Book Review

Larry Davies’

Live the Light,

Five Weeks to a Life that Shines

Charting Success for Believers

and their Churches

At first glance Larry Davies’ book Live the Light, Five Weeks to a Life that Shines looks like another of those self-help tomes for Christians. You know the formula: me, Jesus and 12 easy steps to a better life. In fact Davies himself compared his book to Rick Warren’s A Purpose Driven Life.

But having read Live the Light, it’s clear this is something beyond the usual blend of pop theology with pop psychology.

Davies’ work reads more like the “how to” reflections of an engineer charged with building a bridge across a deep chasm that’s never been spanned before. On the near side: lives of quiet, angry or fearful desperation. On the far side: all the joy that God intended for the world. It reads like a “reflection” because Davies doesn’t pretend he started out knowing exactly how the task would get done; it’s more like, “we tried this and that and found it worked for us, and so we were able to move forward to the next stage.”

Pastor Davies’ practical approach to changing lives may come from his first career as a successful businessman. In business, positive outcomes don’t emerge because people feel better about themselves, they come from action and, if it’s anything, Live the Light is a guide for taking action. But the chief characteristic underlying its unique value is that it’s team oriented. In Davies’ world, Christians don’t succeed as individuals, they succeed as a team. That team is called the church. Five Weeks to a Life that Shines is a cooperative plan. Individuals prosper in the supportive environment of a congregation of believers, and because they do, the church grows stronger and able to further extend God’s love.

“Light” is not only the key word in the book’s title but the unifying symbol around which it’s organized. God is like a lighthouse offering safety in a stormy world, and we as individuals, having found our help in Christ, learn to share the light with others. Davies’ church, Timberlake United Methodist in Lynchburg Virginia chose to build its mission statement around an acronym of the word Light: Love the Lord , Invite, Grow, Help others, To live like Christ. These steps on the road of faith also provide the themes for the book’s five weeks to a light that shines. Each of the five weeks is then organized by the seven days of the week: We Need Light, Opportunities to Shine, Becoming God’s Lighthouse, An Attitude that Shines, Simplify, Start Shining, and Live the Light.

It sounds structured but the book is really pretty humorous and freewheeling. To say Davies is a bit of a showman would be an understatement. Some of the themes he has used for worship might sound like gimmicks to some, but they definitely make Timberlake a lively place. And there’s usually method to his madness. For instance, he designed a worship service as a baseball game between an all-time all-star team and a lowly team of church members. The purpose? To show the power of God’s grace against all odds, win or lose. “Whether hitting a home run or striking out,” he writes in the concluding chapter of Week Three ( Grow). “Nothing can keep God away.” Then there was the “Elvis” concert service, featuring an appearance by “Elvis himself,” and a looming shipwreck youth service complete with “a dark and stormy night,” sound effects and spray bottles for waves crashing in on the youthful “sailors.”

But the story of Timberlake, its pastor and members is much more than a tale of jazzed up worship services. It’s a genuine story of service, of Christians living their faith. They traveled to Sri Lanka with aid organizations after the tsunami, went in force to Mississippi with working hands and cash to rebuild after Katrina, and built bridges never thought possible between blacks and whites in their own community by leading an effort to rebuild an African-American church destroyed by a tornado. They did the usual things too, like helping the needy at the holidays, but whatever they did (and do) they did as if inspired -- as if this is what faith is actually about.

There’s much more worth experiencing in Live the Light. Davies does a masterful job of blending scripture with the events he describes, a method that empowers both the stories he tells and the scriptures he quotes. Then there’s the frequent testimonials from people who have been helped in both body and soul. And for all the complexity of the book, simplicity wins out with the short sayings that introduce each chapter. This for example: “If you will take one step toward God, God will take two steps toward you.” That’s a quote from an American Muslim named Malcolm X. Which pretty much sums up the approach of Live the Light: go anywhere for inspiration, take any risk to let God’s light shine.