Customer Reviews
Potentially Life Changing Book - By: Mr. C. R. Cook, 25 Oct 2007 
You may never have heard of Lindsay Brown, or IFES, but this organisation
has quietly been changing the world one person at a time on a global scale since 1947. This book tells the story of the organisation & its largely hidden ministry which has impacted on the way leaders both spiritual & secular have developed in nations across the globe.
A huge reason for this impact is because young people new in their faith take God at his Word & never doubt that the impossible is possible for him. When I worked for IFES it felt that both extraordinary courage, imperative need & outrageous grace & miraculous interventions were common place across the globe. When I moved from there to work for the church it suddenly felt that nothing could be achieved spontaneously & God had to wait for a committee decision like everyone else.
The power of this book is that it demonstrates what living faith in Christ can achieve & in the face of huge - to us in first world countries, insurmountable, difficulties.
The book has several different aspirations, but primarily it seems to seek to record the lives of heroes of the faith who are largely unkown outside of their own nations & possibly even within them. It pays homage to their contribution to the international christian student movement (particularly IFES) & accords the respect they deserve for their faithfulness in what many of us would regard as impossible circumstances.
Lindsay occasionallly has a fairly academic & ponderous style, but also has the good sense to let stories 'tell themselves' for example when talking about sacrificial faith where students & staff members have risked their lives for the sake of the gospel in countries as diverse a chechnya, Rwanda, Bolivia, etc. He is in full possession of the facts when he relates them & is clear about places & dates & the context of world events.
It leaves the reader to consider, would I be willing to die for my faith? If as a student you were threatened with death unless they threw your bible to the ground & spat on on it, what would you do? If your partner were killed in front of you, would your faith survive?
Its a challlenge to consider the cost of our callling as Christians but it is also an encouragement to see lives that shine like stars in the darkness of corrupt & decaying regimes where violence & persecution have become commonplace.
The book deserves a wide readership given that it covers living examples of applied bible principles, but is likely to be sidelined to a narrow readership. When I bought my copy the comment in the bookshop was that it wasn't worth stocking more than one copy since this was not a university town. A comment which highlights the general ignorance of both the influence of higher education & of its strategic importance in christian life. It is to be hoped the author will be widely invited to speak in churches & thus increase the audience for the book that way. It is also to be hoped that this might in future be released with a study guide for use by smalll groups.
