Unstuck: A Book Review

Bethany House sent me a copy of Unstuck: Your Life.  God's Design.  Real Change by Arnie Cole and Michael Ross.  Here are my thoughts:

Overall, this book has a great message.  Arnie Cole and Michael Ross use extensive statistics along with real life examples to encourage Christians to read their Bible at minimum 4 times per week.  They claim this is necessary if we are to expect spiritual growth in our lives.  A phrase they use repeatedly is to "engage the Bible" and grow in relationship with God, as opposed to simply reading it only and failing to reflect on and respond to God's personal message to us.

One problem with the book is that it lacks organization - it seems to jump around from topic to topic without a logical flow.  This made the book a little difficult to get through.

I also found myself frustrated with the repeated call to "engage the Bible" and not simply go through the motions of religion, but without much "how to."  A believer who is new to Bible study with life application will need to look elsewhere to find more specific instructions.

Each chapter does end with a verse to read each day and a question to reflect on, so that is a good place to start.  The last chapter and appendix get a bit more specific about how to go about growing spiritually, but it took a lot of plodding through 200+ pages of "why you should engage the Bible regularly" to get there.  More of the "how" and less of the "why" would have been more helpful to me.