Misfits welcome

Introduction                                                                        
Title: Welcome Misfits, 196 pages
Author: Matthew Barnett
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, October 2014
ISBN: 1400206561
Genre: Spiritual Growth & Christian Though

Disclosure: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

About the author
Matthew Barnett is the the founder of the Dream Center in Los Angeles, a ministry with humble beginnings, but that after many years has become a twenty-four-hour church that serves daily the less fortunate in the Los Angeles area.

My review
I got to read this book at the right time in my life. I’ve been going-through a very hard time of discouragement in my life. Despite having 20 years of experience in the ministry, for the past two years I have had a deep sense of inadequacy, lack of ideas for ministry and fear of the future. The testimony of Matthew Barnett and the Dream Center is truly refreshing.

The book relates how he came to California, originally to be an interim pastor of a new ministry, but once there there God surprised him with a long-lived ministry among the needy and most vulnerable in society. Throughout the pages I can feel the true joy that he, his wife and everyone involved in ministry have in finding hurting people in order to bring healing to their lives.

The book is easy to read, so much that one have the feeling of being there with them. I also appreciate how Matthew speaks so open about the frustrations and hard times that they, like everyone of us, have experienced in life and ministry, but nevertheless kept going on. It is also refreshing to hear again that one doesn’t need not be perfect to serve God. The most important thing we need is to recognize and accept our weaknesses. Only then can God step in.

Matthew Barnett does a wonderful job communicating to us what they do in order to be a blessing to others and to serve the suffering and restore broken lives. It is a testimony of how God can use anyone who is ready to trust Him and who is ready to love and serve even those forgotten by society – some times by the churh itself –.

The testimony of Matthew Barnett and the Dream Center can encouraged us to not fear, to trust God and to take seriously those ideas/projects that may be seem crazy and risky, but that in reality they might be seeds from God that when planted will bear much fruit for His Glory.

There once was a very cautious man, who never laughed or cried. He never cared, he never dared. He never dreamed or tried. And when one day he passed away, his insurance was denied. For since he never really lived, they claimed he never died. —AUTHOR UNKNOWN