Love Let Go: Radical Generosity for the Real World

by Laura Truax, Amalya Campbell

Overview

Displays the amazing power of generosity to transform people and communities

When LaSalle Street Church in Chicago received an unexpected windfall, its leaders made the wild, counterintuitive decision to give it away. Each church member received a check for $500 with the instruction to go out and do good in God's world.

In Love Let Go readers witness how a church community was transformed by the startling truth that money can buy happiness—when we give it away. Laura Sumner Truax and Amalya Campbell show how this radical generosity shaped their community, exploring the reverberating impact of each act of generosity, and ultimately revealing how LaSalle's faith-filled risk snowballed into a movement beyond itself.

Throughout the book Truax and Campbell probe the connection of human flourishing to generosity and offer tools to help us reclaim our giver identities and live generously—to love and let go.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802874474
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	03/28/2017
Pages:	215
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Laura Sumner Truax is senior pastor at LaSalle Street Church in downtown Chicago, a teaching pastor at the University of Chicago, and the author of Undone: When Coming Apart Puts You Back Together. She frequently speaks around the country on the topics of faith and justice—and generosity.

Amalya Campbell is a marketing consultant in Wilmette, Illinois, with an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has led stewardship classes at LaSalle Street Church for more than a dozen years.

Table of Contents

Foreword Richard Stearns ix

I Our Generous Nature

1 Wired to Be Givers 3

2 The Plane of Generosity 21

3 Abundance, Not Scarcity 39

II Stumbling Toward Generosity

4 Identity Intact 61

5 Transactions and Interactions 77

6 The Saturation Point 95

III The Generous Life

7 Listening Inside Out 115

8 Listening Outside In 135

9 Reframing Thankfulness 153

10 Letting Love Go 167

Afterword 183

Questions for Reflection and Discussion 185

For Further Reading 196

Notes 198

Acknowledgments 202

Editorial Reviews

01/09/2017
In 2014, LaSalle Street Church on the near north side of Chicago received money from the sale of investment property and, at the time, many asked “What did the church do with the $1.6 million?” Truax and Campbell, senior pastor at LaSalle and member of the church’s leadership council, respectively, answer that question as a jumping-off point, but also address much more in this well-wrought book. At the time of the sale, LaSalle had budgetary needs of its own; however, the church also has a reputation for generosity amid the scarcity of its poor neighborhood. “Generosity frees us to be our truest selves,” the authors write. First, not without dissension, the church gave $500 to each member “to do good in the world”; the spending included paying for an African woman’s surgery and simply passing out $20 bills. Along with the modern stories of LaSalle, the authors effectively interlace ancient stories from the Bible and advice from outside resources, financial and religious. They write as much about the grinding, rewarding process of discernment—praying, meeting, listening inside and out—as about dispersal of funds. Part story of LaSalle’s decision of how to handle their investment, part testament to the powers of generosity, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in community building or philanthropy. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Brian D. McLaren
—author of The Great Spiritual Migration
"Our culture brainwashes us to think that greed is the motivation that drives us, but this book offers a powerful alternative message—the transformative power of generosity. This message could literally change the world, beginning with your life and mine."

Soong-Chan Rah
—author of The Next Evangelicalism and Prophetic Lament
"More and more churches understand that in order to effectively preach the gospel, we must also live the gospel. In contrast to the societal value of gaining and collecting power, privilege, and wealth, this book documents the story of a church that opted to give away their possessions. Their example reminds us that the New Testament church is alive and well and that there could be the possibility of a movement of generous churches."

Publishers Weekly
"Along with the modern stories of LaSalle, the authors effectively interlace ancient stories from the Bible and advice from outside resources, financial and religious. They write as much about the grinding, rewarding process of discernment—praying, meeting, listening inside and out—as about dispersal of funds. Part story of LaSalle's decision of how to handle their investment, part testament to the powers of generosity, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in community building or philanthropy."

Chicago Tribune
"Inserts itself into our culture of consumption as a no-holds-barred call for grace-filled giving. . . . At once a meditation on generosity and a spur to action, it stands a mighty chance of shaking loose your acquisitive grip and beckoning your most generous self. . . . A soul stirring work that squarely illuminates the compound interest of giving. When love is let go, the world can't help but open its heart."

Martin E. Marty on Sightings
"Cheering and practical. . . . I could profane the plot by writing a true but merely practical summary: 'radical generosity works.' But Truax and Campbell sacralize the story by rooting it in the trust and faith they demonstrate, as did their members."

Christian Market
"The story of the La Salle Street Church holds to potential to become a modern-era In His Steps."

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