Mark Batterson gave the opening keynote at the MinistryCOM conference I attended in August. He started National Community Church in Washington, D.C., a ministry that now includes three churches, all of which meet in two movie theaters and a coffeehouse. It’s a very innovative church. Batterson had some great stuff for us.
He has written a book with what has got to be the best title ever: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. It will be released on October 1, and you can buy it at Amazon, which is something I recommend, based on reading the opening chapter (he sent it to me for review purposes).
The title is based on Banaiah who, according to 2 Samuel 23, “chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.” Batterson fills out the story in a very entertaining way. Imagine Benaiah and the lion coming face to face, then the lion–not the human–turns tail and runs away. And Benaiah chases it. The lion falls into a pit with snow on the ground, and Benaiah stupidly jumps into the pit and kills the killer cat. This is not a story I learned in Sunday school, for some reason.
Batterson says we often equate holiness as the things we don’t do–holiness by “subtracting something from our lives that shouldn’t be there.” But in what he calls “opportunity stewardship,” he thinks God is more concerned with the things we don’t do, but should have done. “You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. Those who simply run away from sin are half-Christians. Our calling is much higher than simply running away from what’s wrong. We’re called to chase lions.”
He also points out that not every lion chaser kills the lion. Sometimes opportunities don’t work out. But you were still chasing a lion. I think of some church planters and missionaries I know who gave up everything to pursue God’s calling, and things went bust. But I still admire them. They jumped into a pit on a snowy day and at least tried to kill a lion.
So that’s what Mark Batterson’s book is about. And I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing.
