I Am A Follower by Leonard Sweet

Are you followers of Jesus?  Our immediate response will be yes.  However, how many of us are truly followers of Jesus?  Not many.  The reason is that following Jesus is not a popular thing.  In the opening page, Leonard Sweet critique the present landscape of Christianity that places so much emphasis on creating better and stronger leaders (: 19).  Christianity has followed the dominant culture that exalts dominant leadership. 

In this book, Sweet challenges that Christians must re-learn what it means to be followers of Jesus.  Our Christian faith is built on two basic fundamentals: Jesus is the leader, and we are his followers.  Nothing else.  We are always his followers.  Sweet further explains that following Jesus does not mean that we have no ability to influence others.  In fact, our life example will influence others to follow Jesus.  We have something distinctive to offer to the present culture that is obsessed by domination, hierarchy, and power.  Followership offers the contrary.  It offers the posture of love and trust (:40).

Following Jesus means to be on the journey with Him.  Sweet presents a simple template in outlining our journey with Jesus based on John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” When we belong to the Way, we are in the right mission; when we believe in the Truth, we are in the right relationship with Christ; and when we make Christ’s life our life, we will behave like Jesus.

I appreciate Sweet’s challenge for us to reorient our life from being preoccupied to be a successful leader to simply being a faithful follower of Christ.  Sweet comments that Reformation concept of the priesthood for believers fails to flourish because the church employs top-down corporate leadership and focuses much on professional clergy.  Therefore, he suggests that the church needs to reclaim followership.  Only followership can level the playing field and energizes the laity to contribute to the life of the church.  He writes, “We don’t need more larger-than-life leaders…We need more down-to-earth followers” (:175).

However, one may find Sweet’s style of writing too simplistic because he uses too many stories.  As a result, some readers may quickly dismiss the book as light-weight and lacking originality. I would agree with this criticism.  I had hoped that Sweet would develop in greater detail the relationship between Belonging (the Way), Believing (the Truth), and Behaving (the Life).  What happens when one finds Christian’s way of life attractive but decides not to believe in the truth? How can we encourage the person to move from belonging to believing and behaving?  In this regard, I would rate Sweet’s I Am A Follower 3 star for its lack of robust conversation between the three parts.