Book Review: Soulprint

I was given a free copy of “SoulPrint” by Mark Batterson for review by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.  Here is that review:

In a world full of books about how to have a better, more fulfilling life, Soulprint is finally a bit different.  Mark Batterson lays out how to have a better life, but does so by using Scripture and calling us to live the life God has for us to find true fulfillment.  There is more here than reminding us that God, “knows the plans He has for you,” but he takes the life of David to show how even when we stumble, God still has a “best” for us.

Though initially I was not excited about another “christian self-help” book SoulPrint was not just another book.  I was challenged throughout the book, to not just accept things but to view life through a biblical lens and find how God was crafting me for His glory and purpose.  I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is not quite perfect yet.  It will not simply make you happy or feel better about yourself, but will help you evaluate your life through a new set of glasses.

Book Review: Radical

I was given a free copy of “Radical” by David Platt for review by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.  Here is that review:

First off, I will say that this was a VERY hard book to read and took me quite a while to get through.  I would recommend that you do not read it yourself.  Why?  because David Platt uses the Bible to expose how we as the normal American Christian fall very short of actually living the life that Jesus calls us to.  Even though he writes with the intention of encouraging us to change and get on a correct path, I had to take breaks between chapters to go through feelings of guilt and embarrassment at being such a slob of a believer.

Everything said in the book is based on Scripture and Platt does a great job of teaching the Bible and not going off in crazy directions with one or two verses.  If more of us wold live according to the words in this book (which ironically would be quite similar to living like the Bible tells us to) the world would not be able to handle the outpouring of God’s Spirit to change the lives of men and women.

Hopefully, you are a better person than me and can read this book without the guilt, but with a drive to fully embrace the Gospel as a lifestyle and live like Jesus.

Review of “The Heart Mender”

This review is for “The Heart Mender: by Andy Andrews.  I have to say right off, that you should not read this book unless you intend to finish it.  My wife and I have both read it and neither of us were able to put it down until it was finished.  The story is lightly fictionalized History set in South Alabama during World War 2.  It is a little known fact that German Subs patrolled the Gulf of Mexico sinking ships and causing trouble during the war, but Andy Andrews’ fascination with this information leads him to discover a great story that is this book.  The places mentioned are familiar to me, having been to the area myself and the story is very intriguing since it basically really happened.  As with anything by Andy Andrews, there is a moral to the story and this one is about forgiveness.

I cannot say enough how captivating the story is in this book, and cannot tell you how much my wife liked this book as well.  You really need to get a copy of it to read today.  In fact, to help you with that, I have a copy of “The Heart Mender” to give away.  Comment on this post between now and Wednesday, July 21 and I will randomly pick one commenter to win the book.  Simple, right?  If you do not win, get your own copy and read it today.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Guest Post “Stuff Christians Like”

Some of you may have heard of this blog called “Stuff Christians Like” written by Jon Acuff.  The blog has gotten a bit popular, and now Jon has a book out by the same name.  I have agreed to let him write a guest post to help promote his book to my readers.  So I give you the first content to ever appear on this site written by a real blogger:

The “Is that contestant on American Idol a Christian? Scorecard”

85. Someone tells you that “a friend of a friend told them that they used to go to church with the contestant” = + 2 points

To add up your score with over a 130 other ideas on this scorecard, visit stuffchristianslike.net.

If you have somehow not bought this book yet get it now!

Buy Today

I have to admit that I was wildly excited when the opportunity came up for me to be a part of this giant guest post.  Thanks Jon for the chance to break my current record of 5 page views.

Book Review “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect”

This review is for the book “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect,” by John Maxwell.  The premise behind this book is that many leaders say a lot of stuff, even good stuff, but many do not connect the information to their audience so that they receive it.  The book is not just for those who speak publicly, but is also geared to those who communicate in small groups and even one on one.

I found many helpful tips and ideas in the book that I can use in life.  Like anything that points out our mistakes, there were parts that were not fun to read.  It can truly be work to connect with people at times.  The great content in this book is overshadowed at times from a couple of different things, which I will mention below.

First, the book is just too long.  The author makes his point in the first page or two of the chapter and then gives 327 examples to emphasize the point.  Some chapters were laborious to get through.

Second, the most common words in the book are “I, me, and mine.”  Not that John does not have great life experience that we can all learn from, but there is even a short section written by John’s friend that talks about how great John is.

One last point, that is not a deal breaker for me,  is that you could read this book and only be vaguely aware that the author is a christian.  Not that leadership books have to excrete Bible from every page, I just expected a book by a top Christian author/speaker/pastor to mention the Bible, God or Jesus a little bit.  This may not matter to you, and really doesn’t matter to me that much, but it definitely threw me off a bit.

All in all, I would say read this book, just not late at night (unless you have insomnia).

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review “Love Your Heart”

This is my first book review since middle school, so forgive me if it stinks.

The book is “Love Your Heart” by Tim McGraw and Tom Douglas and illustrated by Abigail Marble.  The story is about a little girl trying to decide what to do for the talent show, in the end she decides to help a friend in need instead of performing.  The moral of the story is to do the right thing and that your heart is more important than any talent you may have.

I was a bit surprised to see Tim McGraw listed as an author, and was admittedly apprehensive about the book.  As pure story, I did not think the book flowed well, but it got the point across.  For example, the girl never decides on a talent in the story, which is not important to the moral being taught, but might help the story make more sense.  It felt like they were on page 21 and decided “we better wrap this thing up and get to the moral.”

For what my opinion matters, my daughter (7) loves the story and has confiscated the book as hers.  If you or your child cares that a story finish up all the details neatly, then this book may not work for you, but if you just want a nice story to read before bed, this will work great.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Classical Education, briefly

My thoughts on how to educate children have changed/shifted/grown/matured a lot during my ministry.  I will save you all the ends and outs of the progression and tell you where I am right now.  I believe in the Classical model of education.  I know that most of you are saying “what’s that?” and I will explain.  Those of you that know what I mean feel free to not read the rest of this unless you feel the need to make sure I explain it well.  I will try to be brief, but there are some new vocabulary words here that I had to learn.

The classical method could also be referred to as teaching “old school”  as in, way old, like back in the days of Plato, Jesus and Paul.  Back then they just called it “education.”  The classical method is divided into tress stages called the Trivium.

The first stage is called the grammar stage.  This stage begins (in my opinion) at birth and goes on to about 6th grade.  This stage utilizes the fact that God created young children to be able to learn facts easily.  In this stage the goal is to essentially gives kids as much information as possible.  For church purposes this means memorizing verses, Bible Stories, timelines, maps etc.  The goal is not complete mastery of a subject, but to provide a series of “pegs” that deeper knowledge can be hung on later.

The second stage, which begins at 5th or 6th grade, is the logic (or dialectic) stage.  During these years kids begin to naturally question everything and this is where we begin to utilize the pegs that were created in the grammar stage.  Kids begin to link things together and try to understand “why.”  This is the age where kids begin to understand abstract things and are ready to “go deeper.”

The final stage is called the Rhetoric stage.  In 9th or 10th grade children are ready to learn to communicate the body of knowledge that they know and have now analyzed.  They have gone from learning Bible stories to putting them together and now are ready to defend their faith in a compelling way.

This is by no means an awesome explanation of the Classical Model but it gives a framework to help you better understand other things I may say at a later time.

Though I have never  led it, my reasearch into the AWANA program leads me to believe that it is based on a classical model of education.  Kids start out by learning hundred of verses, they progress to the next level of learning about the verses and finally they learn to communicate biblical truths.

Thanks for reading all of this, I will have to write later about how this info is useful in Children’s ministry.

Teaching to the Chart

I recently saw a tweet that bothered me.   It said “What if kids memorized key truths instead of isolated bible verses? Provide them with a ‘filing system’ before we give them files.”  At first glance, I thought this sounded great, but then realized that it goes against the way that God made kids to learn, but more on that later.  Right now I want to give my thoughts on using Key Bible truths instead of Bible verses.

When I was in Seminary, Lifeway introduced their “Levels of Biblical Learning” chart.  They sent one of their people to our school to tell us how wonderful it was and, for a while, I bought it.  This chart is a LONG list of Bible concepts that are categorized in way to show how they build upon each other as a child ages.  One purpose was for it to show leaders/parents the “knowledge”  a child would have if they attended Sunday school consistently during their childhood.  As I said already, I thought this was a great tool and used it and hung it up and told people about it.  I have since seen the hole in the chart.  There is nothing wrong with a progression of understanding and knowing where you are going, but just like public schools often “teach to the test” I found that the curriculum was forcing us to “teach to the chart.”  In training events we were told that the most important thing is that kids know the Bible thought by the end of the session.  Many times, this meant that a Bible Story was selected for the lesson and then stretched (sometimes absurdly) to fit the concepts being taught.  The Bible was being used to reinforce the concepts instead of the concepts helping summarize the Bible.

I believe the danger here is that we are raising kids that do not know why they believe anything that they say they belive.  They know that God loves them, but do not know why they know that.  They cannot support their faith with anything other than some Bible thoughts and therefore fall easily.  If we truly want to “preach the Word” then we must actually use the Word.

There is nothing wrong with “Key truths” or “Bible concepts,” but these things must always be second to the Bible.