Finished reading “The Unlikely Disciple” last night and felt the need to get the review up on stevansheets.com as soon as possible.

This is a first-handed account of Mr. Kevin Roose an at-the-time 19-year-old Sophomore at Brown University in Rhode Island. Roose chose to leave Brown for a semester and spent that semester “under cover” at Liberty University – the premier conservative university founded by Dr. Jerry Falwell.

What results is a semester’s worth of text revolving around an outsider’s viewpoint of the Christian subculture including some highs and lows.

I was convicted by reading this book that EVERY action and EVERY word is being watched by someone who may be watching and listening. My prayer is that EVERY aspect of my life – word & deed – is done in such a way to bring Glory to Jesus Christ.

Roose writes honestly and from a perspective that most of us Christians don’t have a clue about. I am thankful that Roose performed this “experiment” and I have to believe that his semester-full of peers will be challenged to grow in their faith by the words contained in this book.

Roose was quickly accepted (mostly) by his Liberty-peers and from start-to-finish no one outed him as a ‘spy’ or ‘journalist’. Apparently he even made some lifelong friends through the time spent with Liberty-students.

This book should be read by those of us who may have become so ingrained in our Christian subculture that we’ve not taken a look, lately, to those Jesus was most concerned with. Whoa to those of us who get “comfortable” ministering to the saved (99) without taking time to seek relationship with the lost (1).

I’m now following author, Kevin Roose on his blog and twitter.

“Boy am I glad I’m out of High School!” That was the thought I had again and again while watching “American Teen” – a documentary following 5 High School students from Warsaw, Indiana during their Senior year. We were still living in Warsaw when the filming of this film and I kept forgetting to find it on DVD until a few weeks ago when I found it for around $10 online.

The week the DVD arrived in the mail, Jess and I made time to sit and watch this to see what familiar sights and sounds we could see as well as to understand a bit more of the student culture we’re still involved with in ministry!

The film focused around these five teens’ lifestyle choices, relationship situations, and school-life – three areas that are relevant to students today. Knowing that, I think that youth pastors/leaders should all find time to view this film! It gave great insight into some behind-the-scenes life that takes place outside of our influence. Watching it influenced me to pray even harder for our students as they make their way through their school-years!

I was disappointed that the documentary missed any positive-spiritual influence in these teens’ lives (if there was any). The spiritual-focus seemed to stay camped out on the young lady who claimed to be an atheist. I was embarrassed knowing that none of these students ever came through my youth ministry while I was in Warsaw. Jess and I both think that one of the sub-plot characters had visited our youth ministry a few times – so that was an interesting connection!

It was, of course, fun to see some of Warsaw’s sights through the film and to reminisce about our time there.