Book Review: The Great Omission by: Dallas Willard

The Great Omission

This book is a compilation of articles and lectures by Dallas Willard and as such provides many narrower views on a much broader thesis. The Great Omission is a call to discipleship in deeper ways through spiritual disciplines, expressed in a church which actually does what Jesus tells us to do.

Disciples that are undisciplined repeatedly come up as a major theme in this book. Willard contends that the problems of the church are a result of voluntary followership of Christ, and that many people in church have never actually decided to follow Jesus. Have we made discipleship voluntary? As I reflect on this I am more and more convinced that we have. I say that for practical reasons. If Jesus is who we follow, then should not we do what he said? Yet I find that most believers could not write a concise list of the instructions that Christ gave us, let alone live them. Jesus said that the commandments could be summed up in loving God and loving neighbors, but there are many other instructions that He gave that receive little of our attention. I wonder more and more about spiritual maturity that is not measured by what you know but by what you do. This seems to be the point that Dallas Willard is getting at.

Another point of interest to me from the book was a portion on Bible memorization. Willard said that if there was one discipline that he felt he must have it would be this one, even over prayer and bible reading. It came up multiple times in the book; in fact he referenced it in different ways. He said at one point that he would not want to be part of a church that did not have a plan for memorization, and elsewhere that people who said they could not memorize needed to spend time in fasting, solitude and silence to help them memorize. I really identified with this point. We have a congregational memory verse that is provided with the sermon each week. We ask people to memorize it and repeat it with their small group during the week. It is so valuable in spiritual growth and really transformational when you see believers using the scriptures they have learned in the discussions of Christ living at small group. If it helps them there I believe it is exponentially of greater value in their lives at work, home, etc.

The final area of reflection for me was from this quote from page 62, “The true saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on takeoff.” This is a provocative statement. I posted it on my blog to see what if any response would come. Someone responded that since grace was sufficient when things go wrong this could be dangerous for Christians. However, I think that Grace is not just about things going wrong. Grace is about things going right. Our status quo is to sin, but with Grace we can overcome sin. It takes more grace to help us live rightly, than to forgive us when we have sinned. This is a radical departure from the teaching I have generally encountered. In light of discipleship, this idea has challenged me to what we are teaching as discipleship. Are we helping people to grow in the Grace of Christ and in which way? I think that an important aspect of discipleship is to evaluate our beliefs in light of biblical theology, and not just a result of that which was passed on to us as a matter of tradition flavored by previous interpretations.

This was a refreshing book for me. There were many things that I took away personally more so than just how I could apply it to the church. I will refer to this book again in the future in order to continue my own growth, and to help the growth of others. I have completely read this book in its entirety.