is “less about tactics and more about a way of life, postures and rhythms. Strategies wear out with time, but proper rhythms mature us and give us ever-expanding influence.” In Staying is the New Going, Alan demonstrates for the reader what helpful cadence can feel like.
For so many the notion of going is over-romanticized and or over-spiritualized, forgetting that we’ve been sent to wherever we are right now. Alan reminds the reader that “The gospel must start in our own front yards.” By unpacking a recalibration of mission from dislocation to relocation, Alan uses his own ministry experience as an example of using faithfulness as a metric noting “It’s more about covenant than emotions, more about obedience than motion.”
Staying is the New Going challenges the current notion of transience by encouraging the reader to stop paying spiritual rent and sign on to a mortgage.
Heavily influenced by Michael Frost (who wrote the forward), Alan Hirsch, and others of the same vein, Briggs cautions us not to “use global engagement as an excuse for local disengagement.” “Mission devoid of incarnation leads to a posture of conquest. Incarnation without mission leads to a posture of acceptance where we lose the desire to let Jesus spill out of us. Both are dangers.”
Ultimately Briggs reminds us that, “the gospel makes the most sense in proximity.” Quoting Sean Benesh, he notes, “presence gives proclamation legs to stand on.” In the end Alan invites us to consider “a theology of place that is more of a covenant than a crush.” By committing to a place, we combat the notion of longing for someplace better. It is true as Briggs points out, “It’s not wrong to leave, but it’s easy to leave for the wrong reasons.”
Alan is wise to suggest that, “part of Satan’s plan is to lessen the impact of Christians through transience.” Staying is the New Going provides a framework for “dwelling well.”
If you have a nagging sense of adventure you think is calling you out, yet feel torn about where you’re at and what God has called you to there, this book will encourage and inspire you.
Wherever you are, Alan’s book will challenge you to reconsider the notion of “staying forth” reminding you that “Like incarnation, longevity is not passive” and “There are no incarnational strategists, only practitioners.”
Briggs is clear, his work is “less about tactics and more about a way of life, postures and rhythms. Strategies wear out with time, but proper rhythms mature us and give us ever-expanding influence.” In Staying is the New Going, Alan demonstrates for the reader what helpful cadence can feel like.
For so many the notion of going is over-romanticized and or over-spiritualized, forgetting that we’ve been sent to wherever we are right now. Alan reminds the reader that “The gospel must start in our own front yards.” By unpacking a recalibration of mission from dislocation to relocation, Alan uses his own ministry experience as an example of using faithfulness as a metric noting “It’s more about covenant than emotions, more about obedience than motion.”
Staying is the New Going challenges the current notion of transience by encouraging the reader to stop paying spiritual rent and sign on to a mortgage.
Heavily influenced by Michael Frost (who wrote the forward), Alan Hirsch, and others of the same vein, Briggs cautions us not to “use global engagement as an excuse for local disengagement.” “Mission devoid of incarnation leads to a posture of conquest. Incarnation without mission leads to a posture of acceptance where we lose the desire to let Jesus spill out of us. Both are dangers.”
Ultimately Briggs reminds us that, “the gospel makes the most sense in proximity.” Quoting Sean Benesh, he notes, “presence gives proclamation legs to stand on.” In the end Alan invites us to consider “a theology of place that is more of a covenant than a crush.” By committing to a place, we combat the notion of longing for someplace better. It is true as Briggs points out, “It’s not wrong to leave, but it’s easy to leave for the wrong reasons.”
Alan is wise to suggest that, “part of Satan’s plan is to lessen the impact of Christians through transience.” Staying is the New Going provides a framework for “dwelling well.”
January 24, 2021
This was a really good book for me to be reading right now. It encompasses some lessons I have been learning over the last two years. It also read my mail and highlighted so many things I have believed over the years. I have been running for so long and all I want is to put roots down and find my sense of place. That takes time to achieve. A commitment to staying instead of going makes lasting impact. This book is full of encouragement and practical's. It's an eye-opening perspective that would really serve the church to read and embrace. I loved it!
October 7, 2025
Excellent book for pastors of all ages and locations. Perhaps this will mostly be a repeat of ideas for you but, if you're like me, then you've been taught to keep things close to the vest; this will challenge you in the best way possible.
January 31, 2019
Great book on Theology of Place.
Insightful.
Impactful.
Applicable.
It’s also convicting/encouraging.
Easy read read, possibly hard to digest.
Insightful.
Impactful.
Applicable.
It’s also convicting/encouraging.
Easy read read, possibly hard to digest.
January 25, 2020
Anyone in ministry of any kind should read this!
April 14, 2020
Some very needed points made about investing in one’s own community and choosing not to wander and consume.
June 10, 2025
I was a big fan of this new perspective. Not everyone is called to go to a foreign land. Those in your current circles are just as important.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 15, 2015
When I came across Staying is the New Going by Alan Briggs, I was intrigued. After all, our big plans for “going” had turned into seemingly small plans for “staying.” In this newly released book, I found an encouraging treasure of insight into living a missional lifestyle in my very own city, no passport required. While there is a great (and right) desire in the hearts of many Christians to preach the gospel in far-off lands, Briggs says, “In case you’re wondering, God is already at work in your friends, your neighbors, and your city. You don’t need to take him anywhere” (p. 168).
Throughout the book, Briggs makes a case for the importance of each and every Christian living intentionally as a representative of Christ wherever God has placed them, even if it doesn’t require traveling thousands of miles. He says, “Jesus chose to spend his life in an area the size of New Jersey…You’re not a failure if you don’t grow up and move out to a grand place. You can live your life in a small radius and make a big impact” (p. 60). Also, “You’re not a second class Christian if you never cross and ocean or leave your town for a mission trip” (p. 91). These statements were so refreshing to me as I settle into a life of staying in an “unglamorous” place, presumably for many years.
I also found some much-needed conviction throughout this book. “Many Christians have ‘a heart for the nations,’ buy fair-trade products, wear TOMS shoes, sponsor a child, and pray for unreached people groups. But many of those same Christians can’t tell you the names of their neighbors” (p.92). Ouch. That statement describes me perfectly, as I only know the names of our neighbors directly across the street and next door. Staying is the New Going is an excellent source of motivation to fully invest in my neighborhood and city, seeking to bless those closest to me instead of merely blessing those across the globe.
Towards the end of the book, there are a number of practical ideas for meeting neighbors and forming lasting relationships with them. Briggs is able to speak from experience in this area, making the suggestions highly practical instead of theoretical.
Throughout the book, Briggs makes a case for the importance of each and every Christian living intentionally as a representative of Christ wherever God has placed them, even if it doesn’t require traveling thousands of miles. He says, “Jesus chose to spend his life in an area the size of New Jersey…You’re not a failure if you don’t grow up and move out to a grand place. You can live your life in a small radius and make a big impact” (p. 60). Also, “You’re not a second class Christian if you never cross and ocean or leave your town for a mission trip” (p. 91). These statements were so refreshing to me as I settle into a life of staying in an “unglamorous” place, presumably for many years.
I also found some much-needed conviction throughout this book. “Many Christians have ‘a heart for the nations,’ buy fair-trade products, wear TOMS shoes, sponsor a child, and pray for unreached people groups. But many of those same Christians can’t tell you the names of their neighbors” (p.92). Ouch. That statement describes me perfectly, as I only know the names of our neighbors directly across the street and next door. Staying is the New Going is an excellent source of motivation to fully invest in my neighborhood and city, seeking to bless those closest to me instead of merely blessing those across the globe.
Towards the end of the book, there are a number of practical ideas for meeting neighbors and forming lasting relationships with them. Briggs is able to speak from experience in this area, making the suggestions highly practical instead of theoretical.
May 23, 2023
Read this book with a deep conviction to stay rooted where I’m at. Amazing book about going where called but then staying where called to see out the mission of Christ.
December 7, 2015
Practical and diagnostic - very accessible and good for smaller group discussion with questions at the end of each chapter. Hjalmarson is a deeper and more thorough theology of (recovering) place, but Briggs intentionally assumes most of the groundwork laid by others in value and moves quickly to practice.
December 8, 2016
A new challenge
I read this based on the title. As a returning missionary, staying in the U.S. was never in my plan. This book helped me see ways in which I can affect change in the place God has planned me. Good, easy read.
I read this based on the title. As a returning missionary, staying in the U.S. was never in my plan. This book helped me see ways in which I can affect change in the place God has planned me. Good, easy read.
April 9, 2016
An argument for serving God without leaving home. Sometimes making disciples of all nations starts at your front door.
January 10, 2017
One of my favorite books if the year. It speaks of the immense value of putting down roots and growing in love with your community. Makes me want to never move again.!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews