Not a Fan Book Review

At the recommendation of a friend, I started reading “Not a Fan” by Kyle Idleman about a month ago. It falls into the same sort of category that books like “Crazy Love” and “Radical” fell into for me: books that I would have passed over and never read had they not been recommended to me. But I am so thankful that I did read it!

 

The subtitle of the book is “Become a completely committed follower of Jesus.” Idleman contends that Jesus has fans and followers. Fans want to be close enough to Jesus to receive the benefits of following Him, but they’re not willing to pay a price for their relationship with Him. One of my favorite quotes from the book is this one: “. . . I think Jesus has a lot of fans these days. Fans who cheer for Him when things are going well, but who walk away when it’s a difficult season. Fans who sit safely in the stands cheering, but they know nothing of the sacrifice and pain of the field. Fans of Jesus who know all about Him, but they don’t know Him.”

 

Another quote on fans: “But Jesus was never interested in having fans. . . . My concern is that many of our churches in America have gone from being sanctuaries to becoming stadiums. And every week all the fans come to the stadium where they cheer for Jesus but have no interest in truly following Him. The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren’t actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them.”

 

Idleman’s challenge in the first part of the book (titled “Fan or follower? An honest diagnosis) is to determine what you are: a fan or a follower of Christ? Do we simply know about Him, or do we have an intimate relationship with Him? Is He one of many important things in our lives, or is He the ONLY One we serve?

 

The second part of the book (“An invitation to follow [the unedited version]”) digs into some passages from the Gospels. He takes a look at several examples of people who wanted to follow Christ, but they weren’t willing to pay the price. He really digs into the last part of Luke 9 where three people are called by Christ to follow, but they make excuses for themselves. They wanted the benefits but not the sacrifices.

 

The third part of the book was what made me squirm the most (“Following Jesus—Wherever. Whenever. Whatever.”) Idleman asks the hard questions of “What about there? What about now? What about that?” It was really convicting to me to honestly think about the areas of my life that I’ve been holding back. I think my favorite quote from the whole book was this one: “Fans are happy to follow Jesus as long as that doesn’t require any significant changes or have negative implications . . . There is no way to follow Jesus without him interfering with your life. Following Jesus will cost you something. Following Jesus always costs something.”

 

Are you willing to sacrifice and pay the cost to be a fully committed follower of Christ? Stop living like a fan, and start following!

 

(I would recommend this book for ages 13 and up.)