Book Notes - Primal

Loved reading Mark Batterson's new book, Primal. If you know about NCC, you know about what a unique church it is and the kind of impact they are having in DC and around the world. An environment like that can only be created by dynamic leadership and Primal is a great way to get into lead pastor Mark Batterson's head.

Mark wraps the book around four main ideas - compassion, wonder, curiosity and energy - paralled with the Great Commandment, loving God with our heart [compassion], soul [wonder], mind [ curiosity], and strength [energy]. It's a fun interplay on the ideas and I enjoyed having a different frame of reference for them.

Here are some choice quotes:

+ The very first revelation of God in Genesis is that of an Artist. And the very first reaction recorded is His reaction to His creation. - God saw that it was good.
+ Quantifying and classifying always lead to demystifying. And when you demystify God, you're guilty of intellectual idolatry.
+ When we forget where we come from, we forget where we're going. And memory failure certainly puts the future of the church in jeopardy.
+ I wonder if our lack of creativity stems from a false definition of faithfulness... Faithfulness is not doing it the way it's always been done. Faithfulness is not holding the fort. Faithfulness is not defending the status quo. Faithfulness is the courage to incarnate the gospel in creative ways... Faithfulness is playing offense for the kingdom even if some Pharisees find it offensive.
+ The Aramaic word for "prayer" means to "set a trap."
+ Reformations are not born out of new discoveries. Those are often called cults. Reformations are born out of rediscovering something ancient, something primal. They are born out of primal truths rediscovered, reimagined, and radically reapplied to our lives.
+ Compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy are nouns. It's our job to turn them into verbs.

I'm lucky to see NCC as a close observer, since I'm local to DC and have some friends who are involved there. But all of us are fortunate that Mark has put some of his thoughts into book form. Pick up a copy - you won't be disappointed.

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of this book for review purposes.