Tony Nolan - Hurt Healer: Reaching Out to a Broken World

HURT HEALER

reaching out to a broken world

TONYNOLAN

a division of Baker Publishing Group
Grand Rapids, Michigan

2010 by Tony Nolan

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com

E-book edition created 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-1314-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

To my wife, Tammy, in profound appreciation
for her willingness to magnify the Lord
with me and exalt his name together

Contents

by Johnny Hunt

Tony Nolan takes us back not only a few years to his own personal healing, but over 2,000 years to show us how this healing was made possible. After being abandoned by his natural parents, being abused by his adoptive father, and becoming a skeptic, to say the least, Tony found real healing. If anyone understands the culture and its attitude in the twenty-first century, it is one who has been there and done that. Tony offers hope to a generation of desperately hopeless people.

Tony is an enthusiastic guy, and his enthusiasm has been generated by the God who embraced him and radically changed his life. His story is both convincing and enlightening. It will prompt readers to look within and wonder, Couldthis possibly happen in my life as well?

If there was ever a generation or a time in history when people were in need of hope, it is now. This book has the potential to touch a generation not only in America but literally all over the world as we consider that the deepest need, the deepest hurt, and the deepest wounds can only be healed in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Tony gives credit where credit is due, and that is in intimacy with Christ.

This generation is waiting for us to show and tell. They are waiting for us to show through emulation what we have proclaimed in our exhortation. They want to know there is someone who genuinely cares and will listen and attempt to understand their personal struggles. Who better understands than one who has been there and knows the misery, hurt, and disappointment that can come from placing our faith in human beings only to realize later that the Creator who made each of us is the one who cares most deeply and understands more correctly how to meet our deepest needs.

I know of no one in this generation who has the platform to speak into the lives of teenagers and young adults with more power and effectiveness than evangelist Tony Nolan. Time and time again I have personally seen God use him to bring radical life change to those with whom he has had the privilege of speaking.

Read this book, pass it on, and watch the hurts be healed through the Healer, Gods Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Johnny Hunt
Pastor, First Baptist Church
Woodstock, Georgia

Im in Beijing, China, right now to be a hurt healer to a little orphan girl named Fei Fei. In a demonstration of his ferocious love for the abandoned, God led my family to adopt her. While here, Im feasting on this fascinating country. I just returned from walking on the Great Wall of Chinaone of the seven wonders of the world. Our guide said it is over 4,000 miles long and took over one million people to build. Some of them died and are actually buried within the wall. It took great sacrifice from great people to build it.

I am well aware that to create something great, it takes great people. I want to thank the people who buried themselves in this work and yet are still alive: My wife, Tammy, and my four children, Christy, Wil, Bradly, and Fei Fei. My assistant, Gayle West. My publishing agents, Kathryn Helmers, Katie Sulkowski, and the rest of the amazing people at Creative Trust. Alice Sullivan and her editing genius skills. Baker Books for taking the risk with a first-time author so that some hurts can be healed. Jesus, who really did give his life, not in building Great Walls, but in tearing them down so all those who hurt can have access to healing.

PART 1
KNOWING JESUS

1
Know Show

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

2 Corinthians 2:15

Christianity sucks!

How could I say such a thing? Well, I didnt. They did.

Who are they?

They are not believers in Jesus. They are obviously put out with the church. They are young, middle-aged, and senior citizens. They have toddlers, toupees, and tattoos. They dance when no one is looking. They drool at the sight and smell of dessert. They nervously chew their fingernails as Ryan Seacrest pauses to reveal the next American Idol. They shed tears at funerals, weddings, and graduations. They feel strongly about issues like abortion, homosexuality, and injustice. They are very human. And what I know about them compels me to make sure we never forget that they exist. They are the reason I am writing this book, and according to God, they matter... a lot!

And because they matter, we must reach out to them.

I want you to know that I was and in a lot of ways still am one of them. I am an unapologetic believer and follower of Jesus Christ. But I havent always been a believer, nor did I grow up in church. So I get where theyre coming from; I understand the negative ideas they have about Christianity. Most of these thoughts about Christians are false, and they faded from my own mind after my conversion. Other beliefs, however, have proven shamefully true.

If they had a MySpace or Facebook profile it would contain a disturbing detail: turned off to all things Christian. Its hard to conceive people would be bent like that, but they really are. In the book unChristian, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons indicate that only 3 percent of young people in America have a favorable impression of Jesus as portrayed in the lives of evangelicals. You may not be surprised by this data; neither was I. But what I learned next stunned me. Get this: a high percentage of them said that they had been exposed to Christianity, meaning they had some kind of encounter with something or someone Christian.1 They visited a church, worked with a Christian, or sat next to a Christian in an English composition class. The point is that they heard or saw something that claimed to be Christian, and their impression about Christianity after the encounter was not very good. If you are a Christian, this data should make you concerned.

These numbers reveal that a spiritual pandemic has infected the church, resulting in a viral decline in church attendance. Consider the statistics provided by Dr. Dan Garland, director of pastoral ministry and church consulting for LifeWay Church. I recently sat in a conference with several hundred other leaders and cringed when he said, In 1950 over 80 percent of our public school kids went to a Christian church, and now it is down to 4 percent. When I heard this, my heart sank. How can this be? When I was growing up, a few of my friends and family members and I didnt think too highly of Christianity, but I didnt realize that so many people had no interest in God. I didnt realize we are now on the cusp of having a Christless generation in America.