{ Blog 365 #33 - Orphaned Believers by Sara Billups - TLC Book Tour }

 

About Orphaned Believers: How a Generation of Christian Exiles Can Find the Way Home

Hardcover: 240 Pages

Publisher: Baker Pub Group (January 24, 2023)

For a generation raised in the throes of the ’80s and ’90s evangelical culture wars, church was a battleground many left behind. With love and compassion, Sara Billups binds up the wounds of the broken and points them toward a new expression of faith that is motivated to make the world a better place.

About Sara Billups

Sara Billups is a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Christianity Today, and more. Sara is completing her Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. She works to help wavering Christians remain steadfast through cultural storms and continues to hope for the flourishing of the Church amid deep political and cultural division in America.

 

My thoughts:

This was one book that hit me and hit me hard.  I didn't grow up in the church, per say,  but around 15 years old I started going to a local church with my older brother.  

Over the years I have frequented different churches, and at the moment we are part of a very small Baptist church in our small town. 

As I read the book, and the authors experiences, I couldn't help but relate to so much she was saying, nodding my head and sometimes wanting to cry, because someone gets it, someone understands.  It's always a wonderful feeling, when you realize that you are going through, or went through something, that someone out there went through as well.

In Orphaned Believers, Sara Billups recounts her life as a Christian, attending church from a very young age.  I always say that we are currently under an enormous spiritual war, and when I tell people that someone, even in the church, can say that they're Christian but not follow Christ, or use their believer status to pull one way or another, they sometimes don't understand what I mean.

But if you're a believer, you know that even the enemy knows the Bible and can quote every verse, back and forth.  

I think what we are seeing a lot of lately, are believers who feel lost, who feel like they don't belong, and like they can't relate even in their own church settings.  I have seen the good and the bad sides of church, and if you've attended church for a while, you no doubt will have your own experiences too.

Sara shares it all, the good, the bad and her views and thoughts.  I almost feel like this book is part memoir and part self help, as she tries to steer us in the right direction, and help believers stand strong in their faith, even in the midst of all the political chaos and culture war we see around us.

I really, really enjoyed this one, and I think it's a great read for every believer, whether you feel comfortable and happy in your current church, or whether like many, you feel like it's not what you need to grow in your spiritual journey.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours and Baker Pub Group, for providing me with a copy for review.