Influence.  There are those who have it, and there are those who want more of it.  It is a powerful commodity in our day and time. There seems to be so many jockeying for position in the arena of influence.

As followers of Jesus Christ, Christians are to be influential people.  We are to use the gifts and tools that God has given us to influence those that we come in contact with closer to the God who loves them so.

VIPO.S. Hawkins, the President and CEO of Guidestone Financial Resources of
the Southern Baptist Convention, has put out a new book that talks about being a person of influence.  He states that the common acronym, VIP
, should be redefined to “Very Influential Person.”  In VIP: How to Influence with Vision, Integrity, and Purpose, Hawkins lays out characteristics that one needs to have to be influential (Vision, Integrity, and Purpose).

VIP is a short read (around 116 pages).  In this short work, Hawkins shows how these three characteristics work to make a person more influential.  He uses different stories and phrases to help make the points of his book more memorable.  Sometimes the “catchiness” of phrases and trying to make them work through alliteration or other means took away from the content. Hawkins frequently (and well s0) uses the Bible to make his points.  I think that this is one of the strong points of this book.

My Recommendation

I think that it is important to be a person of influence.  Whether you like it or not, someone is looking up to you.  That means that you are influencing someone.  I think that there needs to be more materials that help us use our “influence” in ways that it is intended.

I believe that Hawkins has put together a decent work in VIP, but if you are looking for it to be something that is life-changing, I think that you would be disappointed.  The characteristics that Hawkins talks about in VIP – vision, integrity, and purpose – are desperately needed for a person to be successful at being influential.  I just wished that he would have shown a little more about how they work into being influential without the “sermon points”.

My Rating

3 out of 5 stars

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an honest review.)