Mark Batterson Says Not My Circus: Living with Conviction and Compassion in a Chaotic World
Brian From talks with New York Times bestselling author and Washington, D.C. pastor Mark Batterson, a Naperville native, about his new book, Not My Circus: Living with Courage, Conviction, and Compassion in a World of Chaos. Mark explains the title’s double meaning: the familiar proverb about healthy boundaries, and Paul’s call in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to a world whose largest building, Rome’s Circus Maximus, shaped what people cheered and feared. He describes the cultural “three-ring circus” of shaming, blaming, and faming that traces back to Genesis 3, and argues that grace and truth must go together. Grace without truth is “weak sauce,” truth without grace is “hot sauce,” and together they’re the “secret sauce.” For recovering people pleasers, Mark offers the fear of the Lord as the cure for the fear of man. Drawing on 30 years of pastoring on Capitol Hill, he reminds listeners heading into the midterms that politics matter but are never ultimate, because administrations come and go while God’s kingdom endures.



