book lists - fall 2011

Here are some of the books I've read this past semester... i.e. Fall 2011 (there are some missing from the list, but there are all the ones that just came to mind)

The Help
Christian Spirituality - ed. Donald Alexander
The Healing Path - Dan Allander
Anatomy of the Soul
Perfecting Ourselves to Death - Richard Winter
Creation Regained
Strategic Pastoral Counseling - David G. Benner
The Pastor's Guide to Psychological Disorders and Treatments - Johnson & Johnson
The Call - Os Guinness
Transforming Grace - Jerry Bridges
Children of the Living God - Sinclair Ferguson
God Needs No Passport - Peggy Levitt
The Qur'an
A New Testament Greek Primer - Baugh
The Epic of Eden - Sandra Richter
The Spring Wind - Gladis DePree
Things Fall Apart
Words of Life - Timothy Ward
Creation Regained - Albert Wolters
He Gave Us Stories - Richard Pratt
Far As The Curse Is Found - Michael Williams
Proper Confidence - Lesslie Newbigin
Bible - Isaiah
Heart of Evangelism - Jerram Barrs
Learning Evangelism from Jesus - Jerram Barrs
Jesus + Nothing = Everythingre

what more could one want?

"Supermarket? I had hardly thought of the word for months. What would I do if I ever walked down an aisle again, pushing a cart? The whole idea of all that variety seemed ridiculous. If one had a little rice and vegetable, and a few kinds of meat or fish, what more could one want?"(p. 97, The Spring Wind)

"To accept the otherness of other people was a thing I could do... but to become that otherness... to submerge totally what I thought I was in another's style of living... in another's life... this was almost like annihilation." (p. 78)

"Perhaps this was what relationship meant... trust. To be able to give help and take help..." (p.50)

deep church

The latest book I've been reading and really enjoying. :-) About half way through right now and I started it yesterday.

A quote that struck me today... (It is more of a side comment than what the book is about, but wanted to share it.)

"Sinful attitudes divide Christians. As my former professor John Frame says, "Because we want glory for ourselves, we seek to find fault in others. Contentious people are constantly looking for something to argue about, some way to start controversy and disrupt the peace." Though we strive to be discerning, we don't dwell on the faults of other traditions or Christian thinkers. Even when we disagree with others, we try to find their strengths and don't blow their weaknesses out of proportion to make our case. This is divisive. We give others the benefit of the doubt, reading them in the best possible light to preserve unity and foster mutual dialogue in order to learn from and exhort one another. Agreeing with Frame, we eschew harshness, jealousy, snobbery, party spirit, bitterness and lack of openness - all enemies of unity." (p.66, Deep Church, Jim Belcher)

where we stand: class matters

This is what I'm reading tonight. I'm in the first bit, but challenged. Great writing and good things to be thinking about. I'll write more later and include some snippets from the book. I'd recommend it for sure, though. My brother's read it a few times and, thus, it came highly recommended. Our hearts should break for the brokenness in the world around us and long for it to be made right and work for justice.

Micah 6:8 - "What does the Lord require of you? To seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God."

unlimiting God

This is the book I read today. I have a pile of books I'm trying to get through during Christmas and this is the first one I've finished (or almost, I think I have 15 ish pages left, so basically done.)

And I'll have to come back and write my thoughts out, but it's pretty good. It challenges you in the part we play in our walk with God, about whether or not we trust Him to do big things in our lives and the world, whether or not we are stepping out in faith, whether or not we take the time to wait and hear from the Lord, whether or not we are putting ourselves in a place to grow. It's good. And it is both challenging and inspiring. Anyway, figured I'd post at least a little snippet for now.

love in action

I was talking with my roommate last night as we went for a walk after they gym. I was telling her that I've been frustrated recently to see people in my life NOT making the decisions they should. And specifically not seeing people grow in their faith, in my timing nor in the way I see fit. I am very much a verbal processor and in the midst of telling her that I answered myself and said, I know that Old Testament prophets, New Testament parables (like the parable of the sower), great men and women of faith, and even Jesus saw more rejection of the Gospel or seeds that didn't bring forth abundant fruit. I told Chery that somehow in my western mind, I think if I just do a good enough job explaining the Gospel, love them well enough, show Christ to them through my life, then they'll see, it'll make sense and of course they'll come running to Christ. The Gospel has power in and of itself. That is true. But the problem isn't in how we explain things nor how we live things out (although we could obviously grow in that individually and as the church as a whole). The problem is that our eyes and hearts are UNABLE to see. Our problem isn't purely understanding from an information standpoint, it's understanding from even being able to hear.

And while I hate the parable of the sower & soils, bc I wish all people would come to Christ as their Lord & Savior and be saved, it's also freeing to remember that it's God's work not mine. Yes, the Lord commands us to GO and invest in others. But He is the one who brings forth fruit, not me. And if Jesus spoke and people rejected Him, or just didn't get it, how can I expect anything different. I say that not in a "throw in the towel" way, but in a pfuuu, freeing way.

So... the chapter from Jerram Barrs' book, "Learning Evangelism From Jesus," that Chery suggested I read was AMAZING. It's a great, great book. The content of what Jerram writes is stuff we could use to hear and hear again a million times. Here are some bits and pieces from Chapter 6, "An Unusual Dinner Invitation," which addresses Luke 19:1-10, Jesus inviting himself to have dinner with Zacchaeus, a tax collector (who was seen as one of the most immoral people of society back in the day):

To understand the attitude of the crowd to Zacchaeus, we should try to imagine the very worst of these modern day examples (corrupt politicians & business people), while at the same time imagining that person collaborating with whoever we hate most passionately (in this case the Romans, who were the occupying army of the Jews' oppressors), such as someone working with a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many innocent people...

The reason for the crowd's complaints and criticisms is that Jesus' actions are totally unacceptable, even outrageous... Jesus is breaking not only the social customs, but also the religious and moral laws of his time, by becoming a guest and eating in the home of a sinner, a man with an unclean profession. Jesus is making himself socially, ritually, morally, and religiously unclean by going to Zacchaeus's home. He is polluting himself...

Jesus sets all this custom and law aside - for it is not God's law... Jesus sets them aside as... rules created by the leaders of God's people, rather than by God... these laws also prevent God's people from being obedient to their Lord's command to practice hospitality to strangers, to be merciful and gracious to the alien, and to be kind to the sinful, the needy, and the poor... these laws about socially acceptable behavior are a moral offense to God, who calls his people to precisely the opposite way of life: to be people characterized by the mercy, compassion, and grace that he ahs shown them.

...Jesus did not come into the world to keep himself apart from sinners, nor to demonstrate that his life was socially acceptable. Rather he came in fulfillment of the promise of the Lord made in Ezekial 34:11-16

For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.... I will seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them.... I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed.

...Jesus does not keep his distance from sinners, like the Pharisees and teachers of the law, nor does he preach condemning sermons at sinners, like the Pharisees and teachers of the law. If Jesus had conformed to their practice of devotion to God, moral purity, and separation, they would not have been outraged by his behavior. What is so shocking and unacceptable to them is that Jesus desires to have intimate fellowship with sinners. He visits with them. He sits down and eats with them. He invites them to the homes of his friends and disciples... He goes gladly to their homes... He welcomes them joyfully, and in return, they welcome him joyfully... Eating together, being at home together: these imply love and personal fellowship. It is because of this that Jesus' behavior is considered scandalous. Such a commitment - to have intimate fellowship with sinners - is still considered scandalous by many Christian believers today.

Jesus treats Zacchaeus with wonderful grace in going to his home. It is, of course, this lovely grace, this mercy and respect, this honor and love that lead Zacchaeus to repentance... Zacchaeus makes his amazing statement about giving half of his goods to the poor and paying back those he had defrauded four times as much... The point is simply this: Zacchaeus is so deeply moved by the grace of Jesus that he chose to regard his defrauding as the very worst kind of theft. This deep sense of sin and desire for full repentance is what takes place in the heart when a person meets the Lord and sees him as his is in his moral perfection and marvelous grace. When a person sees the Lord as he truly is, then that person also sees himself or herself with a clear vision of the seriousness of his or her sin. When we meet the Lord in his glory, we see our sin in all its ugliness, rather than minimizing it.

This is what happens to Zacchaeus. His clear sight of his sin leads to a passionate desire to make amends and to do what is right and pleasing in the eyes o the Lord... He is overwhelmed by the grace and love of CHrist, and so generosity flows from his hearts... Indeed, in the kingdom of God, such a response ought not to surprise us. What the Lord has done for us is inexpressibly generous and kind...

Learning from Jesus...
...We learn from Jesus how important it is to seek for ways to dignify those who are despised and who may despise themselves...

...we are to seek to honor those who are dishonest, corrupt, and wicket... "If he not only merits no good, but has provoked you by injury and mischief, still this is no good reason why you should not embrace him in love, and visit him with love. He has deserved very differently from me, you will say. But what has the Lord deserved? ...In this way only we attain to what is not to say difficult but altogether against nature, to love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing, remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them." (Calvin's Institutes III, vii, 6)

Calvin makes two points here: the first is that we are to see the image of God in a person, no matter how covered over with sin it may be; the second is that we are to remember that Christ is willing to have all this person's sins counted against himself. Our sin becomes Christ's; His righteousness becomes ours. This is the gospel, and we are to remember its power and extraordinary grace even with those who make themselves our enemies...

Honestly, you should buy and read the book. It's good, really good. I wish I could read it all to you. It's good, challenging, but oh so good.

"...church...a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It's where the homeless drop in for a bowl of soup and the elderly stop by for a chat. It's where one group is working to help the drug addicts and another is campaigning for global justice. It's where you'll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose, and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It's where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. No church is like this all the time. But a remarkable number of churches are partly like that for quite a lot of the time.

Nor must we forget that it was the church in South Africa which worked and prayed and suffered and struggled so that, when major change happened and apartheid was overthrown and a new freedom came to that land, it came without the massive bloodshed we were all expecting. It was the church which stayed alive at the heart of the old Communist eastern Europe, and which at the end, with processions of candles and crosses, made it clear that enough was enough. It is the church which, despite all its follies and failings, is there when it counts in hospitals, schools, prisons, and many other places..." NT Wright, Simply Christian, p. 123

"Right from the beginning we run into the problem that will haunt the narrative throughout: What happens when the lifeboat which sets off to rescue the wrecked ship is itself trapped between the rocks and the waves, itself in need of rescue? What happens when the people through whom God wants to mount his rescue operation, the people through whom he intends to set the world to rights, themselves need rescuing, themselves need putting to rights? What happens when Israel becomes part of the problem, not just the bearer of the solution?...

... the story of Israel [as told throughout the Bible] carries at its heart a single theme... It is the story of going away and coming back home again" of slavery and exodus, of exile and restoration. It is the story which Jesus of Nazareth consciously told in his words, in his actions, and supremely in his death and resurrection." NT Wright, p.75,Simply Christian

This last picture is funny because on the metro today I just read about a bearded lady in the book I've been reading, Up In the Old Hotel, which is a mix of short stories (the majority factual) of various personajes de New York City. This particular story basically told about her life in various circuses and random shows. Strange, yes.

up in the old hotel

i just started reading up in the old hotel by joseph mitchell, a book i got for christmas from some friends here in madrid with good taste in books and, while i just begun, am really enjoying it.

here's a snippet from the intro that might peak your interest:

"Joseph Mitchell trained at newspapers that are now extinct in a city that is forever lost. In October 1929, just as the Great Depression struck, Mitchell left his home in North Carolina and arrived at Pennsylvania Station. He was twenty-one. He quickly made a name for himself in New York as a reporter at the Morning World, The Herald Tribune, and The World-Telegram. As a feature writer, police reporter, and rewrite man, he covered the Lindbergh kidnapping trial and countless fires and murders. He interviewed flea-circus operators, Central Park cave dwellers, oystermen, ship captains, fan dancers, Clara Bow, Fats Waller, Albert Einstein, and "the Queen of the Nudists,"... Mitchell possessed a gift for human and reportorial listening - a natural sympathy - equal to his gift for prose. "Ear benders" he called his favorite subjects..."

Up In The Old Hotel is a compilation of 4 of his books. The back of it says, "These masterpieces (along with several previously uncollected stories) make up an indelible portrait of an unsuspected New York and its odder citizens - as depicted by on of the great writers of this or any other time."

Again, I just started it and thus far am really enjoying it, but to give you a real opinion I should likely wait until I actually finish it. So, stay tuned (although again I tend to write these things when I start a book)... but it seems like it should be a good one.

a brief update

I am hoping to write some thoughts about my recent trip to the US and seeing it through my Spanish friends' eyes a bit since she came with me. I arrived back on Friday morning, am still fighting with jet lag (at least in the mornings), have watched four movies in the past 24 hours to prep for our film nights this fall, am trying to cram one and a million things into the next 24 hours, and leave tomorrow afternoon for two days of meetings in Barcelona.

On a side note: here are some fun books I've read recently or am hoping to read soon - Know it All by A.J. Jacobs who worked for Esquire, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (I've probably mentioned it before), and Reading Lolita in Tetuan. Oh and some good nonfiction books that I highly recommend are The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan, Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (or anything by Lewis for that matter), The Promises of Grace by Bryan Chappell (or Praying Backwards - also great), and The Prodigal God by Tim Keller (or anything by Keller).

As for movies...I have a list, so I'll finish watching them and then give you the reviews or send you to my ministry website.

the rest of God

“Sanctifying some time adds richness to all time, just as an hour with the one you love brings light and levity to the hours that follow. To spend time with the object of your desire is to emerge, not sullen and peevish, but elated and refreshed. you come away filled, not depleted.

The Greeks understood. Embedded in their language, expressed in two distinct words for ‘time,’ is an intuition about the possibility of sanctified time. Time, they knew, has two faces, two natures. It exists in two separate realms,...One is sacred time, the other profane.

The first word is chronos... It is the time of clock and calendar, time as a gauntlet, time as a forced march. The word derives from one of the gods in the Greek pantheon. Chronos was a nasty minor deity, a glutton and a cannibal who gorged himself on his own children. He was always consuming, never consummated. Goya depicted him in his work ‘Chronos Devouring His Children.’ In the painting, Chronos is gaunt and ravenous, wild-eyed with hunger. He crams a naked, bloody-stumped figure into his gaping mouth. peter Paul Rubens depicted Chronos even more alarmingly: a father viciously biting into his son’s chest and tearing the flesh away, the boy arching backward in shock and pain.

Chronos is the presiding deity of the driven.

The second Greek word is kairos. This is time as gift, as opportunity, as season. It is time pregnant with purpose. In kairos time you ask, not ‘What time is it?’ but ‘What is this time FOR?’ Kairos is the servant of holy purpose. ‘There is a time for everything,’ Ecclesiastes says, ‘and a season for every activity under heaven.’ 

‘A time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,...
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace, (3:1-2, 5-8)...” (p. 36-37)



“The Chinese join two characters to form a single pictograph for busyness: heart and killing. That is stunningly incisive. The heart of the place the busy life exacts its steepest toll...

One measure for whether or not you’re rested enough... is to ask yourself this: How much do I care about the things I care about? When we lose concern for people,...when we cease to laugh...or weep; when we hear news of trouble among our neighbors and our first thought is that we hope it isn’t going to involve us-- when we stop caring about the things we care about-- that’s a signal we’re too busy. We have let ourselves be consumed by the things that feed the ego but starve the soul.

Busyness kills the heart... Busyness makes us stop caring about the things we care about. And not only that. Busyness also robs us of knowing God the way we might... other facets of God we discover only through stillness. ‘Be still,’ the psalm instructs,’and know that I am God’ (Ps. 46:10)” (p.45, 48, 49)

Excerpts taken from "The Rest of God" by Mark Buchanan

a quiet sunday

I've been enjoying a few relaxing days after having had the stomach flu. And while I hate being sick, I love being forced to rest - completely. And since I had time (since I was supposed to be out of town) and didn't want to relapse, I did in fact rest well.

Since then I've been getting around to a few projects around the house, such as finally staining the dining room chairs to match the table - a dark walnut. The look very nice by the way. I've also gotten the desire to change a few things, to redecorate the living room and rearrange my room (which is going to be a challenge since everything presently fits perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle).

Some friend are out of town, so I'm feeding and taking care of their kitty. They have an amazing library, so I'm borrowing a few books. And since they return in a week, I need to get reading. One of the books I borrowed is a collection of C.S. Lewis writings, specifically The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, Miracles, The Case for Christianity and Christian Behaviour. I just started the Screwtape Letters and was struck by a quote in the preface:

We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. This, to begin with.

I'll probably add some more quotes here as I continue my way through these and several other books I have on loan from friends, or which I've been waiting way to long to read.

Another one from the preface, which by the way, is quite good:

Bad angels, like bad men, are entirely practical. They have two motives. THe first is fear of punishment... Their second motive is a kind of hunger. I feign that devils can, in a spiritual sense, eat one another; and us. Even in human life we have seen the passion to dominate, almost to digest, one's fellow; to make his whole intellectual an devotional life merely an extension of one's own -- to hate one's hatreds and resent one's grievances and indulge one's egoism through him as well as through oneself. HIs own little store of passion must of course be suppressed to make room for ours. If he resists this suppression he is being selfish.

Letter #3:

My dear Wormwood,
I am very pleased by what you tell me about this man's relations with his mother. But you must press your advantage. The Enemy will be working from the centre outwards, gradually bringing more and more of the patient's conduct under the new standard, and may reach his behaviour to the old lady at any moment. You want to get in first. Keep in close touch with our colleague Glubose who is in charge of the mother, and build up between you in that house a good settled habit of mutual annoyance; daily pinpricks. The following methods are useful.
1. Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the states of his own mind-- or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.
2. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very "spiritual", that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother - the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time, you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling form his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's "soul" to beating or insulting the real wife or son without a qualm.
3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy - if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of that assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, that is easily managed
4. In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itslef by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but the tone of voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face. To keep this game up you and Glubose must see to it that each of these two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother's utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention. She must be encouraged to do the same to him. Hence from every quarrel they can both go away convinced, or very nearly convinced, that they are quite innocent. You know the kind of thing: "I simply ask her what time dinner will be and she flies into a temper." Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offence is taken....
Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape

In reading this letter, it is sad how close to reality this actually can be, in my life with roommates more often than i wish. Thank God that the Holy Spirit is present to bring truth to light and to bring about clarity of vision and conviction, so that while I am way too often blind, I do at some point see.

crepúsculo

About a month ago I ran into a friend coming out of a bookstore close to my house after he had just bought a book. He later told me he was embarrassed to be caught buying the last in the series of the Twilight books, not anything he wanted to publicize, which I found humorous. I was surprised that he was reading them and that he said the movie was really good - it looked to me like a teenage flick that would just be okay. My friend said it was actually really good and that he thought i'd like both the movie and the books. I had been looking for a new book to read so, a few days later, I watched the movie and soon after bought the first book (i could have just borrowed them from dave other than the fact that he read them in english and somehow it's been easier to read in spanish these days, just so i don't have to change languages as much).

I have to say the first book is so far the best and then the third (which i will soon finish). Granted I'm reading a translation, so some of it might be lost, but they're good books. They're mainly about relationships, but are made more interesting by adding the reality of the main relationship being between a normal girl and a vampire. And, they are fairly quick reads, but all around pretty good books. And I thought it was funny that my sister just finished reading them as well. So, if you need a light good read for the summer, here you go.

arte

wow! i'm enjoying a quiet sunday afternoon and listening to a sermon from my pastor back in lawrence, ks - bill vogler. i've been reading both the fun novel, the elegance of the hedgehog (a french author whose name is escaping me right now, although i'm reading it in spanish and i know that it also exists in english) and waking the dead by john eldredge. anyway, since i read a little excerpt from eldredge's book as i ate lunch, i've been thinking about arte and stories...

i'm listening to a great sermon on colossians 1 and surfing for some pretty pictures online. i love art and nature and beautiful photographs. i really love cool art, art that talks about life and realities that sometimes arte or music can really explain much better than mere words. so, that said, here are a few things i found and their link where you can find more.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pepsi11295/2959261577/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoleeiko/3568488934/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-lost-american/3572739537/in/set-72157615000193909/(this is actually the site of a friend, nathan, who lives in france, who amazes me because he is in high school and an amazing artist)

just a book recommendation. in light of thinking about death and evil and then the character of God, i picked up a book i've had for a little while which is both honest and good. "Evil and the Justice of God" by NT Wright.

a few good reads

These are the main books I've been reading recently, next to the Bible. Most of them are in preparation for a discussion group we are starting in a couple weeks, (see note at the bottom) called What do you see? (in Spanish of course, which by the way is much more catchy) after the various weeks of promotion and such with photos on campus and getting students thoughts about them.

Simply Christianity & The Reason for God, along with Evil and the Justice of God and Christ & Culture Revisited have helped us as we've come up with the content and discussion questions for five weeks talking about justice, beauty, love/relationship, freedom, and spirituality and ultimately how each of these things and our value for them lead us to God and to our need for Jesus. By the way, they are also some great books. Ones that I have and am enjoying immensely.

The other two books above are two books I've been reading on prayer. The Valley of Vision is a compilation of Puritan prayers from back in the day which are RICH in depth and thoughts to meditate upon, thoughts that cause you to contemplate the greatness of God, of Christ, and our desperate need for him. I've been enjoying reading a prayer now and then to refocus my mind. Chappell's Praying Backwards is actually one of my roommate's books which I also am loving and enjoying and learning a lot from. It's main point is that we should think about our prayers thinking about glorifying God foremost and thus taking the idea of "in Jesus's name" all the way through our prayers not just stamped on the end. It sounds simply, but it is actually one of the best books I've ever read on prayer (at least thus far - I'm only about halfway through so far).

So... enjoy!

Note: Here are some thoughts from Dave... I would just send you too his website, but it is a closed audience, so here you go. (Dave is one of the people co-laboring with me on campus.)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

what is your problem...

...with Christianity? I have been reading a good bit in preparation for a What do you see? discussion group we’re hoping to start after the What do you see? “outreach” we’re going to do on campus in November. As I was reading Tim Keller’s book, The Reason for God, I came across a question that he said he asks people a lot: “What is your biggest problem with Christianity?” I think it is a fascinating question to ask non-Christians because there is a subtle, inherent humility (if asked properly!) to the question because it assumes (rightly!) that Christians are not perfect and that the Christian church has problems in this fallen world. I find myself thinking often these days about the nature and methodology of evangelism in today’s world and I am certain that one trait we as Christians must have when we talk to others about all things Christian is humility. I have many questions about how we should do evangelism in light of today’s (in the west) largely postmodern, secular, Judeo-Christian-naïve culture but I do not have questions about how we as Christians need to live out the gospel among the people with whom we interact. This includes humility, respect, patience, faith, LOVE, grace -- not to mention having a proper attitude and thoughtful, respectful stance with respect to our own faith. We need to be studious, thoughtful, passionate, wise, learned Christians who do have doubts but recognize in those doubts the ability to have a stronger, deeper faith after faithfully working and thinking through them. Read widely. Read literature -- I’m about to embark on Tolstoy’s War and Peace. (By the way, check out Harry Mulisch’s The Discovery of Heaven. I really enjoyed it and it is a classic in Dutch literature.) Watch and think critically (in the positive sense) about movies. Engage with people in things you’re passionate about or enjoy. I recently got invited to a celebration of sorts by the owner of a local pub (it’s called La Casa de la Cerveza “The House of Beer” -- they have a couple hundred beers to choose from) because they are going to start having 17 beers on tap which would make them one of a few bars in the whole country to have that many. It sounds strange but God uses things we enjoy to provide opportunities to proclaim the gospel or at least provide relationships through which we can demonstrate and proclaim the love of Christ. I can’t tell you how many people and relationships I have formed here because of surfing. It’s crazy. All of this rambling to say, ask your friends what problems they have with Christianity and listen to them respectfully. And pray for God’s wisdom as to how and when (or if) you should respond. Blessings. Dave

the big read

I just read this list on Dave & Beth Bryan’s website and thought I’d try it out myself. The Big Read was a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC, with the goal of finding the “Nation’s Best-loved Book” by way of a viewer vote via the Web, SMS, and telephone.The Big Read figures that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books. How do you stack up? (I’ve read 37, which is only about a third of the books there.) Let me know what you think about any of these books and whether you think they are worth reading or not (by adding your comments).

How to Play:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE, or in my case I put a star by them (as I can't figure out how to underline here.)
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien*
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible*
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien*
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens*
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo*

I think I have my mom and high school teachers to thank for most of the books I read because most of them were read while I was in high school, some in college, and many of the italicized books I own or have owned but have yet to get around to reading. As Dave wrote on his blog, I also think there are some books that are missing from the list.

Here's Dave's list:
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
The Discovery of Heaven, Harry Mulisch
Beloved, Toni Morrison
A Farewell to Arms or something by Ernest Hemingway
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Doestoevsky
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

I would definitely agree. And would say that The Brothers Karamazov and something by Hemingway are definitely good reads.

Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
The Last Catan - Matilde Asensi (The spelling might be off because I have it in Spanish.)
A Long Way Gone - Ismael Beah
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Kaffir Boy - Mark Mathabane
Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes
The Ugly American - Eugene Burdick & William Lederer

A book survey

I just saw this on a friend's blog and so here you go...

1. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?

I think I've always loved to read. It probably came from my dad reading to me when I was little. It's interesting because I think everyone in my family has a stack of books by their bed or favorite chair that they are reading, a stack, not one or two. My sister may be the exception but I almost doubt it. So, it is probably genetic.

2. What are some books you read as a child?

I remember my dad reading to me the Chronicles of Narnia and the Hobbit. I remember Freckle Juice, Judy Blume books, a host of golden books, the Babysitter's Club, Wuthering Heights, and many others.


3. What is your favorite genre?

This is why I tend to have a pile of books. I like learning about other cultures, preferably in narrative form, I like some fiction, books that help me to live out my faith, and then some novels.

4. Do you have a favorite novel?

Not really. I don't really have a favorite novel. My favorite books are nonfiction books on spiritual things and actually even there I have a hard time picking just one. I think I am somewhat the same with books as with movies in that I would tend to rather something new than something I'd already read or seen. The exception is the Bible (which may sound super-spiritual, but is actually just the truth), which I am continually seeing and learning new things from. I don't really ever get tired of it. If I had to pick a favorite novel, though, or present favorite novel I'd pick either the Hobbit, one of the Lord of the Rings books, the Kite Runner, or A Thousand Splendid Suns.

5. Where do you usually read?

On the Metro or bus or train, in transit, or in my bed or on the couch. I wish I had a hammock because I most love to read sitting or lying in a hammock on a porch (like I did when I lived in Lawrence, KS).

6. When do you usually read?

While in transit (bus, metro, train), at night before I go to bed, on the weekend, on vacation...

7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?

Yes, almost always, although I am trying to actually finish more books than I start. It doesn't help that I try to always be reading a Spanish book, so that adds at least one more book if I'm reading something in English.

8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?

Some nonfiction is for research, so I just read the pertinent parts although it usually makes me want to read more. Nonfiction that I just read I often read more slowly so I can take it all in and ponder as I go. I tend to read fiction or something related to prayer or God before I go to bed, more recently the latter two.

As for where, it just depends. If it's something that I really have to think on or that I don't want to be interrupted in, then I keep that to reading at home when I have a bit of time. If not, if it's either very readable or a light read, then it's easier to take on public transportation and to read as I go in short chunks.

9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?

I tend to borrow or buy books (or receive them as gifts). I love buying used if possible and wish I checked more out of the library, but hate having a due date and fearing that I may forget when it has to be back by. If I went on a regular basis that wouldn't be a problem, but I presently don't (my excuse is lack of time).

10. Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?

Yes, unless there is someone good to pass them onto or I didn't like it or I no longer have room for them (and thus have to weed out). In the latter two cases I try to sell (or give them) to a used bookstore closeby.

11. If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Nope, not yet, no kids.

12. What are you reading now?

Non-fiction: Praying Backwards, Don't Waste Your Life (in Spanish), Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Calvin's Institutes, and Simply Christian.

Bible: Psalms, Proverbs, Sermon on the Mount, 1 Peter, Isaiah.

13. Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list?

Kind of... I always seem to have way too many on the list. Some depends too on the books people have to lend me, which sometimes trump others due to wanting to get it back to them sooner than later. Also, some depends on my mood or what I need at the time.

14. What’s next?

First I need to finish the one's I've begun.

15. What books would you like to reread?

Richard Foster's Celebration of the Disciplines, the Lord of the Rings books, some of the classics, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

16. Who are your favorite authors?

Hmm... I'm not sure right now. The ones I would have said before still are authors I like, but it's been awhile since I've read anything of theirs. Right now I'm really liking D. Martin Lloyd-Jones and John Calvin.

Prayer

Recently I've been praying through a prayer in "the Valley of Vision" (prayers of the puritans, which are really profound and rich with lots to meditate upon) both when I wake up and when I go to sleep and whenever I need to quiet my heart and think on Jesus. I've also begun to write out a Psalm in the morning to help put myself in a prayerful frame of mind, to have something to meditate upon during my day, and to help bring myself into a place where I can really hear from the Lord as I pray and study the Bible. It's really been helpful.

And, after beginning to read "Praying Backwards" by Bryan Chapell, it was nice in a (misery loves company way) to know that I am not alone in needing to reframe my thoughts and quiet my heart a times. Chapell shared that during a time when he had a lot on his mind, things to do, concerns, etc., he began to pray the Lord's Prayer (found in the Bible) whenever his mind needed to be refocused, or when he needed to remind himself of God's presence and might. He said that after a little while it became a very rich time of prayer because the words actually began to take root and change him. And I think praying the prayers of the saints of old (normal people who walked with Jesus) and meditating on the Psalms slowly is changing me as well. I want to be still and know that the Lord alone is God. I want to rejoice in Him and desire above all else that His name be glorified. For He and He alone is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Creator of all things, the Lord God Almighty, the Holy One, my King, the One who loves me and who died for me, Jesus. Praise be the Lord!