the missional mom

i have been reading some good books recently and decided some deserved a review on our blog. my list has been a combination of parenting, adoption, spiritual discipleship, with some "fun" ones throw in here and there. most of my books are recommendations from others, and this one was no exception. while at the lake this summer i had the refreshing opportunity to read the missional mom. this was recommended through a blog of an fellow adoptive mom and i ordered it right away. although i read it a couple months ago, i was reminded of it during my quiet time this morning.

not only was this book encouraging, but inspirational-it was able to put into words what i had dreamed parenting to be. she encourages the missional mom to resist cultural pressures, love "the least of these", be third-culture, engage in the needs of the world, and to create missional families. she reminds us that our primary calling is to be on mission for God, reaching those in this world.

"What I have seen time and time again, in my friend's lives, in my own life, and in the lives of countless others reflected in the Christian and secular media, is that we mothers often forget how mother hood intersects with the bigger picture of our primary calling and mission. Sometimes we replace our primary calling and mission by saying, 'Motherhood is my highest calling' or 'Motherhood is my primary mission.' When a secondary calling displaces a primary one, the confusion begins."

She goes on to reiterate, "I do not mean to devalue motherhood in the least. Motherhood is a critical secondary calling for those of us who have been given the priviledge of playing that role in a child's life. But we always need to put our role as mothers in the right context and never prioritize our secondary calling as a mother over our primary calling to know and love God."

it was a affirming and thought provoking book for me and i highly recommend it.

warning: dangerous book

jesus for president was actually on my reading list for last summer, i ordered it from a third party through amazon and it never came, so i made a point to get through it this summer.

this was a book i had trouble putting down, but at times had to because it became too "heavy". it certainly is "a book to provoke the christian political imagination" and i would recommend it to christians who are willing to be challenged on their view of america and to all people who are not a follower of jesus for some great insight on what christian politics might actually look like from the perspective of jesus and the bible and not the perspective of "christian" politicians.

just a couple excerpts that stuck out:

"jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. plenty of wealthy christians are suffocating from the weight of the american dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. this is the yoke from which we are being set free."

"is it possible we can't see the destructiveness of our economy not because we don't know it's terrible but because deep down we feel that it's necessary and that therefore it's hopeless to criticize it?""

"is it possible to submit and to subvert? paul's life gives a clear yes, as does jesus' crucifixion...we find that paul offered a biting critique of pers are a creative path of revolutionary love. we might remember paul urging his friend philemon to illegally welcome back home a fugitive slave."

"christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful."

"to say that we must kill or enemies and join the popular project to 'rid the world of evil' is to call jesus unrealistic."

"as the parable of the weeds and wheat illustrates, jesus understood the destruction of evil to be not in human hands but in God's hands.

"the best way to defeat the kingdom of God is to empower the church to rule the world with the sword."

"the u.s. is arming over 75 percent of the world, while it tells folks to disarm, which is like handing out guns to kids in our neighborhood and telling them not to shoot each other."

"the danger is that we can begin to read the bible through the eyes of america rather than read america through the eyes of the bible. we just want jesus to be a good american."

"evangelicals are getting divorced, and gay folks are wanting to get married, and religionists keep accusing homosexuals of destroying the family."

"it's easy to have political views--that's what politicians do. but it's much harder to embody a political alternative--that's what saints do."

"every culture has a particular way of eating. some folks eat with chopsticks; others sit on the floor. in india we ate with our right hands. how do christians eat? christians eat with poor folks, with the outcasts, the marginalized."

"trusting God made jesus nonviolent"

"i heard iraqi people, even iraqi christians, call the leaders of the u.s. 'christian extremists...one iraqi woman said, with tears in her eyes, 'your government is declaring war and asking for god's blessing, and that is the exact same thing that my government is doing."

"the kingdom of God is not just something we hope for when we die bur something we live "on earth as it is in heaven".

"what the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but enact it."

sabbath

i am preaching this saturday at revolution on nehemiah 15-22. in preparation i read this book sabbath by dan allender, a very unique book. one might think an entire book on the sabbath would dive into its history, it would reference a number of the 70 or so passages in the bible about the sabbath, but not this book, it simply helps you practice the sabbath better.

as a history guy, i look for those aforementioned things and was a little disappointed at first, but as i got into the book i began feeling, just by reading, that i was experiencing the sabbath.

i told my wife, its almost like poetry, it sucks you in to the essence of what the sabbath is about. after i read the book, i read the back. "dan allenders lyrical book about the sabbath expels the myriad myths about this 'day of rest'. that was it, a lyrical book.

christe began to read it, "wow, forget preaching, you should just sit down and read out of this book!" i guess that's how highly she thinks about my preaching. :-)

if you are looking for some aid in experiencing the sabbath, check out allander's book. if you are unsure of what the sabbath is and how its applicable to your life, come check us out at revolution, 5pm saturday night.

i may be going bald, but at least i'll be rich

something has been happening at my church over the last 6 months or so that has stuck out to me, i keep hearing different people say, "in x number of months i am going to be out of debt". people just don't talk like that...not even in church. i feel the norm in american society is to be in debt, assume everyone else is too, but pretend like your not.

i soon realized the cause of this phenomenon. the last couple semesters, revolution has had a small group or two study a personal finance book and people are actually excited about it.

in light of this christe and i decided to read the total money makeover and promptly made and made a new-years-and-a-half resolution, we are going to be debt free (except our house) in 18 months.

as i read this book and stroked my thinning hair up top, i became very excited about putting the old-school money lessons my parents had taught me to dave ramseys very simple very practical program.

my parents financial lessons:

1. always give back to God


2. save


3. don't get into debt


4. don't buy new cars


5. credit cards are bad


6. your top goal in life should not be money


7. bless others in any way you can

the total money makeover:

1. save money for an emergency
   


2. pay off debt as quickly as possible (credit cards and new cars are bad)


3. juice up emergency fund to 6 months income


4. save for retirement by investing in mutual funds and kids college with ESA


5. pay off the house


6. get your money working harder than you work for your money


7. give like crazy

the only real differences between the total money makeover plan and that of my parents is the simple way to exicute the plan, the hope given to those who are in debt, and the fact that when my parents were teaching me these lessons i didn't have any money.

we had james, diane and kids over for lunch soon after i had finished the book. we hadn't seen each other in a while and they asked if we had anything new going on? i explained all the cool things we were going to do (the yard, a trip to korea...etc.), then mumbled under my breath, "stupid dave ramsey". james quickly shot back, "don't worry, dave ramsey ruined our life too." yet we are both sold out to the plan.

so, i may be going bald, but at least i'll be rich.

a great book, id recommend it to anyone.

no perfect people allowed

creating a come as you are culture in church by john burke

are you a pastor, an elder, a small group leader? do you play or do you ever hope to play any part in any christian ministry? this book is for you.

no perfect people allowed breaks down the barriers that keep the current unchurched generation from church by creating the right culture that leads people to jesus.

i understood prior to this book that the no. 1 thing in america keeping people from christ was christians, but burke eloquently explains that it doesn't have to be that way, he offers practical suggestions to deconstruct barriers and supports those suggestions with compelling real life stories.

the section on "tolerance" stood out to me, specifically chapter 7 what about other religions? tolerance litmus test Q1 and chapter 8 how do you feel about gays? tolerance litmus test Q2

i couldn't possibly pull all the good experts from this book like last time, (this book is at least 3x's longer). what i will do it give you a taste from the first chapter and a taste from the last...then go get this book.

• "What do a Buddhist, a biker couple, a gay-rights activist, a transient, a high-tech engineer, a Muslim, a twenty-somthing single mom, a Jew, a couple living together, and an atheist all have in common? They are the future church in America!"
• With every new culture since, the church has wrestled with how to stay true to the message of Christ without putting cultural barriers up that make it difficult for people to turn back to God. And what we have experienced in our come-as-you-are culture is God's Spirit using the soil we've plowed and watered to cause amazing growth in people."
  

becomeing the answers to our prayers

prayer for ordinary radicals (love that subtitle)
by shane claiborne and jonathan wilson-hartgrove

excited to say i finished book one on my summer reading list!

i would consider it an unorthodox book on prayer, but in reality it was not only a book on prayer but action, politics, community and gaining spiritual wisdom. a very unique read with some great stuff to offer, a book i would recommend.

here are some excerpts that stuck out:

• "Prayer is not so much about convincing God to do what we want God to do as it is about convincing ourselves to do what God wants us to do."
• "After seven years times seven--on the fiftieth year--[Israel] were to declare a Jubilee. Debts would be forgiven. Land that had been sold would be returned to its original owner. Prisoners would be set free. Once in every generations, the playing field would be leveled as a guard against injustice in the beloved community of God's people".
• "The love that makes a community, is the willingness to do someone else's dirty work".
• "Sometimes it is easier to wash the feet of prostitutes than it is to wash the feet of the people we live with each day--the people who get on our nerves, don't do their dishes and expect us to pick up on their passive aggression (and certainly we don't do any of those things). One of the most radical things we do is love the people we live with, day after day, mistake after mistake."
• "Communities that strive for perfection are always weeding out the imperfect people--until there's no one left".
• "We have to stop promising people life after death when what we are all really asking is if there is life before death".
• "One of the ironies we noted about the whole situation was that many evangelical churches that are passionate about sharing the good news of Jesus with all people were equally passionate about bombing Baghdad and eliminating Saddam Hussein. It seemed that we had to go be with the Iraqis if for no other reason than to show them by our presence that not all Christians wanted to bomb them."

also, being a book on prayer, the authors sprinkled different prayers throughout the book as side-notes, mostly by saints or some prayers offered in the bible, but this one as my wife noticed stuck out amongst them all.

• "Dear God, please make all the poor people rich. And the rich people poor. Then bring us back to a medium so we will take better care of each other. Amen".

- ten year old boy

bishop n.t. wright

a couple days after getting into chicago my father said he had to go to the airport to pick up tom wright for a conference they were attending.

now if you don't know anything about tom (n.t.) wright, the guy is a new testament scholar who has written some 20-30 books and it wouldn't be uncommon to hear him mentioned in conversations that include people like j.i. packer or c.s. lewis. something with these british guys and their initials.

so naturally our conversations led to the greatest of all his works, enjoy...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Bishop N.T. Wright

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

my dad...book pimp

book review: wild goose chase

Last year Dave read In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson and loved it. Not that Dave never reads, but he almost couldn’t put this book down, which definitely told me it was special. Well, I realized just how special it was when after we found out we were having a boy Dave said he wanted to name our son after Benaiah, the character in the Bible that this book is based off of. After reading it myself, I realized that yes, it is a great book and is very inspiring and challenging and I also began to understand why Dave loved it so much. Dave LOVES quotes. And I found myself highlighting passage after passage. *we even painted a quote from the book on our nursery wall*

Mark Batterson’s second book, Wild Goose Chase, has that same readability which drew my highlighter to it’s pages. And although I think technically Dave is supposed to review his book, I stole the opportunity from him because frankly…what else was I supposed to do while I wait for our Beniah to come out? *I agreed to name our son after this lion chaser...we just decided to spell it phonetically*

While In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day challenged me, I actually had the time to process through Wild Goose Chase more and therefore I think I’ve gotten more out of this book. Mark seems to be calling all Christians to a life of spiritual adventure-something that I think Jesus also calls us to. It’s frustrating that we tend to get caught up in the everyday mundane processes of our lives and forget to listen for the adventure that God calls us to. I think this is why both of Mark’s book have been so popular-it’s a very simple message, but one that we either forget or can continue to be challenged in.

Anyway-in this book Mark challenges us to chase after the “Wild Goose”..aka the Holy Spirit and then explores six different “cages” that may be keeping us from our chase.

Cage one: Cage of Responsibility
Cage two: Cage of Routine
Cage Three: Cage of Assumptions
Cage Four: Cage of Guilt
Cage Five: Cage of Failure
Cage six: Cage of Fear

His writing style is very straightforward, while still being insightful. And since my highlighter was so busy while reading…here are some of my favorite passages/quotes.

“I wonder is some of us are living such safe lives that not only are we bored, but so are our guardian angels.” pg 7

“In fact, spiritual maturity has less to do with long-range visions than it does with moment-by-moment sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.” pg 58

“We pick and choose the truths we want to accept. We become trapped by our own logic. Our lives are limited to those things we can comprehend with our cerebral cortex. We end up in the cage of our own assumptions. And the more assumptions we made, the smaller our cage becomes.” pg 72

“Faith is not logical. But it isn’t illogical. Faith is theological. It does not ignore reality, it just adds God into the equation.” pg 79

“…our reactions reveal who we really are. And maybe that is why Jesus focused so much of His teaching on reconditioning reflexes. Pray for those who persecute you. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” pg 99

“I think some of use want to know the will of God more than we want to know God…You can’t do the will of God if you don’t have the heart of God.” pg 137

In short, I think this book could be beneficial to anyone at any stage in their life. At the end Mark encourages us to compile a life-goal list as a way to start playing offense with our lives instead of defense. You can view his life-goal list here. I still haven't compiled mine, but I’m excited to put it together…not sure I’ll be as vulnerable and share it on my blog though-we'll see! There is also material on the website for the book to help you start your own life-goal list which definitely seems worth checking out.

SO…we have a free copy to give away. I decided to hand off the book to the first person to check out his website and download “10 steps to setting life goals”. Leave a comment once you've downloaded the info and let me know! *for purchase confirmation enter "blog tour"* I’d love to hear what goals you decide on…maybe we can exchange ideas.

Mark Batterson: http://markbatterson.com/

Wild Goose Chase: http://www.chasethegoose.com/

The book releases today and is avaliable at http://www.borders.com/.