Book Review: Going Deep

In his new book, Going Deep: Becoming a Person of Influence Gordon MacDonald proposes that churches train the next generation of Christian young adults through an intentional and relational process. Returning to the fictional congregation he introduced us to in Who Stole My Church? MacDonald uses the imaginary interactions between himself as pastor and various fictional church members to get his points across. The reader follows the process as the amorphous burden for developing the next generation of adults turns into a specific plan and the plan settles into a weekly group meeting where the fictional characters evolve into the hoped-for “deepening people” as the weeks go along. Because the fictional account is meant to be an imaginary way to introduce readers to specific practices designed to cultivate deeper people, the scenarios can feel a little contrived at times. But I concluded the book with a desire to involve young adults at my church in more intentional spiritual development. One side-note: MacDonald falls firmly on the “egalitarian” side of the women-in-ministry debate, so church leaders who are of the “complementarian” persuasion will need to be prepared to address this issue if they use the book in their churches.