The Gift of the Outsider: What Living in the Margins Teaches Us About Faith

by Alicia J Akins, Jen Oshman (Foreword by)

Overview

Embracing the Spiritual Lessons of Unbelonging

Too often, cultural belonging becomes a battle, and its winners gain the world: access, comfort, safety, community. Yet for those on the margins—set apart from their culture by differences such as ethnicity, class, ability, and faith—God offers something even greater.

The Gift of the Outsider celebrates the blessings found in unbelonging—and calls Christians of all backgrounds to love and listen to their community’s outcasts. As a Christian, a Black American, a woman, and an expatriate, author Alicia J. Akins offers heartfelt reflections on her own experiences as an outsider. She illuminates how we can
 

• cherish the unique gifts that God bestows on those who endure loneliness and adversity
• encourage and humbly receive the invaluable insights outsiders of all kinds have to offer
• delight in how the differences within God’s people reflect his majesty—and how Christ’s reign unifies all believers

 
Compassionate and biblically grounded, The Gift of the Outsider enriches today’s broader conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion, and is sure to encourage and challenge outsiders and insiders alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780736984232
Publisher:	Harvest House Publishers
Publication date:	09/05/2023
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alicia J. Akins is a writer who finds herself at home both nowhere and anywhere. Her interest in how differences can be our strengths has taken her across the globe and after living and working in Asia for five years, she considers it a second home. She is a master’s student at Reformed Theological Seminary, Washington D.C. You can find more of her writing at FeetCryMercy.com​ and follow her on Twitter ​@FeetCryMercy.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Foreword
Jen Oshman
I remember the first day I walked my firstborn into her Japanese preschool classroom. She wore the same navy-blue uniform, hat, and indoor shoes as every other child, but she did not wear the same skin, eyes, hair, language, or culture. None of the teachers nor students spoke English, and we did not speak Japanese. My husband and I hugged her, reassured her that everything would be okay, and promised to return several hours later. When I picked her up later that day, I got an earful from her about the many ways Japanese teachers and kids are different from the Americans my daughter was accustomed to. Her first day was foreign in every way.

Our American family lived overseas for years. Our kids attended school in Japan, the Czech Republic, and Germany before we made our way back to the United States, which, according to their passports (but not their hearts), is their home country. They grew up on the outside. We parented from the margins of our communities. Our family had little in common with our neighbors. And now that we’re “home” in the US, our outsider status remains because our family forged an identity on different shores.

But I would do it all again. If we were given the opportunity to raise our kids on the outside again, we would jump at the chance. Because although it was always awkward at best, and tearful on the harder days, growing up on the margins was a gift that will never stop producing fruit in my children’s lives. They have a global perspective. A big worldview. An awareness of others. Empathy. Eyes to see. These good gifts are harder to find when you’re on the inside.

The cultural West, and especially the United States, feels more polarized than ever. And while we do indeed have unique pressures in our age (such as social media and curated news feeds) that invariably push us into corners and silos, humans seeking the company of those who are like themselves—those who agree with them, confirm their views for them, require little from them—is nothing new. Our flesh has always craved stasis and not change, confirmation and not questioning. But is life on the inside what God has for you and me?

In the pages ahead, Alicia Akins encourages and even graciously provokes us who easily get cozy on the inside—the inside circles of our churches, workplaces, cultures, or wherever God has us. She reminds us the poor in the spirit, the meek, those who hunger, and those who are persecuted are the blessed ones. “Blessed are you,” Jesus says, “when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12).

Counter to our culture, flesh, and intuition, the blessings for those who live on the outside are great. And the blessings for those who listen and learn from them promise to be great as well. Outsiders can see what insiders so often miss. They provide us sight where we are blind. They shine light where we may otherwise be in the dark. 

I’ve been back in the American suburbs for seven years now. Most of my community is white, affluent, and politically conservative. And while I still feel a bit off, I am assimilating more every day. I need the views from those on the outside now more than ever. I need my friends of color to help me interpret headlines and how they hit their families differently than they do mine. I need them to talk to me about justice and reform, and I need to see up close what it’s like to live in their skin. I need my friends who are immigrants and refugees to show me what it’s like to start over—to flee one’s government, education, status, loved ones, and comfort and to start anew. I need my friends who are divorced, single, or members of large families to show me how they cling to Christ and his people and depend on us like we are family—because we are. I need my friends who are daily—hourly—walking away from addiction, one step at a time. I need their witness that Christ is enough, no matter what.

My friends on the margins preach a whole sermon with their lives. And I need to hear it. Church, what if we willingly put ourselves on the outside? What if we placed ourselves on the margin? Or, what if we welcomed those on the outside in? What if we trusted Jesus when he says his grace is sufficient for you and me? What if we pursued weakness so that he might be proven strong?

As you turn these pages, turn to the Lord your God. May he use Alicia’s wisdom, experience, and words to reveal his heart for the outsider to you. Jesus himself lived on the margins—rejected and slain because he was the Son of God. May he conform you and me more and more into his own image. May he help you and me pursue life and friendships on the outside.

Jen Oshman
Author and speaker