Rebuilding your broken world

Robin Davies April 2014 | Highfields Book of the Month

By Gordon MacDonald (2004) Thomas Nelson Publishers

This is an amazingly frank and instructive book which I think can justly be regarded as required reading for anyone in Church leadership. It is written by one of the outstanding leaders in American evangelicalism in the 1980s-90s and it is the story of his "fall from grace" in terms of a moral failure which threatened to destroy his whole ministry and future. One would not normally be inclined to recommend a book dealing with this subject but this book is so well written, dealing with issues that face us all whether in Christian leadership or not, that I think it well deserves this recommendation. Above all, it is a story of grace that eventually sees him restored after painful and traumatic times, to a further period of fruitful ministry.

Gordon MacDonald is an excellent writer who has the art of drawing extremely apt analogies from the natural world or ordinary human experience to illustrate his message. This makes the book very readable and fresh even though some of the ground he covers is partly familiar.

He explores what gives rise to "broken world experiences" beginning with the natural tendency to cover up rather than admit wrongdoing, from the life of David.  Moving on to the causes, he draws on the image of the "mudslide and floods that take their toll" (which is remarkably apt in the light of recent news from Washington State, USA) when he refers to life becoming destabilised through weariness, adversity and frustration when there seem to be constant cross winds in life, as well as grief, loss and anger that can bring someone to breaking point.

Another chapter explores baggage we can carry from the past, whether unresolved relationships, unaddressed guilt or untreated pain which will drain energy without an experience that Christ has paid the price to lift it all from us.

In a highly relevant excursion into the natural world, he describes the lure of the spider's web to trap the inquisitive insect and the range of spiritual adversaries that can lead to entrapment.

However, without going into any detail and without any trace of self pity or self justification, this is an honest and painful account of his recovery mediated in large part through the gift of restorative grace which he describes as the greatest and most unique gift one Christian can give another. That grace to rebuild came first from God, but also from family, friends and a number of "grace givers" he had never met. But above all, grace came from the church, being the congregation where his difficulties arose, whose spiritual leadership decided to extend it for the purpose of his restoration.

He says without restorative grace, broken worlds cannot be rebuilt according to God's standards. It is God's action to forgive the misbehaviour and to draw the broken world person back toward wholeness and usefulness again.

Twenty months after his world had imploded, he was invited to move to a small struggling Baptist Church in New York City where he ministered for 4 years after which he was reinstated in the Church where his ministry had previously ended and he enjoyed a further 6 years of pastoral leadership before retirement.

A brave and illuminating book, written clearly with considerable input from his wife, by a man who demonstrates well his capacity for leadership, enhanced through a painful journey.