The Circle Maker is a book on prayer, but this book is not based on the teachings of scripture. The book is using the legend of Honi who prayed to God for rained during an extreme drought. What made his legend famous was the fact that he drew circles and did not stop praying until God did something.
The book focuses on us doing the same thing in our prayer life. We draw circles around the prayers we boldly give to God believing that he will answer because of proclaiming his promises. Batterson uses his own experiences in prayer and "circle making" to share how God can do the same for all of us.
This book has been highly praised by a few Christian leaders such as Craig Groschel, Perry Noble, and Pete Wilson. Some people will look at that and think this is a great book. The problem is this book is not that great. Sure Batterson tells great stories, but when teaching on prayer, Pastors and Bible teachers need to use the Word of God as the final authority on prayer and not a legend of one guy that God answered his prayers.
The idea of circle drawing reminds me of an old method used during an invitation in a Baptist church to invite people to receive Jesus, where it is just them and God telling Him what's on their mind. I find the book another one of those "I can't believe this was even put in print" books. Do I believe in dreaming big and bringing them to God? Yes, but not drawing circles around them as if God does not know our desires. Therefore, I cannot recommend this book.
I received this book from Zondervan for the purpose of review
Yes,my husband just brought this book home from a Promise Keeper's event, and he was really excited to read it. Once we both started reading it we felt confused and misled. We Christians are always attracted to something "new", something more "powerful", something we haven't understood before...like there is a key there to getting what we really want. One problem I have is that when I did a search on the book there were hundreds of sites that came up regarding drawing circles in witchcraft and casting spells. One wiccan author's site even talked about Honi as a mystic that helped lead the way with drawing circles for power. Also when watching the promotional video Mark Batterson did the same motion in the same manner as the pictures on the wiccan sites. I am sure that he does not mean any paganism, and that his heart is truly for prayer, but it was disconcerting and that, along with the shaky scriptural grounding, would lead us to not recommend this book either.
ReplyDeletePam,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I did not think of the book that way at the time I was reading it.