Book List
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A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story
Review by Noah Hormann What is a good life? What does it look like, what are its component parts, and how can I get one? These are questions that stir under the surface of most of what we do: every day we go about the business of keeping our families, jobs, churches, marriages, schools, sports teams, and whatever else, running as best we can, all in hopes that these are the pieces and parts of a really good life. I spend a lot of time reading heady books by people with fancy titles who mine the depths of important questions about the good life. They get at ideas of the good life through the scholarly realms of ethics, theology, and philosophy. They use big words and carefully constructed metaphors. Don Miller is not one of those guys. Don talks about what it might mean to live a good life like a friend would, over a cup of coffee, at a good quiet coffee shop on a rainy Seattle day. He tells stories in a conversational style, he talks about real people from real places, and he brings it all back to a few very simple but very useful ideas. In fact stories are what this book is about. Don thinks that what makes a good story, what makes people love the characters and get wrapped up in the plot, some of those same things are what makes a good life. So if you’ve ever wanted to live a really good life, to be deeply satisfied, to wake up every morning and feel propelled into your day by a sense of purpose and joy, then weather you read 10 pages a minutes, or 10 words a minute, this book is for you. The best summary of the book happens on the very first page: If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a move about a guy who wants a Volvo. |
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One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow
Review by Doug Humphreys As Jesus walked the dusty roads of Galilee, he invited people to join him on a journey. This invitation was not extended through the words, "accept me," "pray this prayer," "do this deed," or "profess this belief." Jesus' two-word invitation, at once both complex and simple was (and is): "Follow me." In Scot McNight's engaging new book, One.Life, he invites us to learn from the inviter himself what this invitation to follow him really looks like. The publisher's website says about this book, "If the answer to the question, 'What is a Christian?' is 'Someone who follows Jesus,' it will be essential to know where Jesus is going and how to follow." McNight tackles these questions as he takes us on his own journey through the words of Jesus. With engaging stories and quotes from other works, he explores the reality of what it means to follow Jesus not just on Sunday morning, but in the realities of our everyday life; in the realities of our hopes and our dreams, our jobs, our marriages, our relationships, in the totality of our one life - and in the reality that it does not end with our time on earth, but is eternal, life after death or death after death, both connected to our one life and the invitation of Jesus to follow him. In One.Life, Scot McNight, a theological scholar and a professor at North Park University, gives us a very approachable book, a quick read actually, but one that both challenges the way we live out our faith while at the same time making Jesus' invitation sound as it was intended to sound -- inviting. |
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The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible
Book Description The Blue Parakeet is author Scot McKnight’s deeply reasoned, compelling statement of how to read the Bible in a new evangelical generation. In re-examining the Bible, McKnight provides an exciting “Third Way” that appeals to the millions in today’s church who long to be authentic Christians, but don’t consider themselves theologically conservative or liberal. |
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The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change
Book Description Brian McLaren, one of TIME magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America," is back, this time to lead readers on a journey that will prove to be as unsettling and groundshaking as it is thrilling and life-changing. Unafraid of controversy or the uncomfortable gray areas of life, McLaren's quest is to find the essential message of Jesus' life - even if it overturns our conventional ideas, priorities, and practices. |
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Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale
Book Description Chase Falson has lost his faith-and he did it right in front of the congregation at his megachurch. Now the elders want him to take some time away: far away. So Chase crosses the Atlantic to visit his uncle, a Franciscan priest, where he encounters the teachings of Francis of Assisi and rediscovers his ancient faith. Follow Chase's spiritual journey in the footsteps of Francis, and then begin one of your own through the pilgrim's guide included in this book. Come discover Francis, the first postmodern Christian. |
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The American Church in Crisis
Book Description Research shows that America's overall population is growing much faster than the church! Confirming hunches and exploding myths, Olson provides insight into how the church must change to reach a new and different world with the gospel. Filled with optimistic and challenging stories; enlightening data; charts; diagrams; work sheets; and discussion questions for motivated ministers and congregations! |
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3:16: The Numbers of Hope
Book Description You find it displayed on billboards and at sports' games. John 3:16. Perhaps the best-known verse in the Bible, its 26 words encapsulate the fundamental truth of Christianity, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son ...." In 3:16: The Numbers of Hope, bestselling author Max Lucado delves into this "hope diamond of the Bible" phrase by life-changing phrase. Concluding the study, a 40 day devotional snapshot of Jesus' life, taken from Max's writings, grounds the verse in the greater context of who Jesus was. Whether you're a newcomer to the Bible or a veteran believer, explore the implications of God's parade of hope: He loves. He gave. We believe. We live. |
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StrengthsFinder 2.0
Book Description DO YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO WHAT YOU DO BEST EVERY DAY? Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths. To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions to discover their top five talents. In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more. While you can read this book in one sitting, you'll use it as a reference for decades. Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself -- and the world around you -- forever. |
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Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God
Book Description Maybe you love color. Maybe you hunger to know God better. Maybe you are a visual or kinesthetic learner, a distractable or impatient soul, or a word-weary pray-er. Perhaps you struggle with a short attention span, a restless body, or a tendency to live in your head. This new prayer form can take as little or as much time as you have or want to commit, from 15 minutes to a weekend retreat. "A new prayer form gives God an invitation and a new door to penetrate the locked cells of our hearts and minds," explains Sybil MacBeth. "For many of us, using only words to pray reduces God by the limits of our finite words." Find a new connection with God as you "pray with the right side of your brain." |
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Revolutionary Parenting: What the Research Shows Really Works
Book Description The Revolution is underway, but in this new era, how can parents make a lasting impact in the spiritual lives of their children? To find the answer, George Barna researched the lives of thriving adult Christians and discovered the essential steps their parents took to shape their spiritual lives in childhood. He also learned surprising truths about which popular parenting tactics just aren't working. Revolutionary Parenting goes beyond youth group and Sunday school and shows parents how to instill in their children a vibrant commitment to Christ. |
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Walking Towards Hope: Experiencing Grace in a Time of Brokenness
Book Description Paul was a zealous missionary serving God the best way he knew how in the chaos of AIDS-filled Africa. A rescuer of sorts, he would - too soon - need rescuing himself. Without warning, an accident fell upon him like a bolt of lightning from a blue and cloudless sky. Suddenly, all he had come to know about so many things was lost beneath a cloud of crushing personal suffering. Everything in his life was changed forever. How could he begin to make sense of it?
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A Work of Heart : Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders
Book Description All the ministry skills and "how to's" on earth will not carry a pastor through a case of "heart failure." Here McNeal identifies the influences God used to shape the hearts of biblical leaders---culture, call, community, communion, conflict, and commonplace---and shows how those same strengths can guide and revive the hearts of religious leaders today |
