I also finished reading Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows by Jay Bakker, who is the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. And for those of you that know me, you probably are in shock over the fact that I have so many book reviews lately. Well, I just can’t stop reading and I recently ordered some more books, because I needed more to read and you can keep up to date on what I am currently reading in the right column. Of course there is a really good one coming out this Saturday that I plan on reading when I pick it up at midnight.

Now back to Jay’s book…..

My mom had given me this book back when it first came out and it has sat on the shelf for a while. I started reading it, but then put it down. Well, after I finished my most recent book I grabbed this one to read and I finished it in three days. As I sat and read this book I found myself going through so many emotions. I even found myself crying at times.

Jay’s book gave me insights into what really went on with the PTL Club that Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had formed. And also the inner turmoil that went on with the family during the whole mess and during Jim’s incarceration. I could really sense the pain in Jay’s heart at watching his dad and mom’s hearts being torn out, and then watching his dad spend time in prison.

But Jay’s book is not just about the turmoil that he felt, but about how God used all of it to show Jay how his life would be devoted to reaching out to those who live out on the edge that he ended up in. Jay’s view of God’s love and grace is amazing, but unfortunately he had to go through a lot of crap to get it. His story is one of hope as you see how he has turned all of this around and has seen God restore his family.

I have to admit that I was one of those people who thought bad things about the Bakker’s and believed what I was seeing on the TV and hearing from other Christians about them. And for that I am deeply sorry. I have no idea if Jay will ever read this blog post or not, but if he does I hope that he will find one more person who is sorry about his attitudes and actions towards his family. I really believe that the Bakker’s were railroaded and shafted during this whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, I know that they did do things wrong, but they were punished more severely than they deserved.

I would recommend that anyone who wants to know more about what happend during the whole “PTL scandal” and wants to find out how one man found grace in the midst of that dark shadow I would encourage you to pick up this book.

On a related side note, please pray for Tammy Faye as she continues her battle with cancer.

**EDIT (23 July 2007)** Sadly, Tammy Faye lost her battle with cancer on Friday, 21 July 2007.

I finished reading They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball this week and I was thoroughly impressed. Dan’s approach is not only a radical one, but I believe that it is one that is done with grace and humility. This book is written for leaders who are wanting to know hoe they can best reach the emerging generation. He has written a similar book geared towards those who are in the emerging generation and who would say, “I Like Jesus but Not the Church”.

Dan tackles six of the biggest problems that the emerging generation has with the church in America today. The emerging generations believe that the church (1) is an organized religion with a political agenda; (2) is judgmental and negative; (3) is dominated by males and oppresses females; (4) is homophobic; (5) arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong; (6) is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally. He went around and interviewed twenty and thirty-somethings in coffee shops and wherever he found them. This isn’t just what is going on solely in Santa Cruz, CA. But is truly a cross-section of what is going on in this country.

I know that with the people in my area that it is something that many of them have said. There are even quite a few guys that I work with that have expressed the same things and they are 40+.

Dan does not come off as some arrogant church leader who has the latest and greatest way to do church, but as a humble fellow Christ-follower who is trying to do his best to see the world impacted with the good news of God’s love for them. I encourage you to read it with an open mind and heart. As Lee Strobel is quoted on the front cover, “A powerful and passionate wake-up call for the American church.” Are you and your church sleeping?

I finally got a chance to read Brian McLaren’s book A Generous Orthodoxy. I can’t understand why I waited to so long to get it and then read it! This book is the basic handbook if you want to learn what Emergent’s think or what they are really about. Brian is one of the people that brought the whole idea of the Emergent Church into more of a formal organization. Every so often the church has gone through a reformation of sorts and I believe (along with Brian) that the Emergent Church is a part of that reformation.

As I read his book I found myself several times stopping and thinking about how much of this are things I have thought or said. There were many other times where I would stop and re-read what I had just read and then re-read it again. Here is one such statement….

How many children in Sunday school learn that radical sense of Christian servant identity as opposed to Christians are nice people who know the truth and do good. Non-Christians are bad people who don’t. Therefore we need to avoid Non-Christians or convert them as fast as possible or try to pass laws to keep them under control and protect ourselves from them-until we can escape them forever in heaven?

All I can say is WOW!!! That is so true of the church in America today and that is a very sad fact. One of the things that I really liked about what Brian had to say was how we as a church need to be reaching ahead of us, to be mentored, and reaching behind us, to mentor others.

In Chapter 3 Brian asks that question, “Would Jesus be a Christian?” That is a very provocative question, but one that I think we need to ask ourselves. He answers it with three points….

1. The more I study the Bible and reflect on the life and teachings of Jesus, the more I think most of Christianity as practiced today has very little to do with the real Jesus found there.

2. Often I don’t think Jesus would be caught dead as a Christian, were he physically here today.

3. Generally, I don’t think Christians would like Jesus if he showed up today as he did 2,000 years ago. In fact, I think we’d call him a heretic and plot to kill him, too.

If Brian is correct in his assessment (and I believe that he is) than the church in America really needs to examine itself. Just as Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg, I believe Brian has done the same thing with this book, but instead this is to the door of the American Church. I encourage every church leader and Christian to read this book. Brian’s humble approach is refreshing and enlightening. I know that I am changed by reading this and I hope you will be as well.

I recently finished the book A New Kind of Youth Ministry by Chris Folmsbee and I am beginning to realize that I need to stop reading, because the books I have been reading lately are messing me up (in a good way). Chris did not write this book because he feels that everyone else out there is doing it wrong and his way is the right way. He wrote it because he believes that youth ministry has not sufficiently changed to adapt to the current culture. And I whole-heartedly agree with him.

Chris’ ideas for re-culturing the youth ministries in our churches is revolutionary, but yet so simple. In many ways his ideas are to take youth ministry from a point where we entertain, lecture, teach, do mission trips and meet others needs; to where help them learn how to live missional lives, learn about God in an environment that is centered around them and not a curriculum, and where it is not about how big and flashy our programs can be but instead how deep.

I do not believe that this book should be limited to just people in youth ministry, but a valuable tool for all ministries in the church. I think that the more the church realizes that we can learn from one another the better the church can and will be. So whether you are in youth ministry, children’s ministry, adult ministry, small group ministry, etc. I recommend this book for you. Chris’ humility in this book is refreshing and I hope you will get as much out of it as I did.

I finished reading Erwin Raphael McManus’ latest book entitled Soul Cravings. He breaks the book down into three main sections: Intimacy, Destiny, and Meaning, he then wraps it up with one last section called Seek. Erwin breaks down the three basic cravings that all humans have deep in their souls and then in the final chapter he wraps it up with how we all seek it and that it is within our grasp if we look in the right place.

Here is the book description from Amazon.com…

We can spend our whole lives trying to satisfy the one insatiable part of our being, our soul craving. Our capacity for spiritual experience both proves our need for something greater than ourselves and leaves us wanting when we fill it with anything but God.

Soul Cravings is a powerful, down-to-earth exposition that interprets our need for intimacy, meaning, and destiny as common sense apologetics pointing to the existence of and our need for God. The book will deeply stir the reader to consider and chase after the spiritual implications of their soul’s deepest longings.

Intimacy is something that we all crave. Everyone longs to be known and loved. And if you look at many people and the way that they live their lives, it is very apparent that they are searching for love and wanting to be known. But sadly what they fail to realize is that they won’t find that in the things they are looking at to bring what is essentially and artificial intimacy.

What is your Destiny? That is another fundamental thing that we all crave. We talk about legacies that President’s leave after they leave office and many President’s are very concerned about this. And sadly far too many people fail to think about their own legacy or think too much about it and live their lives revolved around it. But instead we need to think about what we are doing know and look for the things that we can can do know that will give us a destiny. Because there is so much more to this life than living and dying and paying taxes.

Meaning is the basic question of every human on planet earth. Everyone wants to know what on earth they are here for and what is their purpose. It has been said that you need to find out what you love to do and then find a way to get paid for doing it. As a man, I know that we primarily find our identities not in how much money we make, but in what we do for our career. And I think in many ways that that is the case for women as well. The basic part of meaning is hope and if we lose hope then we often times lose meaning, because we are no longer striving towards finding meaning.

What do you Seek? Are you seeking anything? To seek you must actually put forth an effort. I can sit on the couch and think about how hungry I am or else I can actually do something about it. But what is even more amazing is that people who starve to death will actually towards the end of their lives begin to no longer feel hungry, but actually feel full. Sadly, that is the state of many people in the world. They have been hungry for so long and haven’t bothered to try to find what it is that they are hungry for. And the reality is that God has the food for them and he has been looking for them, so He can give it to them. But instead we sit around doing nothing and just complaining about our situation and God is just wanting to meet those cravings in us and all we need to do is turn to him.

Erwin’s has once again broken it down into terms that make it easy for Christ-followers and people who are not Christ-followers to understand our own basic needs, which in reality can only be found in God. I recommend getting this book and examining where your own soul cravings are and how you can meet them.

Yesterday the cover art for book 7 was released.

And here is the full book jacket.

(You can click on both pics for the full size.)

Read more about it here.

You can watch the unveiling here or below on the YouTube video.

Here are the UK adult and children versions. There is lots of interesting information on these jacket covers.

I finished reading Rob Bell’s book Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality yesterday. I continue to be amazed at how much Rob continues to rock my world. But before I get into that, I want to first off all calm everyones fear and help them understand the purpose behind his book. This section is from the introduction of his book.

It’s always about something else.

Something deeper. Something behind it all. You can’t talk about sexuality without talking about how we were made. And that will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some point you have to talk about God.

Sex. God. They’re connected. And they can’t be separated. Where the one is, you will always find the other. This is a book about how sexuality is the “this” and spirituality is the “that.” To make sense of the one, we have to explore the other.

And that is what this book is about.

You may remember that I had gone to the Q+A Session with Rob Bell, which was a part of the book tour for this book. And because I had gone to that, I was able to acquire this book before it’s official release. This book is just as easy a read as his first book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith was. Rob has a way to word things that just draws you in and you learn so much in the process. And I love how Rob connects things back with the Old Testament and how things were done back in the ancient times. And that shows you just how everything is connected, much like how sexuality and spirituality are connected.

When I first heard about the name of this book, I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical, but I wanted to give it a chance anyway and see what he had to say. As I scanned through the table of contents a couple of chapter titles caught my attention: God Wears Lipstick; Leather, Whips, and Fruit; and Under The Chuppah. And those happen to be the three chapters that I did find the most intriguing. The other chapter that ended up really intrigued me was, Worth Dying For.

In God Wears Lipstick Rob talks about how in 1945 at one of the German concentration camps that were liberated there was people who were dying everywhere from the after effects of being so mistreated. The things that went on in those camps were anti-human and that as bearers of God’s divine image we should not be treated that way and we should especially not treat one another that way. But the sad reality is that humans have done some of the most vile and despicable things to one another. When the reality is that we are really all equal, there is essentially not much difference from worst of sinners to the best Christian, we are all equal, we are all human. But instead we have reduced the human-ness in others by the way that we treat one another and one of the biggest examples of this is the holocaust. As Rob goes on in this chapter he continues this story and it mentions that for some reason the British Red Cross has sent over large quantities of red lipstick. What use does red lipstick have for people who are dying? Well, for many of the women it meant a whole bunch, because it meant that they were no longer just a number that was tattooed on their arm, but they were now individuals.

In Leather, Whips, and Fruit Rob talks about lust and original sin and how they are really connected and in essence the same thing. The Bible says that Eve “saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it” (Genesis 3:6 – TNIV), which when you really break it down is the essence of lust. When we lust we are finding something that pleases us and we take it. But somehow we are misguided and we feel that this gives us control and power, when the reality is that it enslaves us. And Rob talks about that in this chapter. The problem that started in the garden with Adam and Eve isn’t just what lust did to us, but where it led us. God created us to appreciate things like taste, touch, smells, etc., but we have taken these things and twisted them. Those things are good, but when you couple it with lust then they become damaging to yourself and to others. Instead we need to discover how it is that God wants us to use those things for His benefit and the benefit of others.

In Worth Dying For, Rob talks about marriage and how the picture of marriage is really a picture of heaven. And I could not agree more. I am so glad that Rob devoted a chapter of his book talking about on of my favorite subjects. People close to me know that I love marriage and I love talking with people about it and helping them out in theirs. In this chapter he brings up one of the most famous verses regarding marriage and talks about how it has been abused. Men love to bring up how the Bible says that wives are supposed to submit to their husbands. But men love to avoid the passage where it talks about how husbands are supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, whom He died for. Rob pointed out an interesting thing about that part. The word love in that passage is the word “agape“, which in short means “to give”. And that is the kind of love that a man should have for his wife, a love that gives. Which is the opposite of lust, which just gets. The ultimate question that I ask grooms when I do weddings is if they are ready to die for their wife. She should be worth dying for.

In Under The Chuppah (HOO-pah) Rob talks about the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, which takes place under a chuppah. Which is essentially a canopy of sheet held up by four poles. This is symbolic of how God covered Israel in the wilderness for 40 years with the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. But what it really cool about all of this is how in the beginning of the Exodus story, Moses makes four promises to the slaves.

“I will take you out.”

“I will rescue you.”

“I will redeem you.”

“I will take you with me.”

And those are the exact four promises that a Jewish groom makes to his Jewish bride under the chuppah. Rob points out how this is wedding language. Marriage and wedding language is seen throughout the Bible as God relates with His people. That is why I believe that marriage is so important and fundamental to the health of the Church. But that is not to the exclusion of people that God calls to be single, because their relationship with Christ and connection with Him is just as important.

But there is something significant to marriage and weddings that God wants us to get here. What I also found interesting is that after the wedding ceremony a couple was not considered married until after they had sex, so the bride and groom would be ushered by the wedding party to the bridal chamber and the chuppah would be attached above their bed. Then the party would leave them, so the couple could consummate their marriage. While everyone waited outside. Now I know my wife would not be cool with this idea if I had suggested it to her, but there is something unique and special about that union that God wants us to get.

And that goes back to Rob’s original statement about how sexuality and spirituality are connected. The Bible is rich with this kind of imagery and I never got it until Rob pointed it out in his book. I recommend this book very highly like I do Rob’s other book. But as Rob says, “Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don’t swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed.” And I encourage you to do that. Don’t dismiss it because it is Rob Bell and he is “emergent”, but check it out for yourself and see if maybe God will speak to you. Even if you only get a few things out of it and nothing from the rest.

I just finished Earl Creps’ book, Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders. I was able to obtain this book for free because Earl had a deal for bloggers that he would send them a copy for free if you were “willing to write a review of the book for your blog AND on Amazon.com“. So I took him up on the offer. HT to Jonathan Herron for the heads up on that.

I really did not know what to expect when I started this book. I have heard Earl speak one time at my church, Rockpointe Community Church, so I am not too familiar with him. But I was pleasantly surprised. This is a book that I would recommend to anyone who is in church leadership.

The book description on Amazon.com says….

In Off-Road Disciplines, Earl Creps reveals that the on-road practices of prayer and Bible reading should be bolstered by the other kinds of encounters with God that occur unexpectedly—complete with the bumps and bruises that happen when you go “off-road.” Becoming an off-road leader requires the cultivation of certain spiritual disciplines that allow the presence of the Holy Spirit to arrange your interior life. Earl Creps explores twelve central spiritual disciplines—six personal and six organizational—that Christian leaders of all ages and denominations need if they are to change themselves and their churches to reach out to the culture around them.

Prayer and Bible reading are core things that will help every Christian be able to grow deeper in their relationship with God, but often times those two things seem to fall short. It feels like there needs to be more and Earl explores those things. But what I like about this book besides that, is that he explores what it is that the Church can do to make them more successful.

On the personal side Earl explores how we need to move ourselves out of the center of it all and put Christ into that position, honestly examining who we are and what our faith is saying to others, how we need to not think that just because we are older (though I am only 33) we have the answers but look to those younger than us for help as well, and how we as Christians need to invest more in the “sought” and develop relationships with them. I have found over the years that these are definitely things that are lacking in most Christians and especially with pastors and leaders in the Church.

On the organizational side Earl explores the fact that not everything in the church can be measured, sometimes things in ministry are just hard to measure. Then he looks at how it is that the three mindsets of pre-modern, modern and post-modern can and should learn to work together, which can be a daunting task, but one that we must strive to achieve. How churches need to create a “missional space” and that there are three things that go into it: a Spirit dimension, a venue dimension and a heart dimension. If you do not adequately work on those three things and bring them into your church and/or evaluate them, then you won’t have that missional space in which you can reach more people effectively. And then looking for other whom we can pass the baton onto, because the reality is that we will not be here forever. Too often in our American culture and society we are so concerned with protecting our status and position that we are afraid to mentor or train anyone else to do our job. But that is effectively killing our society.

If you are a leader in your church I encourage you to buy a copy of this book for everyone on your team and read it together. You won’t regret it.

A few years ago I was roaming the local Family Christian Store looking for a book about prayer to give to the person, who was on my volunteer staff at the church where I was a pastor to students, that was leading the prayer times for us and with the parent’s when I stumbled upon a book with a peculiar title. It reminded me of a book that my Preaching Lab professor at my Bible college told us about called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. But this one was called Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance. So based on the title alone, I decided to buy this one for her and a copy for myself. I had no idea who the author, Donald Miller, was nor had I ever heard of him.

Then a few weeks ago I was talking with a friend of mine about one of his other books, Blue Like Jazz, and he made a comment about his first book called Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance and I remembered that I had bought that one and never got around to reading it. So when I got home I went into my garage and dug around in some of the boxes of my stuff from my old office and found the book. I started reading it and just finished it today. What a great book! He has re-released the book as Through Painted Deserts, but you can still buy the original through amazon.com and here is their description of the book….

Fueled by the belief that something deeper exists that the casual Christianity by which they’ve lived, Don and Paul are two free spirits who set off on an adventure-filled road trip in search of a deeper meaning for their lives. As they travel from Texas to Oregon in their cantankerous Volkswagen van, the two friends encounter fascinating people, witness unexpected beauty, attempt to solve life’s most perplexing puzzles, and discover anew the amazing God who created them.

As I read this book, I found that yearning in my heart to just go and hit the open road and do the same as these two guys. But I must say that in many ways I have felt like I have been on a similar trip over the past year or two and I haven’t really even left the state of Michigan. But much of what they have discovered about themselves, their faith and about God is what I have been discovering. I am definitely not the same guy who left Bible college almost 13 years ago. One of the things that really hit me in this book is in the following quote….

“What do you mean I haven’t said anything? I’m saying that the only reason we exist here on this earth is to get to know God.”

“Yeah?”

“And God had led us to get to know Him better. It’s obvious by all that we’ve seen and done. He is always reaching out to us.”

“I understand, Don. But isn’t that obvious?”

“Not to me. I don’t think I understood this before. I mean, I might have understood it as a theological principle, but I don’t think I really understood it. Before we left, my paradigm was that I was supposed to serve God. Follow a list of rules. And if I did, God would make my life go better. But it was just a cultural thing. God was kind of like a genie in a lamp.”

“Your faith was cultural? What do you mean?”

It was about going to church, because that’s the way I was raised. I read my Bible because my friends did, because of my upbringing. But now I’ve taken a second look at God, and I believe that what I’ve been looking for in terms of the ‘Christian journey,’ is not the ‘Christian journey’ at all.”

“Explain,” Paul says.

“I think that I was expecting God to do something in my life that was supernatural. But I’ve begun to realize that all of life is supernatural. I mean, what is more miraculous? God healing somebody, or God giving us a sunrise every morning? I think I was differentiating the supernatural from the everyday. So, I was worldly. I mean, I still am. It’s a process, I think. It takes time to begin to connect the mundane with the eternal. But ultimately, life has no meaning apart from an eternal perspective. Maybe that’s what Solomon was getting at in Ecclesiastes. Maybe we just need to learn to open our eyes.”

I know that over this past year, that God has shown me how to open my eyes. I still don’t have a clue where I am going in all of this craziness, but I know that all I care about is my faith is in God and there is no better place that I would rather be. God is an awesome God and His desire for us is to discover Him as we go about our life in the little things, not just the big things. And as we go about that to also share His love with people in those little ways and not just the big ways. And just maybe, we might “learn to open our eyes”.