I received this email review of my book the other day. This brother asked that I remove his last name and the name of the nations where he is serving since his life, and the work they are doing there, might be jeopardized. Here's the email review published with permission and edits:
Dear Mr Giles,
Wow. I was on an "exam" night for my English classes [country name removed], and was able to read your book during their test taking.
Wow. Thank you for the words. I have been re-reading "Reimagining Church" from Viola, and had forgotten I had your book on my kindle. Right now we have begun to help a small house group in our country. The large "institutional" group is not only an extreme example of institutional, but also is the "legal" authority for the country. This tends to extreme control and excess. This group started not as a "leaving" but as a group from another country that moved here and started something new.
As someone who has worked for the past few years in the institutional church here in [country name removed] and in [another middle eastern nation], I have become the "resident" theologian of the group.
As we began to get involved in leadership, I have had thoughts of exploring ordination (I'm a youth worker for the past 20 years) and was trying to understand how to best serve this community of people.
Having read your book and Viola's book, I am at peace for the first time in a couple of weeks. No longer do I feel the burden to become something that I didn't think was necessary, but I also feel much more confident in explaining an alternate way to explore our "church" life. I was very impressed with your story and your journey. Thank you for writing this book and for allowing it to be made available for the kindle.
Blessings to you and your community.
Todd [Last name removed by request]
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