Book Review: Replenish by Lance Witt

Lance Witt's book Replenish is full.I think that's an understatement given the book has 41 brief but potent chapters, yet after reading it I get the sense that every piece is and was in its right place.

Witt is the founder of Replenish Ministries and has served in a variety of ministry roles including a role at Saddleback Church. It's obvious that these experiences have led him to deeply examine the motives, interpersonal dynamics, and intentional rhythms of Christian leaders from a hands-on vantage point. The insights he offers into how Christians and Christian leaders shape their lives and their connections with God are rooted in the real and pressing situations that face us as we work for the good of God's Kingdom.

Witt is both pastor and prophet in this book, guiding and shepherding in chapters on Sabbath and rest but also confronting in simple and direct ways the great misconceptions of Christian leadership:

The greatest danger is in getting comfortable with...learning how to "succeed" with a disconnected soul. Over time we can become very adept at playing the image-management game. The truth is you don't have to have a healthy soul to be seen as a success in ministry. (p. 36)

The addition of questions at the end of each brief chapter gives the reader or community of readers an opportunity to dialogue with the ideas that Witt presents as well as brainstorm about ways in which the health of a leader's soul can move from the background to the foreground.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is running and leading on empty, trying to find justification for why they decided to do the work of God in the first place. Witt has plenty to say and it is direction worth taking.