Book: A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss by Jerry Sittser
Lesson Learned: God uses loss to grow us
Rating: Amazing
Jerry Sittser lost his Mother, Wife, and one of his daughters when he was hit by a drunk driver on a family vacation. In this book he explains his loss and how he dealt with life after that loss. It is an amazing story of love and redemption. He answers the questions everyone asks after loss like: How do I go on without something I loved? Why does life seem so random? Will life ever be joyful again?
His loss is so severe, but he takes time to explain that his loss is no more than anyone else’s experience. Loss is loss no matter how it comes about and the same questions he asks are the questions everyone asks after a major loss. Each chapter opens with an applicable quote and my favorite one was this:
The edges of God are trajedy. The depths of God are joy, resurrection, life. Ressurection answers crucifixion; life answers death. Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki
God can only grow us through pain and while escaping pain would lead to an easy life it will also lead to a life void of depth and understanding. It goes back to the principle of only being able to truly love others if you accept and experience God’s love, truly give grace if you accept God’s grace.
It is impossible to live life without experiencing death, it is the end to anything of this world. Death always causes heart break, but that is also exciting because Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the broken hearted, he rescues those who are crushed in spirit”.
Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters by Timothy Keller
Rating: CS Lewis Amazing
Lesson Learned: You gotta identify and deal with your idols
First the book: Keller’s Counterfeit Gods will be one of those books in my library. It will be a book to place on a shelf within arms reach so that I can open it up when I’m dealing with falling more in love with this world than I am with Jesus and his plan for my life. He goes through the idols of money, sex and power and how those very obvious categories turn into idols in people’s lives. I love the idea that you know what an idol is when you are disenchanted by something you lifted up more than God. If a relationship brings you despair then did you love that person more than you loved God, and it isn’t that you love that person left it is that you love God more and you take away the things you expect from that person only God can provide. That’s what an idol does, it allows us to think we can fill a part of our life with something on earth that only God can fill.
Now Keller: I am surprised the book was easy enough for me to read. I expected something really difficult and heady, but what I found was something on the level of C S Lewis- no exaggeration. Having the great fortune to attend Keller’s church Redeemer as a student at NYU I can say without a doubt I am proud to have Keller on Team Jesus.
Book: This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God by Rick McKinley
Rating: Amazing
Lesson Learned: We don’t ask God to be the King of our Kingdom we enter his kingdom and subject ourselves as his citizens
This has been one of the most important books to the development of my faith. I don’t know why some of the simplest ideas have escaped me through the years when it comes to faith. God doesn’t want to come in to manage what I want to do, he wants me to enter his Kingdom so I can set out to do what he is already doing. I am a kingdom citizen.
Book: Real-Time Connections: Linking Your Job with God’s Global Work by Bob Roberts Jr.
Rating: The Best
Lesson Learned: Excuses are Gone
If you are a plumber you dig water wells, if you are a police man you can help teach security best practices, if you are a teacher you can bring innovative curriculum to a place that is in need of it. There are no more excuses for you to sit on your rear and not mobilize to do something global…none. Real-Time Connections offers a way for ordinary people to take hold of their job and make a difference with it both locally and globally. We have done such a great job of segmenting our life so that we have work, home, friends, and community but this is a sick way of thinking. We spend the most time out of anything we do at work so we might as well become an expert and share that expertise with others. Its not about exporting Western Ideals it is about serving. This is Linchpin for Christians.
This is Roberts’ best book to date.
Book: The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting New Churches by Bob Roberts Jr.
Rating: Great
Lesson Learned: Church the area
If you have ever attended Northwood you would have heard Roberts say, “I don’t wan to be the biggest church in the area, I want to church the area.” This has been more than just something to say. The Multiplying Church is about how to take the latter course and ensure people have a place to call home.
Book: Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World by Bob Roberts Jr.
Rating: Great
Lesson Learned: Its not my pastors job
Kennedy really started to explore the idea of people to people diplomacy through the Peace Corp and whatever you might think this idea has made a difference in the world. It is easy to bash someones government, but it is harder to do so when you sit down with the ‘other’ and are able to hear their stories and understand their history. Glocalization explains how the average church member can engage our new globalized world. Missions is no longer track blasting and funding the IMB it is taking members and mobilizing them. This book will get you rocking.
Book: Transformation: How Glocal Churches Transform Lives and the World by Bob Roberts Jr.
Rating: Great
Lesson Learned: It’s all about Glocal
Glocal is the merging of Global and Local. Roberts wants people to think both simultaneously not one then the other; our world demands this unique insight. The book is about Northwood and how it moved from being a mega-church to a church doing mega things in the world. Lots of people can be thankful for good friends and family, I get to be thankful for growing up in a church that demanded the most from its members and did everything it could from becoming a Sunday experience. Part of the equation was doing massive work in Vietnam. Through Northwood I have been able to go to Vietnam and do such things as plow ground for a clinic to meet with heads of state. For you to get what God is doing with Northwood this is an essential read. This book explains how Northwood ended up in Vietnam and what the impact has been on the church and its members.
Book: The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps
Rating: Great
Lesson Learned: how is technology affecting us?
I wrote a review about Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps if you read that review it applies to this book too. I thought they were different books, but I think they are the exact same with different titles..doesn’t make anything I said about Flickering Pixels less true. However, if you know the differences between the two books let me know. I read the first three chapters and I kept thinking, “I’ve read this before”. Then, I got to a diagram I knew I had already seen so I knew it was a different package same message. I would recomend buying Flickering Pixels since it is a better cover.
The Gods Aren’t Angry by Rob Bell
Rating: Amazing
Lesson Learned: Be a thinker
Again, this is a DVD, but if you can rock out in speaking like Bell can it is pretty much like reading an intense book. Rob Bell breaks down the old testament, mainly Leviticus, to give you the context of the people and their cultural mores. He explains how radical the God of the old testament was. I think Rob Bell and Tim Keller must have gone to the same day seminar to learn how to be so smart about the history of the Bible.
Book: Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith by Shane Hipps
Rating: Amazing
Lesson Learned: Shane Hipps will be a cultural leader in the coming ten years
You quote McLuhan and you win. There is smart and there is brilliant wisdom and anyone who knows McLuhan and understands him and can call on his theories fifty years after they have fallen out of the cultural discourse falls into brilliant. I am not even going to talk about this book because you need to read it to understand what the technological world is doing to your soul. The best part of the whole book is that his response is not to go live in ‘community’ but to suck it up and realize what is going on around you. (Suck it up is my rendering not his.)
