Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God - Wild Goose Chase

Very thought provoking. I really enjoyed the biblical examples of people following the Holy Spirit. Really needed the reminder that just because things don't always go the way I want doesn't mean that I'm not right where the Spirit is leading me!

We are working through this book as a group study. I am sure that you cannot work through this book without coming out with a new perspective on life in the Spirit. It is happening to me and I am only in the fourth chapter.

We are currently using Mark's book this summer as a study for a men's group. We read a chapter a week then use the questions at the end. It has sparked some good discussions so far as we seek to chase the goose!

Encouraging, challenging book! My husband and I went to Batterson's church in D.C. Wonderful place! Great message! We enjoyed the book so much, I purchase it for my mom as encouragement! Well written. Easy to read.

It had some powerful quotes at times and was definitely exploring a powerful concept. Some parts, however, seemed like clichés used in the Christian circles. The overall idea is intruging, but some of the subpoints weren't. Towards the end, it seemed more of a self-help book. I had high expectations going into it and the book didn't quite match in the end. But it's definitely worth a second read with the expectations aside.

I appreciated the intent of this idea, and the author is definitely on a journey. Probably a good read for 20somethings. Feels, however, like he could have used another decade or two of life to better relay this topic. The book is rather shallow and cliche, seems too self-focused, and at times "preachy"/ know-it-all. I know that isnt what he's after, though. Some good bits, but not at all what I had hoped for based on other reviews and marketing.

It is a recurring theme to the church. Tommy Tenney said in his books that as we pursue, the Holy Spirit lets us catch him. Thank you, Mark Batterson, for an inspirational book. I am growing in my relentless pursuit!

When last we heard from Mark Batterson, he was chasing a lion down a pit on a snowy day. Now he's chasing a wild goose. Evidently, there's a lot of chasing going on in Mark's neck of the hood.

Most of us think a wild goose chase is, as Mark puts it, "a purposeless endeavor without a defined destination." Mark thinks otherwise. He notes that one of the Celtic Christian images of the Holy Spirit was An Geadh Glas, "the Wild Goose." Chasing that Wild Goose is anything but a purposeless endeavor, even though we don't know the defined destination at the outset of the chase.

Chasing the Wild Goose pulls you out of "inverted Christianity." "Instead of following the Spirit," Mark writes, "we invite the Spirit to follow us. Instead of serving God's purposes, we want Him to serve our purposes." Such a form of Christianity is sinful--displacing God from the center and putting our selves there instead--but it is also deadly boring. Mark deploys the image of a caged animal at the zoo to describe the life of inverted Christianity. The natural beauty, freedom, and power of biblical Christianity gets locked away behind safe, comfortable, and predictable bars. If we want to chase the Goose, we have to get out of our cages.

In Wild Goose Chase, Mark identifies six cages inverted Christians get locked inside: responsibility, routine, assumptions, guilt, failure, and fear. He devotes one chapter to each of the cages and uses one character from the Bible to illustrate spiritual uncaged living. Nehemiah shows us how to live a "responsibly irresponsible life," one that is infused with God's passion. Moses shows us how to break out of our spiritual routines. Abraham shows us how to overcome the antisupernatural assumptions that place limits on what God can do in our lives. Peter shows us how to let God's grace overcome our guilt and lead to a life of gratitude. Paul shows us how apparent failures are actually providential opportunities to spread the gospel. And Jonathan shows us to live on offense, rather than defense. Mark also peppers each chapter with stories from lives of contemporary people who are chasing the Goose.

One of Mark's greatest virtues as a writer is a Rick Warren-like ability to take a simple concept and give it practical legs. I have to confess that the genre of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase is not a genre I read a lot in anymore because it has tendencies toward the formulaic and simplistic. Mark's books are neither of those things. Don't be fooled by his short paragraphs, self-deprecatory humor, or obsession with medial front cortex illustrations. This book, and its predecessor, challenged me a deep, personal level. And they will do the same thing for you.

I highly recommend this book. I gave it to my associate. My family members will be reading it. And I'll be promoting it at my church. If you're tired of dull, passionless, routinized Christianity, read this book! And chase the Goose!

A Chase Worth Pursuing

Pastor Mark Batterson uses the imagery of the wilderness, the unpredictable, unsafe nature of nature to depict what it is like to follow God's Holy Spirit. Batterson writes both pastorally and ambitiously. He has lived in great blessing, being filled with joy, when in his own life he has followed God's lead and done so at cost to himself and his family. When he has shown willingness to risk, he's been blessed by God tremendously. He wants that joy and richness of life for his readers.

The strength of his book is his call for people of the church to abandon their comfort zones and safety zones. Christianity in America can be quite comfortable. In some places, the church can be the location of social, political, and personal power. It can be as much social gathering as it is body of Christ. Batterson wants to see Christianity be dynamic - the unpredictable journey on which God knows the way but we do not.

The high point along this line of thinking comes when Batterson writes, "When did we start believing that God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things? God wants to send us to different places to do difficult things. And if you chase the Wild Goose, he will lead you into the shadowlands where light and darkness clash" (p. 106). Batterson continues, quoting a man who reaches out with the gospel to porn-addicts in Las Vegas, "I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell."

Such a faith is daring, uncomfortable, and scary. It only works if Batterson's "Wild Goose" points us to the true Spirit of God. Jesus laid out a future as unsettling as this for Peter when he re-commissioned the disciple after Peter had denied him. Upon their reunion on the beach, Jesus re-established the fisherman and told him he would one day be led where he did not want to go (John 21:18). In Batterson's terminology, Jesus was setting Peter on a wild goose chase.

In this very good book, an extended sermon really, I find a few points to critique. First, his imaginative depiction of Adam naming the animals (from Genesis) to me sounded kind of corny. He supposes a literal first human who has the task of setting out over the entire earth to discover (without aid of microscope or scuba gear or mountain climbing equipment) all the animals on the earth and name them. If he is going to read Genesis that literally, he has a problem because there are so many species, one man could not observe them all in 10 lifetimes. I assume Batterson was striving for the "awe" factor, but I don't think it worked.

Second, he did that bit of creative writing in the midst of his description of time spent in the Galapagos Islands. To me that seems like a trip many of his readers could never take. Who has the time or money to go spend 10 days in the Galapagos? Maybe it is cheaper than I imagine. But I can't believe that for the majority of his readers such a trip is even possible.

Third, he refers to his college preaching in a very small church. Today he pastors a church of thousands. His view of that experience is that it was to prepare him for "bigger" things (p.30). He recommends giving your all in small things, which is excellent teaching. But, those 12 people who received his preaching in that small church aren't small to God. Batterson is excited that now he gets to preach to 1000's most of whom are young (it's always sexier to preach to young people than to senior citizens), professional (it's always more impressive to preach to "power-players"), and to do it in a power city like Washington DC. But in God's eyes, as Biblical stories attest over and over and over, the big church of sexy, young political staffer is no "bigger" than the church of 12 people. His work now is not more important than it was when he was unknown and not yet an author.

Pastors of small churches made up of people with blue-collar jobs who don't take trips to the Galapagos are not less important than pastors of big-city mega churches. They aren't doing smaller work. They are chasing the "Wild Goose." Batterson talks about the Wild Goose showing up in unexpected, wild places. But most people live most of their lives in normal, everyday places. Real faith is seen when we earnestly seek and see the Holy Spirit in normal places, in the mundane comings and goings of our lives. The "Wild Goose" shows up there and those seemingly innocuous places become "thin places" and the normal becomes the transcendent.

The instances from Wild Goose Chase I have critiqued and a few I have not lessen the force of an otherwise very good book. That said, it is worth reading. Batterson preaches well through his writing and more often than not I found myself saying "Amen," as I read. I appreciate his inspiring story-telling and even more, I appreciate his ambitious attempts to rile believers out of spiritual slumber. Mark Batterson's style is inviting and his intent is grounded in scripture.

For an interesting analogy, for very optimistic, positive writing, and for an honest attempt at being true to the Spirit of the New Testament, I recommend Mark Batterson's Wild Goose Chase.

I thought at the beginning of reading this book that I would not be interested in a metaphor the Spirit centered around the Wild Goose Chase. But, as I began to get deeper into the book, I realized that this book was a great resource to understand how the Spirit works in mighty ways in our lives.

Part of the powerful message of the book was found in Chapter 5. Batterson explores the the nature of forgiveness and God's love for his people in very helpful ways. On page 89, he writes, "God's love for us is proactive. He doesn't wait for us to get our act together. God always makes the first move. And we're called to follow suit." Rather than sit back and watch others take the initiative to love in all the hard places, God calls us to lead with love in the circumstances of life. Batterson recalls a moving story about his grandfather's fossil collection and the time when he broke one of the fossils. This fossil collection was a 'no touch' collection and very highly prized by Batterson's grandfather. Instead of responding in anger, his grandfather gave him a hug and said, "Mark, you are far more valuable than this fossil collection." It's times like these when you see the mighty work of God's love exhibited in remarkable ways. This in fact is what the gospel teaches us, that God came from heaven to save and love sinners, even sinners who don't reserve the love and grace of God.

In chapter 6 Batterson focuses on shipwrecks, the times when everything goes array and not according to plan. Early in the chapter he writes, "We can't control what happens to us. But we can control our response" (103). There is a sharp disorientation that happens as we go through life and this disorientation is not a random act from a tyrannical God, but the sovereign will of a God who calls people to reorient their lives toward His will and for our good. Batterson writes, "God is in the business of positioning us in the right place at the right time" (108). Life becomes a frustrating conundrum of seemingly chaotic events with no purpose when we try to bring out our own meaning through every event that takes place on the stage of life.

Overall, I thought this book helps reorient our focus to the One who saved us by his grace. What I also liked about the book was the honest message that God is more interested in you than in your seeking to act like you've got it all together. I think this book will go a long way in providing honest engagement with God and his Word. Secondly, Wild Goose Chase brings back the sense of adventure that our faith desperately needs in an age of distraction.

Thanks to Waterbrook/Multnomah Blogging for Books program for the review copy in exchange for review.

Mark Batterson begins Wild Goose Chase by explaining that the Celtic Christians would refer to the Holy Spirit as An Geadh-Glas, "the Wild Goose." But this isn't really a book about what the Holy Spirit is like. If you're looking for a doctrinal treatise on the person and nature of the Spirit, look elsewhere. If you want a book about the adventure of recklessly following an unpredictable God wherever He leads, then this is the book for you.

Batterson's main point is that we are all wired for adventure; that we were born to "chase the Wild Goose." Somewhere along the way we became tamed and caged. He outlines the six cages that keep us from the spiritual adventure God has for us, as well as action steps to get un-caged. The cages are responsibility, routine, assumptions, guilt, failure, and fear.

I found this book to be very challenging. Batterson's points are well made, and he illustrates them regularly with personal anecdotes and historical accounts. The biblical characters and stories that he uses to reinforce his ideas are presented in some fresh, interesting ways. However, his biblical exposition is far from flawless. I've now read all but one of Batterson's books and he falls into familiar trap in this one: going a little too far for my comfort in reading into and applying some of the biblical accounts. Most of it is sound, though.

I love the way Mark Batterson writes. The pace is very brisk and yet the concepts are profound. I found myself re-reading some paragraphs in order to mine all the meaning possible out of them. In this particular work, Mark re-hashes some of the same ground as In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day, but seems to put forward more practical ideas along with the impassioned call-to-action.

I recommend this book for anyone who feels stuck in a rut spiritually and longs for the passionate pursuit of God that they may see in others. This book is the kick in the pants you need, so start reading and start chasing!

Please Note: This book was gifted as a part of the Blogging for Books Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work

Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit, An Geadh-Glas, or the Wild Goose. That image was used by the Irish/British/Dutch band Iona in the song The Flight of the Wild Goose on their self-titled debut album. Wild Goose Publications is also the name of the publishing house of the Iona Community. Their story is penned in a book titled Chasing the Wild Goose. The America author Mark Batterson uses the image of the Wild Goose / Holy Spirit to teach us lessons on chasing God’s will and start the spiritual adventure. The Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. In Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God. Visits to the Galápagos Islands, the history of Washington, DC‘s National Community Church, where Batterson is lead pastor, Columbus’ discovery of America serve as illustrations, more than Celtic Christians in the 6-8th century.
The author argues that many Christians are caged, whether by responsibility, routine, assumptions, guilt, failure or fear. Christians are over-educated, but lack adventure. They pray for the will of God, instead of following Him, regardless the places en route or the final destination. Do angels yawn? What did Abraham do in his 99 childless years? A comparison between Saul and Jonathan, the life of Peter and Paul. The Bible isn’t a dull book for lousy people. Since when did it become safe to follow Christ? Maybe it’s time to come out of the cage and live dangerously for the cause of Christ.