THE UPSIDE DOWN LIFE

A seasoned preacher offers advice to new Christians in this guide.

As a pastor at Prairie Alliance Church in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, for nearly two decades, Weselake has long been disappointed in the lack of books geared toward adults who recently converted to Christianity. Taking up the challenge himself, he wrote this work specifically for those who “recently decided to follow Jesus” but are insecure in the logistics of Christianity as most of their fellow believers have been raised in churches and have “a twenty-year-plus head start.” In other words, the volume’s ideal audience is those who “ask what the hell ‘Hosanna in the highest’ means.” Though there are a few sections that explain abstruse Christian terminology like exegesis, the guide reflects the style of a veteran evangelical preacher in defaulting to humorous anecdotes and analogies to explain the religion’s principles. Indeed, the entire book is centered on a “bedtime story” told by the author about an evil wizard who turned the world upside down. This “UPSIDEDOWN dream of God” becomes the guiding principle of Weselake’s approach to Christianity: “Up to God,” “SIDE to each other in authentic community,” and “DOWN in humble acts of service.” Each of these three categories is accompanied by specific acts that will help form the religious worlds of young Christians, spanning from their private lives (“daily devotions”) to their public personas (“telling others about Jesus”). Written in a conversational style that succeeds in its goal to ease new Christians into the faith, the manual is unafraid to break the stodgy norms of Christian publishing. “Uncle Nathan” (Weselake’s version of an illeism) halfheartedly suggests that readers “light up a joint” at one point, and at another, retells a Russell Brand joke about “wanking off.” This style may be refreshing to some readers but often feels artificially forced and, thus, overcompensating to appear trendy. Moreover, many new converts who are looking for the fundamentals of Christian doctrine will be sorely disappointed, as the book prioritizes orthodoxy in one’s daily actions over explanations of the basics of the religion’s theology.

An approachable, if sometimes blithe, manual for new Christians.