Love Riot |Book Thoughts|

Love Riot from Sara Barratt — Publishing date 2020

We live in a world begging for love.
Acceptance.
Someone to walk alongside us.

These last couple of months I’m seeing that more then ever.
I contemplated walking away from the church when I was teenager because I ached for authenticity I saw in the Bible but was often rejected by the congregation. I longed to see my generation rising up and declaring truth, to be real and raw and bring a love that has not been seen in my day.

“So many teens are leaving the church and walking away from Christianity…We settle for a counterfiet, watered down gospel that’s packaged nicely enough to get our attention. We’re content with Jesus on a smartphone, Jesus on a big screen, Jesus inside a fun program, but we don’t pursue the pure, undiluted truths of the gospel that are simply…Jesus.”

Love Riot

Sara’s book “Love Riot” is one I’d wish I’d had in high school. At twenty one, her words aren’t speaking directly to me as an adult, but this is a book with a message everyone needs to hear regardless. This is for the ones who don’t know if they want to show up to church on sunday, but also the ones desperate for something real in their lives that goes beyond the feel good churchy picture we so often come away with that doesn’t add up.

This book is about how to start a riot — a love riot. A riot that expodes with unshakable passion for the gospel and reaching the broken. It’s a riot that’s real and beautiful and one I’ve always longed to see.
Sara is passionate and real, and teens who have grown up on a conservative home will be able to read this book with ease. I understood the whole “growing up in church my entire life” thing. I was also homeschooled (and my dad was a pastor), so basically my childhood summed up the typical sheltered human.

The church is not a…

building

demonination

The church isn’t about…

perfection

entertainment

Which leads to my only major turn off: those who didn’t grow up in the same typical more sheltered enviroment may struggle a bit with relating to Love Riot because of who its intended audiance seems to be. Regardless if Sara did that on purpose or not, those who grew up in church will be able to follow along and understand her words than those who didn’t.

Also, I wish I would have had more of Sara’s personal faith journey in the book. We don’t get to know her as well as I’d like, though we have plenty of stories from others. I wondered why she didn’t seem to fit in with the typical church group and what made her want to write this book. She vaguely explained but I guess I was looking for more of what made her tick.
However, despite these two minors, Love Riot is a call for us to rise up in love — because that is our hope for tomorrow. To see a teenager write this was an inspiring call that made me want to stand up and cheer.

This book was provided by the publisher, but all thoughts are my own

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