Alan Hirsch - Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship

Untamed is a desperately needed shot of spiritual adrenaline into our mild-mannered and mediocre attempts at following Christ.

from the foreword by Rick Warren,
author of The Purpose Driven Life

You may find yourself uncomfortable with this book. If so, the Hirsches have succeeded.... Live a life that has stories to tell. Be untamed in your faith and pursuit of the wild Savior, Jesus.

from the afterword by Neil Cole,
author of Organic Leadership

This dynamic duo gives prophetic voice to what it means to become missional, outwardly-focused followers of Jesus. This is a book to be read and wrestled witha much needed resource for the church today.

Margaret Feinberg, MargaretFeinberg.com; author of
Scouting the Divine and The Organic God

Untamed is a vision of life with Jesus that goes beyond what other authors have covered. Alan and Debra courageously tackle even taboo subjects to show that life with Christ is more than we often imagine it to be.

Skye Jethani, author of The Divine Commodity;
managing editor of Leadership Journal

Depending on who you read, Jesus has been represented as (and reduced to) a social activist, a tortured reformer, or a cavalier teacher. Against this background, Untamed is refreshing, grounded, thoughtful... tantalizing.

Reggie McNeal, missional specialist,
Leadership Network, Dallas, Texas; author of
The Present Future and Missional Renaissance

The demand for an intelligible path toward discipleship is one of the greatest needs of the post-Christendom church. In Untamed, Alan and Debra deliver beautifully.

Gabe Lyons, founder of Q and co-founder of Catalyst;
coauthor of unChristian

Untamed is like Where the Wild Things Are applied to faith. The Hirsches encourage us to live life as a holy, messy adventure in the land of a loving God.

Sally Morgenthaler, author of Worship Evangelism
and Leadership in a Flattened World
in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

Untamed... is the fruit of a significant and penetrating analysis of American culture, candid conversations with key ministry leaders all over the U.S., and sheer gumption in holding up a flag for a radical, uncompromising discipleship.... , Untamed is the best book I have read this year.

Andrew Jones, developer, Church Mission Society;
TallSkinnyKiwi.com

In this bold, compelling, and inspiring work, Alan and Debra Hirsch... share with readers a captivating vision of the true Messiah. All who are unsatisfied with the boring safety of their tame Christianity need to read this book!

Greg Boyd, senior pastor, Woodland Hills Church,
St. Paul, Minnesota; author of Seeing Is Believing
and Repenting of Religion

Shapevine

untamed

reactivating a missional
form of discipleship

alan hirsch and debra hirsch

2010 by Alan and Debra Hirsch

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

Printed in the United States of America

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.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hirsch, Alan, 1959 Oct. 24
Untamed : reactivating a missional form of discipleship / Alan Hirsch and Debra Hirsch.
p. cm. (Shapevine)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8010-1343-0 (pbk.)
1. Christian life. 2. Church. 3. Missions. I. Hirsch, Debra, 1963 II. Title.
BV4501.3.H58 2010
248.4dc22

2009040137

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture marked Message is taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked Voice is taken from The Voice, copyright 2008 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

To our two brothers, Dean Duerkop and Lawrence Hirsch, for being passionate, consistent followers of Jesusmen after Gods own heart!

Special Thanks

To Michael and Rita Warren for their extravagant generosity to two orphaned Aussies in America.

To the zany Jonny Birch of asbojesus.wordpress.com for the wonderful cartoons that spice up the text.

contents

by Rick Warren

by Neil Cole

A generation ago a well-known English bishop ruefully admitted, In the New Testament, everywhere Paul went he sparked a revolution. But today, everywhere I go, they just serve tea and crumpets! Sadly, this expresses a fundamental problem in many churches. Weve become tamed by tradition, captivated by culture, and controlled by our desire to fit in, not make waves, and never offend anyone. Weve been domesticated instead of being discipled.

In the Great Commission Jesus commands us to go and make disciples of all nations, but we cant make disciples until we are disciples. We cant make a difference until we are different. This requires us to return to the Jesus model of disciple making. Over a three-and-a-half-year period Jesus repeatedly defined the term disciple by saying, You are my disciple if... and You cannot be my disciple unless... As time passed he continually turned up the heat and called for deeper and deeper commitment.

Thirty years ago, when Kay and I planted Saddleback Church, we began imitating the intentional and sequential discipleship process Jesus used with his Twelve. Like Jesus, we move people from come and see, through all of the same stages Jesus used, to come and die. Because of our emphasis on radical discipleship, we have baptized over 28,000 new adult followers of Christ, grown them to maturity, and sent over 10,000 of them to serve in all 195 nations of the world. You cant improve on Jesus!

Surveys and polls reveal that in many countries, the lifestyles of believers are not very different from those of nonbelievers. Too many Christ followers have settled for living a nice, comfortable, moral, and decent life instead of following the radical and wild adventure of trusting Gods promises and obeying his commands. Fortunately, Alan and Debra have written just what needs to be said. Untamed is a desperately needed shot of spiritual adrenaline into our mild-mannered and mediocre attempts at following Christ.

The starting point is to get a new vision of who God is, how he acts, and what he expects from us. In Untamed you will discover a wild God, a God who loves us so much he dove into humanity headfirst. He didnt play it safe, and he expects you to take risks in faith also.

In these pages you are about to read, Alan and Debra will carefully and clearly lead you to truly transforming discipleship. They lay out the path, expose the pitfalls and obstacles, and show how to stay on the road until you reach the finish line. As you get serious about following an untamed God, you will begin to enjoy the untamed lifestyle of being radically committed to Christs mission in the world. Your Father in heaven created you for this, Jesus saves you for this, and the Holy Spirit empowers you for this! This is your destiny.