Currently Reading...

 Current book...Good stuff.

"Why is Jeremiah's book in such disarray?...because that's what life looks like during deep sorrow."

You can find the book here.

Recommendation with Caveats

Several months ago, during a meeting of our denomination's Life to Life Discipleship Team of which I'm a part, a colleague mentioned that he and his congregation had read and considered a book together: I Am a Church Member: Discovering the Attitude That Makes a Difference by Thom S. Rainer.

Our congregation had read and retreated over a book Rainer co-authored several years ago, Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples, which had a huge impact on our mission, thinking, and ministries. We're still living out the implications of Simple Church nearly four years later and I'm sure that it will continue to help frame our thinking on what the Bible teaches the Church is to be about: being and making disciples.

So, when my colleague mentioned I Am a Church Member, I was intrigued. I immediately picked up my smartphone and ordered the Kindle version and read it before wheels touched down back home from the meeting.

I'm sold on what this little volume--only six chapters, 79-pages long--can do to Biblically charge our thinking about what it means to be part of Christ's Church.

In fact, starting in August, a neighboring congregation, Christ the King Lutheran Church, will be joining our congregation, Living Water Lutheran Church, in a six-week consideration of the teachings in I Am a Church Member. On Sunday mornings, Pastor Dona Johnson will preach to her flock and I will preach at Living Water on Biblical themes raised by the chapter of Rainer's book for that week. (We'll ask our folks to read the featured chapter in the preceding week.) Then, on Tuesdays during this period, we'll all get together to discuss the chapters. It should be fun.

But, having said all of that, I need to warn the people who read Rainer's little classic of a few quibbles I have with him.

First, Rainer assumes throughout his little book that pastors are men, usually with spouses and families. That may be true in his tradition. But I believe, on Biblical grounds, that God calls men and women into pastoral ministry.

When Jesus ushered God's kingdom and His new covenant (or new testament) into the world, one of its features was (and is) how women and men have an equal place in God's eyes. This isn't a modern sociological statement; it's Biblical.

Unlike all the other teachers of His day--male teachers, Jesus did something completely different: He talked with women to whom He was unrelated in public. It was scandalous. There are many instances of this in the gospels. It's indicative of the fact that Jesus trusted women to hear His message and be changed and shaped by it, just like men.

And in a culture that insisted that the testimony of women on any subject was invalid, Jesus chose women to be the first to proclaim (to preach!) His resurrection Easter Sunday morning.

The apostle Paul knew and appreciated this about Jesus and His Kingdom. While Paul sometimes bowed to the social conventions of communities and regions in which he founded new churches, a strategic concession, he was also known to relate to church communities in which women were leaders (think Lydia). And it was a husband and wife team that gave Paul his Christian "seminary training." No wonder that Paul wrote:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Even Paul's understanding of marriage, as expressed in Ephesians 5, often maligned as placing women in positions of inferiority, really, as you consider what he says, conveys the idea that marriage between husband and wife is to be a relationship of mutual submission and surrender.

Second, Rainer sometimes seems to have an inflated sense of the human capacity for living righteously in our own power.  The New Testament teaches that none of us is righteous in our inborn impulses. We're born in sin and our desire is to do what we want to do without regard to God's will for us. We are incapable of being righteous; God makes those who believe in Christ righteous. It's the only way human beings can be righteous. I am saved (and I am sanctified or made holy) entirely by God's grace through faith in Christ--a faith only made possible by the Holy Spirit, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:3.

God gifts Christ's righteousness to those who, at the prompting of the Spirit, are able to repent and believe in Jesus. Ephesians puts it this way:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork...(Ephesians 2:8-10a)

So, a few things I find in I Am a Church Member make me twitch a bit.

For example, in a little affirmation or pledge he asks readers to make near the end of one chapter, Rainer writes: "Because my pastor cannot do all things in his [sic] own power..."

But Jesus teaches something more radical than that: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

One of the hard lessons I have learned as a Christian and as a pastor is that all my good intentions and efforts are meaningless, are inevitably darkened by my own sinful nature unless the God I know in Jesus is the power behind it. Believe me: Your pastor can do nothing righteous, good, or godly in his or her own power. (Neither can you.)

Another example: In a chapter in which Rainer calls on church members to commit themselves to live out a belief that the life of a church community is not about our own personal preferences (rightly, I might add), he writes: "...these commitments are not easy. In fact, without God's power they may prove impossible." (Italics mine.)

Once again, I turn to the more radical phrasing of Jesus in John 15. I am able to do all things in Christ only in the power of Jesus Christ. That's why I scrawled out "may prove" from Rainer's text and amended the sentence to read: "In fact, without God's power they ARE impossible."

Quibbles. But important ones I think.

But even with these caveats, I recommend I Am a Church Member.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

A Book Review: 'Connected to Christ'

Connected to Christ: Why Membership Matters. Peter Speckhard. ISBN: 978-0-7586-5725-1

I mostly like this book. But I have significant qualms about it too.

Here are the qualms.

First, it reflects the unbiblical notion that only men can be called as pastors. This is clearly not the case.

Second, I feel the book is ungracious toward alcoholics and others who are given the option of grape juice instead of wine at Holy Communion. While I believe that when the Bible says "wine," it means "wine," I think that the grace of God compels us to share grape juice with people who, whether they are alcoholics or have other health issues, cannot drink wine. I have the feeling that Jesus surely commends graciousness toward those who are genuinely present and believe in His real presence in, with, and under the elements.

Third, I think the argument that the wine of Holy Communion is always best shared from a single cup is dubious, at the least The author seems to believe that a common cup made of heavy metal will prevent all who partake from transmitting or receiving germs. No medical professional with whom I have spoken through the years would agree with this. (Besides, who wants to swallow the mustache hair of the communicant ahead of us?)

Qualms aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Except when it wanders off into these legalisms and culture-think, it presents sound Biblical counsel on the necessity of church membership to the Christian life.

The understanding of membership here is, healthily, not about occupying a spot on a roster, but about being an indispensable member of the body of Christ, as taught in the Bible and in the Lutheran Confessions.

The author understands the pitfalls and the challenges of living in a church community. In the last chapter, especially, he underscores the fact that these pitfalls and challenges have always been part of the life of the Church and always will be as long as congregations are composed of sinners saved by God's grace through their faith in Christ.

With lots of accessible metaphors and analogies, Speckhard honestly (and sympathetically) grapples with the reasons non-churchgoing people give for staying away from the church.

This is a short read and worth your time, though it would not be a good resource for congregational study and reflection; its biases get in the way too often for that.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

3 Books

Here are three books I'm reading right now. I recommend them.

Going from right to left, the first is Martin Luther's Christmas Book, a compilation/distillation of sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany by the Great Reformer.

Luther was a genius and part of his genius was in his ability to impart his life-giving insights in ways accessible to those who aren't full-time theologians.

He was also totally dialed into how God operates, not as the God Who bowls us over with His power or intimidates us with His deity, but woos and wins us with His love that deigns to enter our world as a human being who leads a sinless life and erases the power of sin and death over us by bearing our sin and death on the cross.

Luther shows the connection between Jesus' crib and Jesus' cross.

I've read these sermons many times, have distilled them even more, and used them on many Christmas Eves.

Starting next Sunday, we'll be using Martin Luther's Christmas Book in adult Sunday School class at Living Water.

Standing Firm: A Christian Response to Hostility and Persecution by Jesse Yow seeks to help Christians as they deal with the reality of increasing hostility (in the northern and western hemispheres) toward Christian faith and Christianity.

Some of this hostility, to be sure, has been incited by Christian leaders behaving in unchristian ways, engaging in politics, claiming that Jesus agrees with their political philosophies, and attempting to impose their version of Christian morality on non-Christians, when they should have instead been proclaiming the good news of new and everlasting life for all who repent and surrender to Jesus.

But, as Scripture (and solid Lutheran theology) teaches, human beings are born with a hostility toward God and His authority over us. Yow includes Biblical and contemporary case studies and offers suggestions on how Christians can faithfully witness for Christ even in the face of hostility. He also draws a helpful distinction between hostility and persecution.

Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides is a beautifully written and sprawling account of the opening of the West to the United States. This is a no-holds-barred narrative that gives incredible insights into diverse Native American cultures and the many colorful characters on all sides of the story. Sides has done extensive research, but he is also an incredibly descriptive, evocative writer. (I got my copy at Costco for only $10.99.)

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

3 Books

Recently, I finished reading two books and listening to another.

I'd started reading Nabeel Qureshi's Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Jesus, a while ago, but had set it aside in order to turn my attention to two other books--one that my Navigators coach, Bill Mowry, wanted me to read and another one recommended me to by my son.

The Qureshi book is an important one, especially given the penchant of some in the post-911 US, who erroneously think that all religions are the same and when others, in the name of tolerance, claim that all religions can lead people to God.

Qureshi was raised in a devout Muslim home and was himself an avid believer. But when he went to Old Dominion University, on his way to medical school, he met David, a mate on the school debate team, who was a deeply committed follower of Jesus.

In the context of their friendship, Qureshi became committed to proving the superiority of Islam and the errors of David's Christianity.

To do so, he dug into not just the Qu'ran and Muslim teaching, but also the Bible and Christian teaching. Qureshi chronicles a series of jarring insights that led him, with heart, head, and will to accept that Jesus is the crucified and risen "way,...truth,..and life" (John 14:6) and that Islam isn't a  witness of God. As he writes in the book's introduction: "As I studied Islam more carefully, what I learned shook my world: there is no good reason to believe that either Muhammad or the Quran teaches the truth about God."

It hasn't been an easy road for Qureshi since coming to faith in Christ. But he has remained steadfast in following Christ, even now as he fights stomach cancer.

This book is not a rabid polemic against Islam. Qureshi sensitively and lovingly explains Islamic belief with a love for his own family members and for Muslims alike. In the bargain, he helps Christians and others to more clearly and sensitively understand Islam.

I can't recommend Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus highly enough.

My wife and I (and our kids when they were young) have always made a habit of reading books in the car on jaunts of any distance. I'm the reader, since, as I've explained here before, I'm the only family member who can read while traveling without barfing.

But, a few weeks ago, I found the audio version of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, a book which was made into an unfortunate and less than faithful to the text movie by producer Angelina Jolie. So, instead of my reading, we listened to the late, great Edward Herman read Hillenbrand's riveting telling of the story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic gold medalist and World War II hero and POW.

Much of the book is taken up with Zamperini's wartime experiences, which included a harrowing time on a raft in the Pacific after the bomber on which he was a crew member was shot down and his even more harrowing experiences in Japanese POW camps. He endured almost unimaginable privations, daily beatings, and starvation. His survival is certainly in miracle territory.

After the war, Zamperini met and fell in love with Cynthia Applewhite and they married. But the war hadn't ended for Louis. Like many veterans, he suffered from PTSD, horrible flashbacks, and increasing intervals of sullen hatefulness. He sank into alcoholism.

Eventually, Cynthia filed for divorce and Zamperini's life seemed to spiral ever more out of control. He'd never had much exposure to or interest in religion. In fact, it turned him off completely. And though he'd had what can be described as encounters with God during some of his worst experiences of the war, he never seemed to give God a thought.

Neither really had Cynthia. But not long after she filed for divorce, she attended Billy Graham's famed Los Angeles mission. The year was 1949. Cynthia received Christ by faith for the first time and His presence in her life made an immediate change in her outlook. She announced, to Zamperini's surprise and delight, that she wasn't divorcing him.

But soon his delight was mixed with anger as Cynthia pressed Louis to attend one of Graham's crusade events and meet Christ for himself. He resisted, but finally relented. He attended one night, but left as soon as Graham completed his sermon. Implausibly, he told Cynthia he would attend one more gathering if she would promise to never pester him about it again. It was that night, through Graham's preaching, the God's grace given in Christ, met Zamperini's deepest needs: forgiveness, the ability to let go of his past, freedom from his addiction, a purpose for living, life with God.

He never drank again. He never experienced another horrific dream of the beatings he endured during the war. His desire for vengeance, a desire that had grown so deep that he had been saving money in order to go to Japan in order to kill his primary tormentor.

Eventually, Zamperini became the director of a camp that transformed the lives of troubled kids like he had been and an evangelist who preached around the world about the power Jesus gives to His believers to forgive those who have hurt us so that we can live the life God has in mind for us. He even forgave and called to faith those who had menaced and beaten him when he was a POW.

He died in 2014 at the age of 97. In January, 1998, before the Olympics in Nagano, Japan, he ran a leg of the Olympic torch relay, passing the camp where he had been interned.

Whether you read it or listen to it, Hillenbrand's riveting narrative of this remarkable man's life is moving and inspiring. Like Qureshi, Zamperini found life in Jesus Christ. So can anyone.

The final book I'll mention is pure and delightful brain candy: Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table, a 1937 book that features her famous fictional detective (who she came to detest), Hercule Poirot. I love Christie's books and picked this one up for ten cents at a library book sale in Georgetown, Texas earlier this year. It's a great read.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Just finished reading...

Here are two books I finished reading this week.

Transforming Discipleship by Greg Ogden is a great overview for church leaders interested in helping their congregations to develop cultures of disciple making. Ogden's model is built on triads, groups of three people, including a convener or catalyst, and two other people who all covenant to grow together in their faith through study, prayer, action based on what God's Word says, and mutual accountability. It eschews programs and opts instead for the relational methods employed by Jesus, Paul, and Barnabas. We are in the process of implementing a discipleship culture at Living Water Lutheran Church, where I serve as pastor, and it's exciting to see how God is moving us toward the fulfillment of the only mission Jesus ever gave to the Church: making disciples. Ogden is a helpful resource. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

The Element by Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica is all about finding the thing we're passionate about to determine what we should do in life. That's a thin (and obvious) reed on which to hang a 270-page book and, let's be honest, not everyone has the opportunity to pursue their passions in life. But, as Artemis Ward (not Abraham Lincoln, as I had long believed) once said of a book he'd been asked to review: "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." The book is filled with interesting anecdotes. I rate this book at 2.5 stars out of a possible 5.

Today's Word of the Day: Ethology

A form of this word came up while re-reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference in preparation for two-plus days of upcoming meetings.

When I think about it, the word makes sense. The prefix, as I'm familiar with it, comes from the koine (common) Greek New Testament word ethos, which means customs and usage, in addition to, sometimes, morals or character. Ethos is about how people do things.

The suffix-logy, from the Greek logos, literally means word. As it's been transliterated into English, the word means, literally the word about or, less literally, the study of the subject of the word's prefix. So psychology is the study of the psyche (life) of a person; geology is the study of earth (ge in the Greek); anthropology is the study of human beings; sociology is the study of people in society, and so on.

But I hadn't remembered ethology from my first time through Gladwell. Apparently, there are people who are ethologists. Wonder if that's printed on their business cards? ("Joe Smith, Professional Ethologist.")

And once people realize what an ethologist does, do they become self-conscious about everything they do and why they do it when they're with an ethologist?

When they're on airplanes, do ethologists try to keep their profession secret from seatmates until after they've established a rapport, the way we pastors do?

Back to my reading.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Books I'm Reading Right Now

I usually have two books going at the same time. (Reading them, not writing them.) Right now, there's How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit: Even When You Feel Like Saying Yes by Erwin Lutzer and The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-1945.

Ambrose was a favorite historian of mine. His biography of Dwight Eisenhower, one of the best studies of Ike I've read and Citizen Soldiers, a moving account of the heroism of G.I.s who were central to the Allied victory in World War 2, are among my favorites.

The Wild Blue focuses particularly on a man whose heroism and patriotism were later impugned when he ran for president in 1972, George McGovern. The South Dakotan who would later become an historian and a US Senator, piloted what were, by common consent, the most difficult-to-fly aircraft of the war. This is a great book!

Lutzer, a very conservative Christian evangelical, provides tremendous insights and guidance for anyone wanting to defeat bad habits in their lives.

Without the Bible, God's book, and other reading material, life would be barren. (In saying this, I'm not putting other books on a par with the Bible, by the way. It would be ridiculous to compare any book to the Word of God! But I am glad that God has gifted some people to author all kinds of books.) I'm so thankful for the gift of reading, for authors, and for the fact that my mom took me to the library to get borrowing privileges when I was little. (My first book was an oversized book containing photographs by Matthew Brady and others chronicling Abraham Lincoln and his times. Already a nerd, I was about four at the time.)

Just finished reading...

...Pastor Mike Foss' Real Faith for Real Life: Living the Six Marks of Discipleship. I highly recommend it.

Just arrived...

...today, two CDs: TobyMac's latest, This is Not a Test and Andy Mineo's Uncomfortable. Can't wait to listen.

Just arrived a few days ago, some new books: How We Got the Bible by Timothy Paul Jones and Formation of the Bible by Lee Martin McDonald. (Are you detecting a pattern?)

Last Lines #1

The last line from Ellis Peters' Flight of a Witch, one of her Inspector George Felse mysteries:

Then he turned, patient, stubborn, and profoundly sure of himself, and went to Annet with the roses.

With insight into varied human personalities, the mystery of growing up, and descriptive narrative, Peters always tells her tales. She is one of my favorite mystery writers. But more than that, one of my favorite writers.

By the way, if this book, written and set in England in 1964, ever gets made into a movie, the perfect song to play to accompany the young man going confidently to Annet is the Beatles' I'll Get You in the End. Recorded and released in 1963 as the B-Side to the She Loves You single, it includes these lines:

It's not like me to pretend
But I'll get you, I'll get you in the end
Yes I will, I'll get you in the end

On Order from Amazon

Two books...

Paul Johnson's biography of Dwight Eisenhower.

David McCullough's bio of the Wright brothers.

'The Sword of Contention'

That's the title of this new novel by my friend, Mike Adams. Just downloaded my copy onto Kindle.

It's a work of historical fiction peopled by some real life characters and their actual circumstances in sixth century Britain.

Two Additions to the Amazon Wish List

This past week, I added Fred C. Kelly's biography of the Wright Brothers to my Amazon wish list. I saw and looked through it in the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Fairborn this past week. It appears readable and accessible, two real assets for someone like me. That's because in other bios I've read of the brothers, I've gotten lost in confusion over the mathematics and science of flight, which, for example, the brothers figured out, revising previous calculations of optimal wing shapes hypothesized by Otto Lilienthal.

I just added Richard Norton Smith's new biography of Nelson Rockefeller. Smith is talking about the book right now on CSPAN. I love Smith as an historian and a writer. (His biography of George Washington is one of my favorite treatments of the first president.) And Rockefeller loomed large on the American political scene when I was growing up.

No Proud Christians

"There are two words that don't go together: pride and Christian. How can you be a proud Christian? That's an oxymoron. The opposite is true. Becoming a Christian requires humility; humility to say, 'God, I'm a sinner. I don't deserve Heaven. I don't deserve to be loved by You on the basis of my good works, my earnings, my intelligence, or my knowledge. You, in Your rich mercy, have forgiven me, a wretched sinner. God, thank You." (Bob Lenz, in his book, Grace: For Those Who Don't Think They Measure Up)

A Review: 'Heaven's Lessons' by Steve Sjogren

Steve Sjogren's newest book will help anyone wanting to live a better life.

It would be an especially good gift item for people who don't go to church or don't believe in God. They won't get preached at, but experience the honest wrestling of a guy who went through a set of horrible circumstances and learned to live a better life after dying during gall bladder surgery that went very wrong.

CORRECTION: Scripture isn't the ultimate self-disclosure of God. Jesus is. But it's authoritative because it's the normative revelation of the God we meet in Jesus.

Just Purchased at Half Price

I always thought it was cool when Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit blogger, would simply note, "In the mail..." and then list a book he'd ordered.

So, here's my low tech version of that practice. Here are two books I picked up Half Price today.



I only paid two bucks each!

Barzun died this past October at the age of 104. He published From Dawn to Decadence, a history of the world from 1500 to "the present" (2000), when he was 92. That prompted this comment from Ann Althouse: "Imagine writing something that ambitious when you're in your 90s and still having more than a decade of life left."

By the way, I just noticed that "it was cool" to read Reynolds' blog posts about his latest book orders, even though Reynolds is still blogging and still noting his latest book purchases. I was going to change that phrase to the present tense until I realized there's a good reason for my putting it in the past tense: It's been ages since I read Instapundit. No editorial intended, just funny to note how sometimes your mind tells you the truth without you realizing it.

[UPDATE: In the interest of equal time, I should probably add that I haven't seen Chris Matthews' show since 2007. Our local cable provider, Time Warner, doesn't run MSNBC on basic cable. CSPAN 2 and 3 are also missing, along with ESPN 3 and ESPN U. C'est la vie.]

4 Books I'm Really Enjoying These Days

Indulging a Favorite Pastime

Ann and I went to visit our son at the seminary he attends this past year. In the basement of one building is a spot where faculty members and students leave books they want to sell.

Purchasing is done on an honor system: Each book contains an envelope with the mailbox number of the owner. You put what the book is worth to you into the envelopes and drop them, sealed, into the campus mailbox.

Ann snapped these pictures of the two of us scanning the treasures.

Both of us found some gems that day!

What's the Best Book You've Read in the Past Six to Twelve Months?

Let me know in the comments section. I'm always on the prowl for good books, of all kinds and descriptions.