Book Review – LOVE | ACCEPT

So Many Good Books in 2024

And A Couple of Lousy Ones

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

The calendar turns to January, a new year begins, and once again, it’s time to review my reading for the past year. There are fewer books overall this year and a fair number of books were “read” by listening to them (shown on the list as (A)). The count was an intentional choice on my part. Seeking better books and spending more time with them took precedence over the filling of shelves. In looking at the selections of paper versus audio books you can see how I approach each medium. The overwhelming majority of my theological reading is done in paper form so that it can be notated and readily accessed once entering the library. The books I “read” in audio form enable me to explore my diverse interests and engage a variety of topics. It’s also my chance to enjoy my guilty pleasures of Jack Reacher and Harry Bosch novels while working in the garden. In many cases, the audio book inspired me to purchase a companion paper copy as I wanted to give it a second read with a pencil and straightedge in hand. Good marketing Amazon!

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
― Henry Ward Beecherr

A practice that has encouraged multiple reads and improved my understanding of complex material is the making of book notes. These notes are generally thoughts derived from the highlighting and marginalia in a book. Their purpose is to record the most important aspects of a piece of literature in a form that can serve me for research and writing purposes without having to search my shelves for an idea contained in my reading. I make these notes in Evernote so they are searchable and easily referenced when needed. It is a time-consuming process, but the benefit is priceless; I am rethinking through the material in the book as I make each note, and this process has been beneficial in building depth to my understanding of the selected topics. If this sounds like a benefit you would like to have for yourself, you need not start at this depth. Start by making chapter notes in the empty spaces in your current read. Summarize each chapter on the last page to see what you’ve learned. Outline the book on the blank pages in the back to see if you’re tracking with the author’s thoughts. Make the book your own.

When I have completed each book, I record the date of completion and my rating in the front cover before placing it into my library. My rating system is simple. Books rated 5 of 5 are the best. These are books that are memorable pieces of writing that deserve to be read, notes taken and thought about. Those rated as 4s are also worthy of reading and notation, but perhaps just once. The middle tier is a 3, and this is simply a good book. Those rated as 2 or below come with a warning. Don’t waste your time. Also, don’t ask to borrow these books as they do not have a home in my library. There were only a couple of 10s this year and one was a reread from years past. A 10 is an invaluable book, a must-read that I would recommend to anyone and everyone interested in the topic. Anything noted as (x…) means that it was reread. I intend (someday) to reread all of my Lee Child and Michael Connelly, having moved many of them from state to state. How many books do you have in this category?

Title	Author	Rating
Being God’s Image	Imes	10
The Divine Conspiracy (x2)	Willard	10
The Shaping of Things to Come (x2)	Frost	5
Embracing Grace	McKnight	5
Gospel Fluency (x2)	Vandersteldt	5
Practicing the Way	Comer	5
Unlimited Grace (x2)	Chapell	5
Transforming Grace	Bridges	5
Rejoice and Tremble	Reeves	5
The Mission of God	Schell	5
Scripture is Supreme	Chester	5
Covenant & God’s Purpose for the World	Schreiner	5
A Resilient Life (A)	MacDonald	5
The Art of Living	Epictetus	4
Jesus the King (x2)	Keller	4
Someday is Today	Dicks	4
By Grace Alone (x2)	Ferguson	4
The Grace of God	Stanley	4
The Practice	Godin	4
The Promise of Grace	Chappel	4
Renewal for the 21st Century	Werning	4
How to Pray	Torrey	4
All it Takes is a Goal (x2)	Acuff	4
Knowing the Spirit	Hinn	4
The Ministry of the Missional Church	Van Gelder	4
Storm	Cymbala	4
The Essence of the Church (x2)	Van Gelder	4
Factfulness	Rosling	4
Forgotten Ways Handbook	Hirsch	4
The Kingdom of God	Schreiner	4
The Forgotten Ways (x2)	Hirsch	4
ReJesus (x2)	Frost	4
The Death Christ Died	Lightner	4
The Secret	Child	4
The Lord’s Supper	Waters	4
Sacrilege	Halter	4
The Creative Act	Rubin	4
Excellence Wins (A)	Schulze	4
The Black Echo (A)	Connelly	4
Mind Shift (A)	McManus	4
Unreasonable Hospitality (A)	Guidara	4
Choose Your Story (A)	Hall	4
Trillions (A)	Wigglesworth	4
It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again (A)	Cameron	4
Missional Communities	McNeal	3
Handmade	Rogowski	3
The Difficult Doctrines of the Love of God	Carson	3
Writing for Busy Readers	Rogers	3
Church Turned Inside Out	Berquist	3
Expecting the Unexpected	Pearring	3
Who Needs Theology?		3
Twelve and a Half	Vaynerchuk	3
Strangest Secret	Nightengale	3
Revival	Gaines	3
Everything Is	Manson	3
Primal Fire	Cole	3
If Only You Would Ask	Rogers	3
The Mission Always Wins	Bolsinger	3
Shaped by God’s Heart (x2)	Minatrea	3
Apostolic Priorities	Richards	3
Missional Map Making	Roxborough	3
Words Matter	Ballard	3
Redeeming the Routines	Banks	3
And	Halter	3
The Focus Project	Equalman	3
Sharpening the Focus of the Church	Getz	3
Hell Yeah or No	Sivers	3
Praying the Psalms	Brueggemann	3
Running Blind (A)	Child	3
Co-Active Coaching	Kimsey	3
Nothin’ But A Good Time (A)	Beaujour	3
The Last Array (A)	McManus	3
Chasing Daylight (A)	McManus	3
The Perfect Story (A)	Eber	3
The Miracle Morning (A)	Elrod	3
The Creative Curve (A)	Gannet	3
Love People, Use Things (A)	Millburn	3
Butcher’s Work (A)	Schechter	3
Drowning (A)	Newman	3
Goals and Vision Mastery (A)	Brown	2
Unlikely Thru-Hiker (A)	Lugo	2

Watch Your Blind Side

Expecting the Unexpected by JD Pearring

Many leadership books focus on the act of leading, as though by sheer will, one can create success with no unanticipated outside interference. Anyone who has ever been in a position of leadership, however, knows this isn’t true. There are dozens of things that can come out of nowhere and derail your efforts toward reaching your goals. In his excellent new book Expecting the Unexpected, JD Pearring catalogs eighteen of these actions, feelings and events that we do well to be looking out for. He talks about anticipating these things as you go about your leadership duties, but the book is also useful in hindsight as you reflect on ways that each of us could have handled these negative influences better.

JD combines personal anecdotes, stories and scripture to structure each chapter. From these, he offers several ways to deal with the unexpected as it comes. The option to give up, quit, surrender, etc. is mostly missing from his suggested actions. Instead, by applying scripture to each type of event, leaders are encouraged to overcome in the best moments, or endure with faith in the more challenging instances. The Big Challenge conclusions to each chapter range in application from simple [don’t quit] to character challenging [serve in obscurity]. Depending on your situation, some will be more helpful than others.

Take some encouragement. It is out there for you.
JD Pearring

Expecting is a book to keep on a lower shelf for reference in the future. You may not be experiencing discouragement (now), but chances are you will at some point. Pull the book out, turn to chapter(s) on discouragement (and smears and complaining and fools and so on) and let JD’s wisdom get you back on track. This is a good book for new leaders who have yet to experience these troubles, as well as more seasoned leaders who have seen them all. I plan to use this material in coaching relationships with renewal leaders who often find themselves overwhelmed by these negative effects on the health of their church, as well as negatively affecting their leadership. Don’t miss this book.

Blessed by What Others Have Missed

What Others Have Missed

In my 2023 reading review, I mentioned I purchased many of my books from the used marketplace. When I do so, I always try to purchase the best condition possible, balancing the used price against the purchase of a new volume. When the book arrives in my mailbox, many times I cut open the vinyl package to find a book in better condition than expected; in several instances, the book has never been opened and is clearly unread. This is exciting for sure, but always makes me wonder why the original owner purchased the book but never found the time or the interest to read it. In some cases, the book may have passed through multiple owners before arriving in my office, no one having opened it along the way. In the picture that accompanies this essay, you see the cover of Tim Keller’s book “Jesus the King” adorned with a small orange Goodwill sticker. The excellent book was unopened when I received it and folded back of the covers for the first time, but before that it had touched down in at least two places. Someone had someone had originally purchased it, I presume interested in the content, but for whatever reason they had never got around to reading the book, eventually piling it in with a number of other books and donating it to Goodwill, where it was priced and put out for purchase. Drawing no interest in the store, the volume was scooped up by Thriftbooks and, listed in excellent condition, I purchased it for a price less than the new equivalent, opened it, read it and entered it into my library.

Because I’ve read the book, I know the value of the content beyond the little information offered in the back–cover blurb. As I handle the book, I wonder, why did someone purchase the volume only to relegate it to the “to-be-read” pile long enough to later discard it, all of its insight unrealized. Looking at my own piles of books waiting to be enjoyed, it makes me wonder if the topic was no longer of interest. Perhaps a more insightful book had come into the owner’s possession. It might’ve been a time constraint, something all readers are familiar with. To gain the most from a book, new or used, demands intentional reading. It requires that we mull over the author’s ideas. It demands that we consider the notes and references, in many cases, we need to add our own marginalia, footnotes and summaries. Maybe life had made demands on the first owner that made the challenge of this book impossible to surmount. Whatever the reason or cause, I benefit from discovering what others have missed.

I don’t remember what prompted me to purchase Keller’s book, whether it was a serendipitous search result as I looked for another specific book, or, as is most often the case, it was added to my reading list through a footnote or endnote in another book. Whether the condition had been like-new as I received, or well-loved, as many other books I’ve purchased have been, I am enriched because I opened the cover and read and considered the words and spent the time to think about where the ideas fit in my life, what previous knowledge hook they attach to. Not every volume will be a treasure. Some of our own books, that we purchased new, excited to read them, don’t hold up past the first couple of chapters. They find their way to the ARC or Goodwill, and later perhaps to Thriftbooks as a part of a volume purchase. In those cases, someone may pick up your book, look at the unfolded spine or the stiffness of the hardcover binding and wonder why you didn’t read the book, why you lost interest, what interrupted your reading time. Whatever the reason we pass the book on, it’s good to know that someone else may get the chance to discover what we missed.

2023 Reading List

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Cicero

My 2023 reading list has finally been tallied and it contains 97 books read in the past year. Though electronic media dominates, there is a special value to the slower pace and tactile experience of reading a book. For pleasure or knowledge, the engagement of mind (and soul) and eyes and fingertips with the paper and the binding and the slipcover creates a bond with yourself and the ideas contained within. This intimacy is also why bad books are especially offensive to us; the personal investment we’ve made in the selection and the purchase and the preparation to read the book spins up our expectations to the point where bad writing is an insult. One of the most valuable permissions that I’ve received in life is to not finish books. Life is brief and forcing yourself to finish something that turns out to be of little value is a waste of your time. Pass the book on and select another from the ever-growing pile of yet-to-be-reads.

I purchase a good many of my books used (yea Thriftbooks!). Apart from saving money, the book you receive has a story to tell. Many have never been read, like they had been languishing in someone else’s yet-to-be-read pile before being abandoned. The dust jacket may have a faded spine, but you still get to enjoy the satisfaction of opening the covers for the first time, feeling that resistance as the cover and spine loosen up for the first time, ready to share the author’s insights with an excited reader. It’s a delight to receive copies used by note-takers like myself. Do I agree or disagree with the marginalia? I’ve discovered heartfelt prayers and prayer lists in the front and back covers from and for people I’ll never meet but I feel apart of as I read them, wondering how they were answered. Few underline with pencil and ruler as I do. Some freehand with ballpoint pen, or worse, use garishly colored highlighters. Here too is a telling practice. When nearly every sentence is highlighted, which of the author’s thoughts were truly valuable?

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” – Henry David Thoreau

I record each book in my journal as I complete it, writing the date of completion and my rating in the front cover before placing it into my library. My rating system is simple. Books rated 5 of 5 are the best, memorable pieces of writing that deserve to be read, notated if applicable and thought about. Those rated as 4s are also worthy of reading and notation, but perhaps just once. Threes are just good books and there an awful lot of those. Those rated as 2 or below come with a warning. Don’t waste your time. Also, don’t ask to borrow these books as they do not have a home in my library. You will notice a handful of books at the top of the list rated as 10. These are invaluable books and ideas that I would recommend to anyone and everyone interested in their topics. You’ll notice a number of titles in the list followed by a notation like (2x). This means that the book was reread during the year. How many books do you have that fall in that category?

Title	Author	Rating
Fresh Encounter (3x)	Blackaby	10
The Gospel Precisely (2x)	Bates	10
Why the Gospel? (2x)	Bates	10
Missional Church	Gudder	10
Be My Witnesses	Gudder	10
No Easy Road (2x)	Eastman	5
Simply Good News (3X)	Wright	5
King Jesus Gospel	McKnight	5
Becoming the Gospel (2x)	Gorman	5
A Praying Church (2x)	Miller	5
The Mission of God	Wright	5
Bearing God’s Name	Imes	5
How to Hear God	Greig	5
A Community Called Atonement	McKnight	5
Fan the Flame	Cymbala	4
The Travelers Gift	Andrews	4
48 Laws of Spiritual Power	Viola	4
Smarty Brevity	Vande Hei	4
Sin, The Savior and Salvation	Lightner	4
The Grace Message	Farley	4
The Coffee Bean	Gordon	4
Church Revitalizer as Change Agent	Cheyney	4
The Psychology of Money	Housel	4
Salvation by Allegiance Alone (2x)	Bates	4
Romans ZECNT	Thielman	4
Beautiful Resistance	Tyson	4
Revitalize (2x)	Davis	4
How to Start a Riot	Storment	4
Courage is Calling	Holiday	4
Creating a Missional Culture (2x)	Woodward	4
Missional Theology (2x)	Franke	4
Missional Renaissance (2x)	McNeal	4
Subversive Mission	Greenfield	4
Flickering Lamps	Blackaby	4
Case for Keto	Taubes	4
Status and Culture	Marx	4
Built from Scratch	Marcus	4
6 Habits of Growth	Burchard	4
Punk Paradox	Graffin	4
How I Built This	Raz	4
The Perfectionists	Winchester	4
Measure of a Man	Getz	4
The Permanent Revolution	Hirsch	4
The Faith of Leap	Frost	4
Radical Praying and Preaching	Ravenhill	4
Cues	Van Edwards	4
The Power of Group Prayer	Carney	3
Can These Bones Live (2x)	Henard	3
Mercy	Baldacci	3
Enjoy Your Prayer Life	Reeves	3
Our Iceberg is Melting	Kotter	3
Racing the Light	Crais	3
Longing for Revival (2x)	Choung	3
Praying for One Another (2x)	Getz	3
Prayer	Bunyon	3
Go	Hunter	3
Bully Pulpit	Kruger	3
Passion in the Pulpit	Vines	3
How to Change	Milkman	3
The Magnificent Journey	Smith	3
Put Your In the Chair	Pressfield	3
Life Together in Christ	Barton	3
The Eye Test	Jones	3
Habits	Sincero	3
There’s Hope	McIntosh	3
What About Lordship Salvation	Bing	3
Romans BECNT	Schreiner	3
Investigating Lordship Salvation	Weierbach	3
Hearing God’s Voice	Blackaby	3
Faithful Faith	Moore	3
Breaking the Curse	Kinner	3
Introducing the Missional Church (2x)	Roxburgh	3
No Plan B	Child	3
The Mission of Theology & Theology as Mission	Kirk	3
The Church’s Mission	Leeman	3
Storyworthy	Dicks	3
Insights on Communion	Renner	3
City on Fire	Winslow	3
Come to the Table	Hicks	3
The Present Future (2x)	McNeal	3
Knowing Christ	Fargo	3
It’s Not How Good You Are	Arden	3
The PARA Method	Forte	3
Prayer Revolution	Smed	3
Gather God’s People	Croft	3
Sentness (2x)	Hammond	3
Holy Spirit	Young	3
Into the Void	Butler	3
Soundtracks	Acuff	3
The Lighthouse Effect	Pemberton	3
Hunting Leroux	Shannon	3
Free Billy	Winslow	3
Help Thanks Wow	Lamott	3
Freaky Deaky	Leonard	3
The Upper Room Discourse	Henry	2
Lifeless to New Life	Brown	2
Greatness Mindset	Howes	2

Book Review: Zealous for Good Works by Todd Wilson

Pastor Wilson turns the Church’s attention to the much quoted but less applied New Testament epistle of Titus and its core message. The Spirit inspired the author of that letter to not only leave his worker Titus on the Greek island of Crete to organize the Christians there, but gave the principles by which he was to do so as well. Using as his objective that the Church be the city on a hill that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount, Wilson leads the reader through the points of Paul’s letter and helps us to understand how his marching orders for Titus apply to the Church today.

For such a brief book the value is immense. Wilson expertly exegetes the equally brief letter and helps the reader to see the big idea in each of the passages. ‘Zealous’ is not a gnostic promise (Jabez et al.) of discovering some new hidden secret, but rather, it is an eminently practical look at the principles that Paul gave to Titus that address many of the shortcomings of the Church in our age. Three that are discussed in the book are the poor level of discipleship, the chasm of credibility (that is, the difference between what we say and what we do) and the effect that these have on how we apprehend the missional opportunity ahead of us.

Read ‘Zealous’ with your bible close by. It is likely you have read Titus multiple times (if you are picking up a books such as this) but much of that reading has been focused in the Eldership requirements. Wilson deftly leads the reader to see that Titus contains so much more practical application for the Church beyond those instructions. For example, Wilson stops us in a passage often seen as preamble, Paul’s greeting in 1:1-4 to point out the importance of preaching and the power of the gospel. The gospel is both the content and the power of preaching something that can be missing in today’s environment of therapeutic deism. A city on hill is not built on the pillars of making people feel better where it teeters and shifts with every new personal demand. It is founded on the unchanging glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The only disappointment I had with the book was that it was over so quickly. The more I think about it though, the length of the book is exactly right given the brevity of the profound instruction in its source. I have a new hunger to dig into Titus and preach it in the future. In the meantime, the study guide included at the back of the book is a bonus for church leaders seeking to present their people as salt and light in the world. Buy this, read this and read it again.

Rumors of Faith

Are we simply content to watch the American church limp into eternity? Are you ready to drift through the rest of your life, lulled and softened by our comfort and ease?

Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson, the authors of Rumors of God, surveyed the landscape of the American church and pronounce it still alive beneath the surface. Finding niches of active faith in unexpected places, they see life where many say none exists.

Many have proclaimed the ‘Church’ in America dead or drifting. From some vantage points, this might be the perception that an observer would gather. But crawl under the hood, kick the worn tires and turn the key to the slow-revving starter and you gain a different view; the Church in His people is more than alive and well.

Whitehead and Tyson collect a series of illustrations together, finding signs of vigor in the individual faith of Christians across the Church. Separating these individuals from the Church in its catholic sense creates a false impression though. The heart of the Church, regardless of how we segregate into individual assemblies, is the movement of the Spirit within His people. Perhaps a perspective gained from churches not so far removed from the norm would present a more vibrant body of Christ.

I’m grateful to Thomas Nelson who provided this copy for review.

Letter to a Christian Nation from Sam Harris

As I have done more in-depth reading in the Atheist corpus I have discovered major differences between the modern rationalists (as they like to be called) and the elder members of their cohort. The younger generation is consumed with the rant at the expense of careful argumentation. Their approach is scattered, throwing out this and that in an attempt to create a blizzard of thoughts and words so impenetrable that it is impossible to refute them. An interesting exercise is to read non-professional reviews of the literature such as what one might find on Amazon and read the glowing paeans highlighting the lucid arguments and the irrefutable ideas of the author and then wonder what book these readers have read. Many of them read like freshman essays attempting to expound on the student’s first exposure to Nietchze; they appear to have read the book but do not have a sufficient grasp of the philosophy—or religion in the case of this book—to be able to critique beyond simple praise. They like it but don’t know why they like it.

L’enfant terrible Sam Harris offers nothing in his execrable little pamphlet that furthers the Atheist cult. That this book sold numerous copies is not surprising as it perfectly fits the currently acceptable cultural intolerance of Christian belief. As is the script for the new Atheists, Christians are caricatured as irrational, sexually repressed yokels unable to process any thought beyond the flannel-graph images of the animals marching two by two into Noah’s Ark. The reader is given an early glimpse into Harris’ logical approach just a few pages in when he says “The fact that my continuous and public rejection of Christianity does not worry me in the least should suggest to you just how inadequate I think your reasons for being a Christian are.” (p. 4) Let’s see:

P1: I reject Christianity continually and publically

P2: It doesn’t worry me in the least

C: Your reasons for being a Christian are inadequate

How does this work in support of the remaining pages of the book? That he does not believe in the tenets or evidence provided in support of Christianity is sufficient for a Christian to doubt the truth and reality of the living God and the sacrifice of Christ? I will try the same exercise:

P1: I do not like Brussels Sprouts and will tell everyone who listens (even though there is sufficient proof of their nutritious nature)

P2: That this might hurt my mother’s feelings doesn’t worry me in the least (because she is the only person I know who likes them)

C: No one should eat or even see Brussels Sprouts

Harris believes himself to be serious minded yet his approach to the topic at hand is cavalier and simply caustic. He is an angry man and attempts over and over to portray Christians in the same light. Harris hopes that by shouting relentlessly and not giving his opponents an opportunity to interject that he can make his point and somehow walk away victorious. For example, his handling of scripture is to pick a handful of particularly violent passages out of the Bible and then present them as the whole of scripture. The first thing that a freshman bible student is taught in hermeneutics is how to properly handle the texts and the primary rule is context, context, and context. Harris pulls out a trio of passages that he says direct parents to kill their disobedient teenagers. Neither a biblical scholar nor a Hebrew linguist, Harris attempts to make these verses stand alone which they do not. He does not delve into the semantic ranges of the English words he reads and their source in the original languages. He does not place the scriptures in context, immediate or larger. He does nothing except say ‘see, the bible says kill your kids. Let’s get rid of religion!’ Irresponsible at best, a failing grade in any religious studies class at worst.

Harris does not move much beyond this approach throughout the entire book. His tools are mockery and hyperbole which excite the Atheist community but simply look childish and silly when read by the educated and astute Christian. Sam would like a world free from all religion where each accidental creation is free to make his or her own morality. When my moral system interferes with his life in that world, Sam would happily agree that we can both be right and simply suffer the consequences without complaint. Mr. Harris attempts over and over to portray God and those who believe in Him as evil and the source of the problems of the world. I suggest that he look in the mirror. He and I are the source of the problems in the world. The free will that God has imbued his creatures with allows that we can choose to believe in Him or hate him as Mr. Harris does. Choices have consequences.