The Jesus at Walmart…fire on the Earth was my first encounter with Lelan’s Jesus at Walmart trilogy on a DIY church planter. Malachi Marble not longer works at Walmart, divorced and detached from his former church. Equipped with a mandolin, poor song writing skills and an eagerness to practice New Testament promises and verses (quoted without context) to build God’s Church. While this book’s not meant for non-believers it surely is a mirror for a lot of modern evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Over the top usage of Bible quotes, repetitive self-made worship songs with only buzz words and a superficial interaction between people. With a little help from his friends, The Table (‘the church for you’), a brand new church is created, marriage with Annie restored and discussions with fellow churches on the Bible translation of choice or gender requirements of overseers muted craft-fully. While not always concise and near the end truly missing a natural ending, there are a lot of humorous scenes like explaining the costs of baptism, Uncle Dale’s explanation of coming to faith and the ways vague ‘prophecies’ can be used as an exhortation of anyone, everywhere, anytime. Smile, it could be your church, folks! ( )

The first word that jumped into my head while reading this book was unique. Since this is the third book in the series I purchased and read the first two so I wasn't evaluating the book without knowing the whole story.
Even as a Christian I found the book to be too much. The message of salvation was there but overpowered by other things. The songs interspersed throughout the book were a distraction. The repetition of the words grew tedious. I think that some of the experiences shared by the Jesus at Walmart crew were a little over the top and they reached the level of unbelievable. This in my option could cause someone to write off the whole concept as unbelievable. Or it could cause someone new to their faith feel inadequate when they didn't experience the same level of spiritual awareness.
I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for providing an honest review ( )

Although I found this book to have a good, solid foundation, I thought it a difficult read. At times, the dialogue was not easy to follow and it was confusing to determine who was talking. I do think this book had a great message to share about life, faith, and perseverance, if you could get past the redundancy of the musical lyrics and choppiness to the overall flow of the book. With some work, this book could be fantastic! ( )

Malachi had been a pastor, but now he works at Walmart. Except he is still very much being a pastor amongst the people he lives and works with. This is the story of a group of Christians as they live out their faith and life, including their forays into starting a new church, and as Malachi no longer works at Walmart.

There are some absolute gems in this book, like explaining who pays for baptism and Uncle Dale's explanation of coming to faith.

I did at times find it confusing to follow, losing track of who was who and what their place in the story was, though I realise this is book 3, so maybe I've missed some important bits!

It's an inspiring story of what people can do when they follow what God calls them to. ( )