There was an American Revolution, a French Revolution and now Shane Claiborne is calling for an Irresistible Revolution in his book titled The Irresistible Revolution Living as an Ordinary Radical. The type of revolution Claiborne is talking about can only start with love. The same unconditional love God has for His creation is the love Claiborne is asking his audience to show the world. An Irresistible Revolution will begin if people start listening to the whisper of God, believing, caring, loving, and taking action.

“Today we can hear the whisper where we least expect it: in a baby refugee and in a homeless rabbi, in crack addicts and displaced children, in a groaning creation” (Claiborne 22). This whisper can be as simple as the sound of the wind or as loud as a passage turned to in the Scriptures. As we think about a God who speaks to us, we should be reminded to listen. It is impossible to listen if we do not spend time in prayer focusing on what God may be saying to us. Some time should also be devoted to learning more about God’s Word. The whisper of God is so powerful that if we fail to listen then we are incapable of truly believing that we can change the world one small step at a time.

Mother Teresa is a legend and not just because of all the glorious work that she had done, but because she believed the world could be a better place. She had faith in something that was bigger than she was and she knew it.

But there was one thing I will never forget – her [Mother Teresa] feet. Her feet were deformed. Each morning in Mass, I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted leprosy. But I wasn’t going to ask, of course. “Hey Mother, what’s wrong with your feed?” One day a sister said to us, “Have you noticed her feet?” We nodded, curious. She said, “Her feet are deformed because we get just enough donated shoes for everyone, and Mother does not want anyone to get stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds them. And years of doing that has deformed her feet.” Years of loving her neighbor as herself deformed her feet (Claiborne 167-168).

Mother Teresa was willing to make a sacrifice and one that affected her in a physical way because she believed no person should have to wear the worst pair of shoes when they already have so little. People nowadays choose to only care about themselves and believe that someone else will take care of it. We often times do not take the risk because we are too afraid to put ourselves out there, we are too lazy and just do not want to participate in changing the world or our mindset is that someone else is going to do that. If everyone thinks that someone else is going to do something then no one is going to accomplish anything. Mother Teresa stepped up to the plate and we should use her as a model for our own lives and be the person who cares about others because we believe that no one deserves the worst. It all started because Mother Teresa believed in something, but also because she cared enough to make a difference.

It is hard to be the person who feels like they are flying down the fast lane when everyone else is going the speed limit. We cannot have one person feeling so out of touch with their community. We have to begin to care about one another. “We know that we cannot do life alone, and the good news is that we don’t have to. We are created for community” (Claiborne 254). Spring Arbor University is a community of Christians that sometimes shows it’s caring side. It is time for students and faculty to step up and show how much they care about one another and other people in the Jackson community. If the world needs our help we should be offering it, without reward, because we simply care. Shane also tells a story about a couple who were unable to have children and they meet a woman who was pregnant and homeless. They took her in and lived together as a family. The woman is a nurse and the wife of the married couple has multiple sclerosis and the woman is caring for her (Claiborne 183). This is the type of community that we should live in. We should always be caring about one another and showing how we can serve them on a daily basis. It’s almost impossible to care about other people if we don’t show them love.

We should always be showing love and it should be the same love that God has shown us. Mother Teresa said, “Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts and then love more” (Claiborne 136). Loving is not going to be easy. We have to remember how hard love is, but we must also remember the rewards that come from showing other people love. Shane gives an example of how hard loving really is. He had an interaction with a child in the neighborhood who was being bullied at school and how in order to stop having the bully pick on the child, he would have to show him how friends treat each other. The little boy said, “Aww man, love is so hard” (Claiborne 284). That is very true love is hard especially when we realize that we have to love the people that we don’t like all of the time. “The only thing harder than hatred is love” (285) From that perspective, we should always be showing love. It will be difficult and we are going to have to find out how to act in such a way that we are a loving group of people. Loving each other just might be the something new that we are looking for, and it can be how we begin to change the world.

We have to take action. The revolution that Shane is calling us to cannot begin if we sit around on our butts and do nothing. “I just wanted to rise above the suffocating deadness, to rise above people who no longer feel or dream but just exist” (Claiborne 346). We must no longer just go through the motions. We must stand up for everything that we believe in and begin Shane’s Irresistible Revolution. We have to start dreaming big and believing that we can accomplish those dreams. “We are to be fire, to weave our lives together so that the Spirit’s inferno of love spreads across the earth” (Claiborne 352). If we join up with other Christians we are going to spread love and fire across the earth and be a bright light. The moment action is taken the quicker and more likely changing the world can begin.

If we listen to God’s whisper, believe, care, love, and take action an Irresistible Revolution can begin. We don’t want to start wars, we want to change people and show them how by joining together we can change the world. Claiborne is calling us to do something about our faith and is challenging us to be more than just people that have slowly begun to start fitting into the rest of the world. It’s time to step up and be on the bandwagon, the Irresistible Revolution bandwagon.