Our churches are packed with people who claim to believe in Jesus…but don’t actually do anything he said! This book will make you laugh and cry. It will make you look at things in a fresh new way. And it will definitely make you uncomfortable. Which might be a good thing because ultimately Dan calls us to live, love, and lead like the Jesus we claim to follow.
— RAY JOHNSTON, author of The hope Quotient and founding and lead pastor at Bayside Church, Roseville, California
Most Christian books are about our most important vertical relationship— us and God—but this book explores what those books don’t: the horizontal relationship we are called to as human beings—the relationships we must have with one another. Indeed, this is a lost art that Dan recovers and teaches us about with heart and logic at every turn. I highly recommend it!
— MARK CLARK, author of The Problem of God and lead pastor at Village Church, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
I still recall the first time Dan came into my office. I couldn’t understand why he was so persistent in us meeting. I wondered, what did he want? It didn’t take long before I found out…a relationship with me, a stranger whom he only knew by name! He began with wanting to hear my story. I wanted to hand him a copy of my book Five Years to Life but decided against it. I then asked him to tell me his story. I don’t recall much of it because I never got beyond the story of his father and how he crossed cultural barriers and built relation- ships lasting over thirty-plus years with individuals that started out as strangers.
This let me know what was “in” Dan. By the time he was done telling me that story I knew we would be brothers. We have had many meetings since that initial one. We have laughed, cried, and ate a lot together…maybe too much! Dan has the gift of risk-taking in seeking out and building relationships. As he writes in this book, step one in building relationships is noticing someone, the last step if you get that far is you become family. If you want a quick fix to relationships, don’t read this book. But, if you want to learn how to build life-long, meaningful friendships, then this book might be for you.