Life in the fishbowl is no life at all.

So asserts Jared Herd, a noted speaker and creative director of the XP3 curriculum for youth. In his first book, More Lost Than Found: Finding a Way Back to Faith, Herd argues that the present day church has retreated into a “fishbowl” of Christian religion. Rather than engage the culture with an incarnational message of Jesus, the church has chosen the safety of a tidy worldview, one that ignores Jesus’ persistent outreach to human culture as he finds it. Herd hopes to shatter the fishbowl by translating Jesus to youth and young adults who have been either ignored or condemned by the church.

Successful translation of the gospel will not produce instant members of Christian culture, however. No matter how much the church wants people to become part of its sterilized world, most people do not conform to its accepted standards overnight. People come to the gospel in small steps, not leaps. Young people must be patiently invited into the real life that comes with following Jesus, not judged into it, even though their behavior may not fall in line with Christian culture.

Central to Herd’s view are concepts such as mystery, myth, and experience. The quest for Jesus is no longer an intellectual one best answered with facts and theological systems, if it ever was such. Now more than ever, faith must reject cheap truth that ignores real suffering and doubts. Instead, it must enter into real, unsanitized experience with Jesus.

To make his points, Herd employs a variety of insightful metaphors. Church is a fishbowl that separates us from the rest of the world and tries to trap God in our own space. The result of shattering the fishbowl is not a neat, recognizable painting, but “drip art,” which is far more messy and subjective. Technology is a broken compass that, if we follow it too closely, will actually lead us away from real life. Each of the images Herd uses draws out fresh meaning in his subject, sometimes in surprising ways.

In this way, Herd takes his place among talented, free-thinking writers like Donald Miller and Rob Bell. His content is similar: living a holistic life, challenging assumptions, breaking with the dominant Christian culture in a loving way. But Herd’s gifts as a writer are strong enough to make his message feel fresh—a key element for youth and young adults.

For all its terrific points, More Lost Than Found has difficulty in maintaining a clear audience. At times, Herd seems to be speaking to those of us (young and otherwise) who have felt abandoned by the church and almost given up on faith. At other times, he speaks to the church in an attempt to translate what it’s like to be young and spiritually adrift in America. It feels as though he is writing a consistent set of ideas, but translating them into different languages within the same book.

Despite these inconsistencies in audience, More Lost Than Found will be both a good read and helpful resource for those who work with young people, or who want to better understand the disconnect between young people and the church. Those who live in the disconnect themselves may also find a hopeful new perspective in its pages.

And all readers will find an interesting new voice in Christian publishing—one that shows a great deal of promise as a communicator of faith and culture.