Call to Action: Become the Man God Designed You to Be is by Alun Ebenezer, published by Reformation Heritage Books. Ebenezer is the founding headmaster of the Fulham Boys School in London.
This review previously existed twice on this site, once for the paperback and once for the Kindle edition. They are the same book, so the two are now combined here.
How the book is structured
Thirty chapters, one for each day of a month. Each chapter is short, makes one point, and ends with an action to take. That is the whole design, and it is the reason the book works.
The format is doing something deliberate. Ebenezer is not trying to give you a theology of manhood to think about for a month. He is trying to get you to do thirty things. If you read a chapter and skip the action, you have not really used the book.
The argument
Ebenezer’s target is passivity. His claim is that a lot of Christian men are not rebelling against God so much as drifting, going along, waiting for someone else to move first, and calling it peace. He is writing mainly to younger men, and he writes the way a headmaster talks to teenage boys: direct, unsentimental, occasionally blunt enough to sting.
That directness is the book’s strength and also its limit. He does not spend long on nuance or on the ways life genuinely constrains a man. If you want a careful, pastoral treatment of why a man might be stuck, this is not it. If you have been waiting for a push, it pushes.
Where it sits theologically
Reformation Heritage is a Reformed publisher and Ebenezer writes from that tradition. Expect a high view of Scripture, straightforward exposition, and no interest in making Christianity sound easier than it is. He grounds the call to action in what God has already done rather than in self-improvement, which keeps it from reading like motivational material with verses attached.
Readability and use
Very easy to read. Chapters run a few pages. A month is the intended pace and it is the right one, because the actions need a day each to actually happen.
It works well for a father and a teenage son reading the same chapter, and for a small group willing to report back on what they actually did. It works less well as a book you read straight through in an evening, which is possible and mostly pointless.
There is also an audiobook, narrated by Jonathan St. John, if that is how you get through books.
Who it suits
Best for younger men, late teens through twenties, and for anyone who already knows what he should be doing and has not started. Also a reasonable gift for a son or a younger man you are mentoring, which is probably how most copies get bought.
Skip it if you want depth on a specific area like marriage, money, or vocation. Thirty short chapters covering the whole of life means none of them go deep, by design.
Bottom line
A short, blunt, well-made thirty day push against passivity from a Reformed publisher. Worth it if you will do the actions. If you only read it, you have missed the point of the book.