The book “Lord Save Us From Your Followers” by Dan Merchant has made a huge impact on my life in the last few weeks, perhaps more than any other book I’ve read this year. I refused to pick it up in Barnes & Noble for a long time, not wanting to hear whatever message a book with that title might have to offer. But after seeing a video clip of the movie by the same name, I changed my mind and began a journey I wouldn’t trade for anything. After writing about the book, I was contacted by one of the team members who helped with the project and offered a copy of the full DVD for review. Tonight my family and I finished it. Wow. As my husband summed it up, “I think every adult Christian really ought to see this movie.” David doesn’t often engage in dramatic statements, so my ears perked up. I agree with him, too. Here are a few things that tonight’s showing reinforced in my mind.

  • Dan Merchant is one brave soul to venture out in his bumper sticker suit and open himself up to the conversations he had. Not only was he brave, but he taught me that the conversations don’t have to be filled with fear and hate. In fact they were congenial and interesting. People are interesting.
  • We conservative Christians did not perform so well on a Family Feud-style game show called Culture Wars. What this means is that we know far less about how the rest of the world sees life than they do. In fact, they can quite well predict what we might say, but we haven’t a clue what the rest of the world might say. We need to learn about the life the rest of the world is living.
  • The world out there has a skewed view of Christ’s love, and it’s up to us to change that perception. No one else will change their opinion of us.
  • Everybody has a story.

This is one more little clip from the movie of “Lord Save Us From Your Followers.” Get your hands on a copy of the movie or go to their website for more information. Also, Jeff Shinabarger blogged an interview with Dan Merchant yesterday that is an interesting read. You can find that here.