In his new book Love The Ones Who Drive You Crazy (Crossway, 2023), Jamie Dunlop makes a bold claim: Churches should be united around Christ alone, not Christ plus other shared convictions. And yet, when churches do this well, they are ripe for conflict. If we are truly committed to welcoming those with different opinions and convictions, we will find ourselves rubbing shoulders with people who are hard to love, and who sometimes drive us crazy. Loving these people is what the body of Christ is all about. Jesus said the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another (John 13:35) and that our unity would be what convinces the world that the Father really did send him (John 17:21). Churches full of believers who love those who drive them crazy are exactly what he was talking about.
This book is not just for particular Christians such as pastors, women, or those experiencing unique challenges. This is a book for every believer, becuase every believer should seek to be an involved member in a church that welcomes many different kinds of people, all uniting around Christ alone. Throughout the book, Jamie Dunlop answers questions like Why did God put difficult people in my church? Wouldn’t we be better off without those people? How can I really forgive them? How can I stop judging and despising them? And more.
The temptation will always be there to build a church around Christ plus other values. Christ plus republican politics, Christ plus specific social justice efforts, Christ plus a particuarl view of the end times, Christ plus a certain style of music, etc. I have seen what happens when churches do this. They begin to cater to the consumer mindset of their attenders. Pretty soon they create a place full of people who insist on their own preferences and get upset with others who don’t share them. True churches must actively resist this temptation and truly welcome all that Christ himself would welcome. True churches must promote a culture where all the members sacrifice their own preferences for the good of the whole, and love those who are not like them.
And true churches must accept and even embrace the difficulties that come with uniting around Christ alone and nothing else. A church is a family, and as Dunlop writes, “When we speak of church as ‘family,’ we have in mind quiet board games by the fireplace. But sometimes church ‘family’ is more akin to shouting matches over who used up all the hot water.” (p. 26) Families are messy and sometimes difficult. So are churches united around Christ alone.
In this book, Jamie Dunlop helps us not to reduce the purpose of the church to the things it does, but to discover the true calling of every church which is to be a display for his glory. When we do that, it will radically change the way we think about the difficulties of loving our fellow church members. He writes, “Very often, we’re inclined to think that all the debate and disagreement in a church is a giant distraction from its mission. ‘If we could all just get along, then we could get back to what our church is supposed to be doing.’ Yet as we see in Luke 6, and later in Romans, all this disagreement and debate isn’t distraction at all. It’s center stage for the ultimate mission of your church: to show off the goodness and glory of God Most High.” (p. 30)
After reading this book, I came away encouraged and motivated to improve in loving, serving, and being patient with those who sometimes drive me crazy. If you take the time to read it, I think it will do the same for you, which would make it a very God-honoring and worthwhile investment of your time. Let’s commit to grow in our capacity to love others like Jesus did. A big thanks to Jamie Dunlop for helping us do just that.
Editor’s Note: This title was received by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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