"Reset" by Nick Hall

Overall, Nick Hall shares a powerful message in "Reset: Jesus Changes Everything." The second portion of the book when he challenges readers to explore various areas of their life to see if they need to allow Jesus to reset them, is powerful. He challenges us to reset our faith, our plans, our self-image, our relationships, our purity, our habits, our affections, and our generation. In doing so, Hall interacts with our modern culture and challenges some of our modern lifestyles such as materialism and how we approach sexuality. Of particular interest is his conversation on resetting our affections. He states that our affections are anything that gets in the way of our relationship with Jesus Christ -- in other words, our affections are our idols. As Hall aptly argues, we need to reset many areas of our lives in order to become more competent disciples. Will resetting bring us to salvation, no salvation only comes through Jesus Christ. Resetting will improve our relationship with Jesus Christ and enable us to partner with Him in bring God's kingdom to earth.
That said, it is unfortunate that Hall interweaved this important message with the stories of how he founded his ministry. It is understandable as to why he shared this story in the midst of his text. Unfortunately, it feels very much like a commercial for his ministry, particularly in the first few chapters. It would have fit better if Hall interwove the story into why we need to reset our lives rather than introducing the book with this.
In addition, when he took Biblical stories out of their original context and contemporized them, it felt very forced. The stories of Scripture are great stories! Sometimes an updated version might be useful, but in the context of this book it felt unnecessary.
As a youth pastor, I would certainly encourage youth in my ministry to consider the areas which they need to reset. I would like to take the concepts that Hall lays out in this text and strip away the baggage of the story of the founding of his ministry so that they might focus on the fullness of the grace of God and how Jesus Christ resets our lives.
I received this book as part of Multonohmah Publishers Blogging for Books program.