Book Review: The Big Story by Justin Buzzard

We all have a story to tell. Everyone's story is different though some elements maybe similar. When we meet someone the first time, we want to know that person so he/she tells us their story.

Justin Buzzard, in his latest book, The Big Story, asks the question, what sort of story are you in? Buzzard writes:

Throughout the ages people have given many different answers to this question. Your neighbors, coworkers, and local bookstore all offer different answers to our question. If you filled the room you're in the right now with a mixture of both atheists and deeply religious people, you'd hear fifty different stories from all these people. But they all believe the story that they think makes sense out of their lives.

My conviction is that only one story is big enough to adequately answer this question, to explain all the beauty and all the brokenness we see in this world, to make sense of our desires, dreams, and disappointments...The Big Story, the story we need, is old and ongoing story of the Bible. The Bible is a collection of ancient manuscripts written over fifteen hundred years by over forty different authors that tell one big story about God and people. It's a strange story. It's a good story. It's a story that's still moving, a story in which you play an important part. It, I think, is the only story big enough to make sense out of everything you've been through and everything you and the people you love will face in the future.

The Big Story tells the story of the Bible in a simple way for a new believer or even someone unfamiliar with the Bible can read and understand. Buzzard has the book written as if you were reading an entire play in English class. The book begins with a chapter on Jesus who is the centerpiece of Christianity. The second chapter is Act 1 of the story about God and who He is with the following chapter being Act 2 about creation. The next Act is on how sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam then talking about God's rescue plan when Jesus died for our sins on the cross and then one day return to consummate the world.

As a Youth Pastor, I struggle to find good gospel-centered materials to give new Christians for them to read. I can say, The Big Story is a resource that all church leaders must give to every new believer to begin their discipleship.

Thanks Moody Publishers for letting me review this book.