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Stop Dating the Church Stop Dating the Church: Fall in Love with the Family of God by Joshua Harris Multnomah Publishers 144 pp., $12.99

Are we a nation of "believers" but not "belongers"? Bestselling author Joshua Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye) turns his attention here to our lack of commitment to church and offers ideas for relating to the family of God.

Harris admits he once played the "dating game": enjoying the social benefits of church but not wanting the responsibility that came with real commitment. Church-daters tend to be me-centered, independent, and critical, he writes. "We can't use the excuse," he writes, "that the church has messed up too many times or that we're disillusioned."

He looks at how God views the church, what keeps us from committing to it, and what happens when we make church a priority.

Harris provides a checklist of 10 important questions to help someone consider what church to commit to. He also includes ideas about when leaving a church is justified.

Committing to a church "doesn't tie us down; it anchors us in the storm of life. And even its faults become an opportunity for us to love and serve." Harris's enthusiasm for this needed message is infectious.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today.Click for reprint information.

Stop Dating the Church is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

The book has its own website.

More information is available from the publisher.

At Joshua Harris's website you can learn what else Harris quit dating, hear him preach, and read his blog.

Harris is senior pastor at Covenant Life Church outside Washington D.C.

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October 2004, Vol. 48, No. 10