June Book of the month: How to be (un)successful
/Reviewer: Ali Hull
Book: How to be (un)Successful: An unlikely guide to human flourishing
Pete Portal (Form, SPCK 2023)
Pete Portal, author of No Neutral Ground, has spent years working in Manenberg, a troubled area of Cape Town, South Africa. His first book, also reviewed in Preach, tells the story of how he moved to Cape Town and started a work there that reaches out to those with many needs – drugs, poverty, abuse and so on. This second book is partly a result of his thinking and how it has been affected by that ministry, and in particular, he is considering the issue of success, and what it should look like, in the Christian church, and what it so often is said to look like.
In the world, success is bigger, brighter, wider, more expensive, noisier – it is more. Too often, it seems, the church simply takes all that and gives is a Christian gloss. The successful Christian church is, of course, the biggest one: numbers, funds, all these things are what matter. But Portal wants to revert to first principles – and is encouraged to do so when an older Christian points out to him that sometimes the body grows as a result of a swelling that indicates infection, not healthy growth.
What does success look like to God?
The book – which is immensely readable – starts with simple obedience: success, in God’s eyes, is knowing what he is asking us to do, and doing it. Whatever it may be. Whatever the outcome is. Then Portal considers the importance of relationships, of truly seeing people, not chasing results. He talks about growing in depth, rather than size: and so on.
Reading this book slowly and making full use of the suggestions and questions at the end of each chapter would result in a proper reassessment of our lives and our ministries. Portal does not promise easy answers or transformation: this is the Christian equivalent of Churchill’s wartime promise of ‘blood, sweat and tears’. But what he does promise is authenticity.
Reviewer: Ali Hull has worked with words for over 30 years, in book publishing, magazines, PR and as a writing and publishing consultant.