I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus

Everts and Schaupp help the reader become sensitive to the typical stages college students move through when they become Christians. This book would be particularly helpful for those who work with college students or want to better understand college students--as it describes the pressures, thought processes, and friendship dynamics of this age group. It would also be helpful for those who ask the question, "Does anyone today convert to Christianity as a thinking adult?" Indeed they do. Everts and Schaupp try to find patterns in the journeys of the people they have observed moving through this process. They identify Trusting a Christian, Becoming Curious, Opening Up to Change, Seeking After God, Entering the Kingdom and Living in the Kingdom as key "thresholds" that people move through. The book is nice and concise (134 pages) and reads quickly. Everts and Schaupp are not trying to make an argument that these are the thresholds all Christians need to work through. Rather it is sociological or anthropological work--similar to the famous Kubler-Ross stages of loss (denial, anger, acceptance, etc.) or Christian Smith finding the phenomenon of "moralistic therapeutic deism" in teens. Everts and Schaupp essentially share their experiences and then ask if this resonates with others. This is not to denigrate their experiences--they have done a significant amount of interviews and they are in as good a position as anyone with their experience in college ministry with InterVarsity to make these kind of observations. Does their model have explanatory power? I think it does. If they are right that college students (and perhaps teenagers and adults as well--who knows?) that become Christians, move through these thresholds well, what are the implications for how college ministry and church ministry should change if they want to see more people become Christians? The unmissable point is that these students who have moved through these thresholds certainly did not do so because of one event or program. Someone needed to listen to them, give them advice, challenge them and encourage them. Though Everts and Schaupp sketch a process, they explode the idea that some specially designed program would be able to mass-produce followers of Jesus. This book is much more about how to do spiritual direction than how to do evangelistic programming. The book does not contain much formal theological language. In my quick reading, I do not remember a reference for example to the Holy Spirit or to baptism. Their goal is not to reflect theologically on conversion. Similarly they do not engage developmental psychology or other sociological research and draw parallels between that research and their conclusions. An academic researcher would want to do interviews with a representative sample of people who became Christians in college to test Everts and Schaupp's tentative conclusions. One final note, the book has in its subtitle the contr

An absolute must read book for ministry leaders who want to better understand the process it will take for postmodern people to come to Christ. When I was a teenager, I went through Evangelism Explosion training at my church. Yet Evangelism Explosion doesn't resonate with people today, and unless we try to understand the 21st century mindset of post Christian people, our outdated evangelism efforts will continue to frustrate us. This is a very good book, a quick and very simple and easy to understand read about understanding how to relate and reach postmoderns for Christ

I was a little worried about the book's approach when it stated it that there are five stages a pre-christian goes through before understanding what it takes to make a commitment to Jesus (as in, "Oh no, not another formula..."). But as I read I saw these stages as not being so much "steps to peace with God" but more like "steps to understanding the journey they are on". It is a book that snaps everything into place in your head if you have ever tried to unsuccessfully (or successfully) lead someone to Jesus. You will say, "Oh, that's why that person reacted the way they did!". Many times we operate on a different level than people are on. Too many times we are too eager to dump all of our knowledge and training on someone who is asking for just a little understanding. Other times people are ready to make the commitment but we are not seeing it and we let the opportunity pass. This book helps you to discern where people are in their quest for Christ as well as letting you know you are not the only one who screws up the evangelism adventure. A must read!

Don & Doug, thank you and IVCF for this resource. With all the postmodern stuff out there I found this book extremely helpful. I appreciate you guys not entering into the whole postmodern church deal and just sticking to ministering to people. The 5 threshholds were helpful with subpoints for each of them. thank you for your honesty and for listening to your community and to God about turning your experiences into a resource.

For so many of us, sharing our faith is a frustrating exercise. We have the best of intentions, but end up being jerks for Jesus. We avoid non-Christians like the plague for a while. Then some one or some thing convinces us that we really ought to evangelize. So we gear up with self-righteous, fire and brimstone fear of hell for the next round. And we wonder why Christians have a reputation for being judgmental, close-minded and angry. Why would anyone else want to be a Christian when we make it look so uncomfortable? If this sounds familiar to you, you are going to love "I Once Was Lost". Get ready to be amazed at how easy sharing Jesus can be. It's a freeing, wonderful book full of insights and practical applications. Not a how-to book on evangelism. More like a how-come what we have been doing hasn't been working. And biblical, helpful ways to see the whole process of coming to Jesus differently than you ever have before. Emphasizing relationship over religion and loving over lecturing; this book will give you the confidence to share what you love about Jesus and let Him handle the rest. A very special book that every Christian ought to read.