Jesus Prom by Jon Weece – Book Review
I just finished reading “Jesus Prom” by Jon Weece. It’s a light read about how life gets fun when you love people like God does – “recklessly.”
Jesus Prom – The Book
The structure of “Jesus Prom” is based around verbs. The idea being that Jesus loved verbs: love, come, rest, learn, hear, die, give and go.
Each chapter in “Jesus Prom” takes a given verb and explores how we can live out that verb… not think about it, study it, mull it over and consider starting a program someday – but living it out in love.
When you look at the list of verbs in “Jesus Prom”, you see a powerful life if lived out as Jesus did: love, be, see, die, talk, rest, turn, dance, give, go, suffer, remember and receive. The final chapter is “verbatim” which is how we are to follow Jesus.
Beyond that, the epilogue is “add-verbs” which make a basic verb something amazing and dramatic: serve joyfully.
Jon Weece – The Writing
The book is written in a very smooth flow – very easy to read. It feels like a blog entry or a personal email. There’s not a lot of logical arguments built in “Jesus Prom.” The theology is solid, but it’s second fiddle to the message. If you’re looking for doctrinal exploration, it’s not here.
If you’re looking for encouragement to love others and live like Jesus, “Jesus Prom” might be for you.
To be honest, it took me a few chapters to get into the book. The personal stories, while good, were rather short. Instead of focusing on a given experience and going deep, Jon tells a few stories in some chapters.
Just as I was about to settle in for a long illustration, he switched gears.
However, the effect was that after a few chapters, I felt like I knew him better.
His style is light and casual. Grammar zealots beware. Not that it’s bad, but we’ll call it informal. My point is, again, it feels like something a friend wrote to you.
The foreword is by Bob Goff which is how I came to this book. Bob loves with passion and whimsy. He thinks a lot of Jon Weece and that was enough for me.
Jesus Prom – Overall
Overall, “Jesus Prom” is a nice read encouraging believers to rethink how we live in a variety of ways. As our Savior lived, so should we. If that’s true, we need to know how He lived if we’re going to follow.
He served, taught, rested, prayed, gave, loved and died among other things. And He did it selflessly, willingly, joyfully, sacrificially and lovingly.
In clear, encouraging and loving terms Jon Weece shares in “Jesus Prom” how Jesus lived out these verbs in grace and love and how we too should strive to follow His example… verbatim.
