Richard Stearn’s book The Hole in Our Gospel can be summed up in a question in the introduction: What does God expect of us? This is the million dollar question for all believers, but when it is posed by the CEO of World Vision U.S., one of the largest charity organizations in the world, it’s worth taking a listen to what he has to say.
Stearns begins the book by setting up his thesis that there is a hole, or a fundamental weakness, in the gospel preachined by the American church due to the lack of concern for the world’s poor and outcast. His supporting argument starts with a detailed description of the hole in his heart before becoming the CEO of of a non-profit corporation and follows with a sobering potrayal of the hole in the world and ultimately, the hole in the Church. He finished the book with a call to action which he calls “repairing the hole.”
The beginning chapters offer a poignant journal of Richard Stearn’s life, career and change. He worked his way up from nothing attending two Ivy League schools and going on to serve as the President and CEO of two American companies. He married his college sweetheart and settled down into a nice life of Christian living. One day, this American dream was threatened by the call of God to serve at World Vision as their CEO in 1997, which he accepted after much internal struggle.
Throughout the middle of the book, Stearns lists the major threats to humankind in the world. The list begins with the disparity between the rich and the poor, because from this issue stems all of the others–hunger, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, inadequate water supply, illiteracy, female persecution and war. His wealth of knowledge on these subjects cannot be understated, yet he strives to keep the reader from being overwhelmed with the amount of information.
The last part of the book is a keen look at the lack of compassion in the Church to help the poor and how we can turn the tide and win the world for Christ. Our purposeful blindness to the plight of the suffering people of the world is the result in a misconception we have of what God expects of us, what the true gospel is and the rightful ownership of our resources.
This book challenged me as few books have. Stearn’s treatment of this difficult subject is a masterful testimony to the work that God has done in his heart and the work that World Vision is doing in the world today. This would be a must read for anyone who is concerned with what God will say to them on the day they see Him.
