The Visitation, by Frank Peretti

If you asked me on the spur of the moment what my favorite Peretti books were, I probably wouldn’t rate The Visitation in the top three, but considering how often I have read it, maybe I should. Besides being a masterfully told story, the truth in this book brings me back to it again and again even when I technically prefer the more “fantasy” plotlines of his Present Darkness series

And the difference is that the truth in this book hits hard for me. It always has, because I’ve been in and around the church my entire life. But my most recent read-through occurred after a period of church hurt in my own family’s life.

 I opened the book and found Travis, a retired, embittered pastor reciting the litany of petty church difficulties: the arguments about church décor, the complaints about other parishioners, the stupid, petty differences that take up so much of the church’s time. (And that’s the other reason I love this book; Travis always delivers just the right level of snark about stupid stuff church people do.)

Travis has been avoiding the overtures of friendship from young, enthusiastic pastor Kyle Sherman, who has stepped into the pulpit in his place. Kyle is concerned because after decades of ministry, Travis has not been to church, and Travis intends to keep it that way, but strange things start happening in his small town, and he is inexorably drawn into a church mess that swallows the entire town of Antioch, Washington.

A man who looks like Jesus comes to Antioch, and then he starts acting like Jesus. Brandon heals people, calls them to do good things, restores broken bodies, gives sight to the blind, grants special powers. And he’s especially interested in Travis. Travis knows Brandon isn’t Jesus, but Brandon wants Travis’s approval and support. He seems to feel that he and Travis are in agreement about God and the church, but as Travis watches Brandon’s “ministry” become increasingly unstable and destructive, he must piece together the differences between their lives to find out how to stop him.

Teaming up with Kyle and Morgan, a local female minister, Travis goes on a trip back through his own history with the church, and Brandon’s history as well. Through the memories of his own flailing attempts to discover God’s will, his time in seminary, his marriage, his ministry, Travis finds parallels between his life and Brandon’s. But while Christ was a vital presence in Travis’s church life, Brandon’s life held only the church, and the difference is a matter of life and death.  

Eventually, Brandon and Travis come into direct confrontation as Brandon’s special powers are exposed as demonic and the gifts he’s given people begin to turn on them. The town is self-destructing right along with Brandon, and he must be stopped or people will die.

The Visitation tells its readers this: Christianity cannot be divorced from the church, but it is not about the church, it is not motivated by the church, and its mission is not the betterment of the church. In fact, if you make the church your centerpiece instead of Christ, you no longer have a church; you have an incredibly destructive force, capable of ruining lives instead of healing them. Jesus must come first.  That is always a truth worth listening to, and Peretti delivers it with the poignancy and power of a man himself deeply dedicated to Christ and His Bride.