I am a Follower

“I AM A FOLLOWER THE WAY, TRUTH, AND LIFE OF FOLLOWING JESUS”

by Leonard Sweet published by Thomas Nelson.

Some of the best things said were in the prologue of the book. The author talks about the overemphasis on leadership in our day and the need to become ‘first followers’.
“We have been told our entire lives that we should be leaders, that we need more leaders, leaders, leaders. But the truth is that the greatest way to create a movement is to be a follower and to show others how to follow. Following is the most underrated form of leadership in existence.”

The author uses Jesus declaration in John 14, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life…’ to establish his general outline of the book. And to encourage the fact that we are followers of Jesus not man. However, the book never seems to hit its mark. I expected and was disappointed in that the author fails to really show the problem of our modern push of leadership in the church and how that ‘leadership’ promotion hinders in developing true followers.
The author in sharing some things regarding his pre-conversion quotes Jean-Paul Sartre who defined sin as the “systematic substitution of the abstract for the concrete.” I felt this book seemed to lean more to the abstract than to the concrete.

I have read many of Leonard Sweets books and always look forward to his new ones. This was the worse one I have read. If this is the first of Sweet you have read and feel disappointed as I did, don’t let that hinder you from picking up and reading some of his other books eg. ‘Nudge’, ‘Post Modern Pilgrims’ and ‘Aqua Church’