I was very disappointed with this book. The material in this book could be covered in half the number of pages. Not only was it drawn out, the concepts in the book were not “deep”.
Going Deep by Gordon MacDonald is a story of fictional church implementing a supposedly new and innovative idea of Cultivating Deep People (CDP). A group of people are chosen to be committed to meeting once a week to learn to be deep. But I did not see anything innovative nor deep in its idea or methods. While the premise is good – “Strengthening and enlarging the core congregation by cultivating growable men and women to be rooted, built up, and strengthened in Christ and to become competent and confident in their call to serve others in his name” – the way to do that is nothing more than a pretty typical discipleship group. I was hoping to learn something more about “cultivating deep people”, such as challenging people to live out their faith, but the people in the group were not challenged in any way that is radical. If you really want to be “deep” in your faith, I recommend the book Radical by David Platt.
There were a couple of things I did learn. One is a quote attributed to hockey star Wayne Gretzky: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”
I have not read MacDonald’s other book of this fictional church Who Stole My Church? I hope it’s better than this one.
Disclosure: Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for this review. Opinions are entirely my own.