Fringe Dweller, by Jonny Baker and David Cotterill 

Recommended devotional and resource book - 40 stories about people on the margins that Jesus met and ministered to in some way, with liturgies and responses you can use straight out of the box expanding on those ideas 

 

Fringe Dweller
By Jonny Baker and David Cotterill
GETsidetracked
ISBN: 978-1838454418
Reviewed by Simon Hall 

I once had a friend whose attitude to reading was summed up by the motto, ‘If a book doesn’t have ten good ideas in it, it’s not worth reading.’ Since I think there is beauty and goodness in the world as well as truth, I probably disagree with his sentiment. However, that’s not to say that a utilitarian approach to books is always a bad idea. What about a book with 40 ideas, and then liturgies and responses that you can use straight out of the box that expand on those ideas? 

I know that 40 is the number of Lent, but Fringe Dweller isn’t really a Lent book. Yes, it has devotional elements, but that’s to undersell it considerably. It’s a meditation on Jesus as the pioneer non plus ultra, the one who lived in a tiny hamlet (Nazareth) in an unremarkable state (Galilee) of an imperial border region (Palestine) and who still felt the call to be with those who were even more marginalised than he was. Each of the 40 stories centres a person on the margins that Jesus met and ministered to in some way. 40 stories. That’s a lot of stories. How have we not noticed this before?

Jonny Baker has served in youth ministry and more recently as Director for the Britain Hub at the Church Mission Society. He has supported hundreds of people as they follow Jesus to the margins, so he’s perfectly equipped for this kind of project. Nonetheless, he has brought in the skills of pioneer and liturgist David Cotterill and artist Jon Birch to make the book a delight to the senses and not just the mind. I am writing this review on a Monday, having just led worship at my church’s weekend away, where I used a piece of liturgy from Fringe Dweller to centre Jesus at the very start of our time together.

Yes, this is a devotional book: the 40 stories are each told over just a handful of pages. It’s also a resource book: as well as liturgies, ‘practices’ and poems, each of the chapters could easily be reworked as a homily.

Yet it’s also a book of sly theology: it’s hard not to find one’s gaze drawn to the margins by the gentle, repetitive rhythm of the book. But rather than a book of practical theology that tells what we must do in the light of Christ, it takes us to the place of encounter in worship. Although Jesus is modelled to us as the ultimate contextual theologian, our own practical response is left to us, where we are, as it should be.

Do I recommend this book? Let me put it this way: it’s going in the most sacred place in my house, next to the loo! 
 

Simon Hall is a Baptist Minister and Pioneer Ambassador living in Leeds with his wife Anna, where they are members of Revive Baptist Church. He is part of The Northumbrian Collective (northumbrian.org) and is currently writing a graphic novel about St George