Saying our faith is dirty doesn’t sound good, we want to be clean. Sometimes, though, we carry this notion of being clean to the point that our faith becomes sterile, not producing fruit. We need to get our hands dirty and do things in our faith, which means helping orphans, widows, those that society easily forgets or overlooks. David Z. Nowell explains about this kind of faith with works in Dirty Faith.

Praying for people is a start, but just a start. We aren’t supposed to ride on the efforts of others when we can do something, too. Nowell shares what he has seen in his experiences, and shows how even ordinary people can get involved. We don’t have to be special, or even “called” to adopt or be a missionary to help.

Reading through the book, I realized I had developed the wrong attitude. I had joined all the others that have said, “I’d help, but I can’t because (insert reason here).” I can’t fix the problem on my own, I may not even be able to become directly involved in helping “the least of these,” but I can do something. To paraphrase the message of the book, it is time that our faith got dirty.

I received a free copy of Dirty Faith from Bethany House in exchange for this review.