Less a review, more my story about a book that matters:

I'm cranking up the ole blog. 

I need you to know about this book. I just finished. I've been reading it and trying to get through it for weeks now. I have every available format. Audio, kindle, signed paperback. (EEK! I love signed copies!!) I'm a fangirl.

I'll tell you a bit about why this means so much to me. This book represents, for me, a journey.  From where? Back from the familiar shroud, from certainty, to questions that my heart has asked my entire life, that I once thought I  had answers for. You see, life smacked me in the face, and I reeled. I didn't know how I could get back.

As I sit here writing this, I can feel that familiar shroud creeping near. I can feel the tendrils of depression unfurling themselves at me. It's gotten easier to resist sinking.

Let me tell you why. I am learning to believe that I'm beloved. It's a hard lesson to accept, and I'm still working. 

I believe in Love. I know that God is love. I know he loves everyone. Blah blah blah. That's easy to accept for the world at large. Of course God loves YOU!! 

But to accept that I am loved, deeply, unattached to the stars on my behavior chart? Well. Phffffft.

Several years ago, after the darkest year I have ever had, I followed the author on twitter. It was during the week-long General Assembly for the Church of God. I was working nights, but I was nerd enough to come home from my shift and stay up to watch the live stream. With my tweetdeck #COGGA column up, I would rail at anyone I disagreed with, immediately follow and often retweet those that I connected with. I also regularly texted my husband not to come home if he voted certain ways. ;) I do believe the issue of the day was allowing women to become ordained and actually have a say in the polity of the church. Ooo. Dicy stuff! 

Jonathan Martin's tweets immediately struck a cord. 

Then about a year later, he tweeted something about God having to be at least as nice as Jesus. I stood up and took notice.

Then another year later, when my husband and I were facing some extremely difficult situations in church and work, he became my virtual pastor. I devoured podcasts of his sermons. 

Now, that may all sound creepy and Every Breath You Take, but I believe God sent this man's message my way because, well, I needed it. 

I wish you could see the highlights in my kindle. Their name should be Legion, for they are many. 

On Sunday, I had the privilege of going to Renovatus, Jonathan's church,  and getting him to sign a copy that I bought in the lobby. 

He preached on obscurity, specifically citing that chapter of the book. "The wilderness is the place where God courts his beloved." That one line blew me away when I read it, and then again on Sunday. 

I remember being in the middle of the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year, and there would be little things that  made me think, (I kid you not) "God, you're wooing me." And yet, it still took me years to get to a point where I can say that I'm ok and not have to lie.

And I don't think I'm the only one. I think we all struggle with allowing ourselves to actually feel the love that God is literally dying to pour over us. I don't know why it's so hard to believe in love for me.

I do know this. I have so much more empathy and compassion and than I did before my shroud. My prideful disdain for "them and they" became a genuine longing to see from other perspectives, hear "their" story. 

The whole time in the wilderness, I wanted to get back to where I was before. Now I wouldn't go there for anything. I would never have believed it at the time, but I'm better off because of my shroud.

I haven't really told you anything about the book, have I? 

"Jesus is our prototype."

"When God called Jesus His beloved, Jesus did something truly remarkable: He believed him.... And unlike every other person in history...He never forgot."  -- The chapter including those two sentences is worth the price of admission. And the chapter on fear. Well. 

If you're feeling ragged, unloved, and lonely, I recommend it. If you're on top of the world and it's your oyster, you may want to invest. Tip-top oyster worlds don't last forever, you know?

Ok. I'm not going to go quoting the entire book to you, you need to do some highlighting for yourself.

Go on.....

I'll wait here, so we can compare notes.

You know how I love talking books.

~Jen

We Belong

Well, hi there!  It’s been a while, I know.  Let’s jump right in, shall we?

This is one of my favorite songs.  I especially love the end when the children sing along.  (I love the glimpses of green that pop throughout the video.)  It sort of fit this post, so I thought I’d share.  Feel free to listen as you read. 

A few nights ago, I show up to work to be informed that I’m going to orient to a different unit so that I can be pulled to work there in the future, should the need arise.  Now, this wasn’t a problem for me.  I’m just glad they didn’t call me off when they had too many people scheduled to work. 

But.  I get over to the unit and there it is.  That awkward standing around, not knowing where to put your things, where the bathroom is, what anyone’s name is, not knowing the routine and where to find the things you need to do the job. 

So I stand.  For a while.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I wasn’t expecting anyone to drop everything to cater to me; the PCT that was orienting me was taking report from day shift.  So I just stood and observed. 

This is what I gleaned from that 5 minute wall-prop (I was very good at keeping that wall up, let me tell you.)

We want to belong.

I didn’t feel like I belonged there.  Yes, I was there to learn so that I can kinda belong there in the future.  But at that moment, I didn’t. 

It got me thinking.

Everyone wants to belong. 

We all want a tribe.  We all want community.  Not just a community, but our community.  We want a place where we fit.  I’ll go further.  We need this.

During the year from West Point, I felt out of place, adrift.  I didn’t belong.  I created an online community of like-minded people where I did belong.  Let me tell you, it made a difference.  A HUGE one!

But here’s the thing.  We do.

We belong.

We all belong to God.

He is the one who gives us life, sustains us. 

He WANTS us. 

ALL of us. 

There is not one person that God isn’t longing for relationship with. 

So.  What do we do with this?  Do we create places where the only requirement for you to belong is that you breathe?

That is what I want.  I want a place where ANY person will feel that they belong to God.  Imagine the beauty of that place.  I will find it.  I’ll create it if I have to.  But I’ll have it. 

That is where I truly belong. 

Different Eyes ~a review

Business first.  Zondervan tweeted that they were having a blog tour for this book and gave info to get a review copy.  I, being the lover of review books that I am, naturally responded.  They provided this book in exchange for my review here and at Amazon.

Now on to the fun stuff.

I didn’t really know what to expect, going in to the book.  The title and cover were intriguing.  What I didn’t expect was to be so moved by the book.  My copy has post it notes everywhere and is thoroughly underlined.  It’s that good.

This is from the back cover.  “How should those who follow Jesus live distinctly in a time of uncertainty?  How should the church respond to the moral dilemmas of our everyday lives?  In Different Eyes, Steve Chalke and Alan Mann examine the underlying motivation for Christian morality and provide an insightful guide to navigating the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our modern world in a way that is faithful to the story of God’s work in Jesus.”

This book asks us to look at why we do the things we do as Christians and to investigate the motives behind them.  It takes careful examination of what Jesus did and the compassion that he had and the love he showed and to whom he did these things.  Confused?  Sorry. 

I have been on a journey for the last few years that has had me asking some pretty big questions.  For example, if the church is the Body of Christ, how do we have such a reputation for spewing hate and judgment?  And what do we do about that?  Ignore it?  Focus on showing more love?  Blame it all on the crazies? 

In Different Eyes, the authors look at not only Jesus words and actions, but the spirit in which he did everything.  It was all done in love.  Compassion, grace and mercy stemmed from that. 

I don’t want to leave you with a wrong impression of the book.  It covers so much more than this.  It is all woven skillfully together and beautifully done.

Here are some of the tough issues the book tackles.  War and Military Intervention, The Use of Wealth, Homosexuality, and Euthanasia and Assisted Dying.  Yeah, your every day conversation. 

Now, I’ll throw my disclaimer out there.  I didn’t agree with every point the book makes.  But do we ever?  Unless I’m the author, I’m probably not going to agree with 100% of any book, excepting the Bible, of course. 

I had many “Whoa!” moments while reading this.  Either it was something affirming what I’ve already been feeling or something convicting.  And like I said, my copy is underlined like crazy.

If you’d like to get a better idea of the book than I’m able to provide, they have a sample up here.  Read for yourself.  See if it’s something you’d be interested in reading. 

I’m grateful to have come across this book.  I’m developing my different eyes.  Join me.

So, what’s the most moving book you’ve read lately?

Enough

You may or may not know that I am in charge of Children’s Church at our, well… church. Tomorrow is going to be a super crazy Sunday for this pastor’s wife.

We’re having an Egg hunt instead of Sunday School in hopes to draw folks from the surrounding neighborhood in. After the hunt, we’ll have coffee and doughnuts and mingling.

Then there’s praise & worship, which I’ll lead (even though I’ve been trying to hand this off to someone for a while now.) And then there will be Children’s Church. I’ll try to herd our regular kids and any guests back to the fellowship hall without the running and screaming that seems to naturally combust whenever a child exits the sanctuary. Once there, I have a simple craft planned to go along with this simple lesson.

1. God loves me.

2. Everybody sins

3. Jesus died to save us.

I have a few kids that don’t have a great home life. I have no idea what kind of situations our visitors tomorrow will come from. I may only get one chance to light a spark in their very impressionable lives. I want this to stick.

I think about these kids in the future. I can foresee some very rough roads for some of them, just judging on their surroundings and the norm that comes with them. I want this to stick.

No matter what road they are on, no matter what hole they find themselves in, be it a pigsty or a crack-house or a house in the suburbs, if they reach a point where hope seems lost, I want this to stick.

1. No matter where you are, no matter what you’ve done, God loves you and you can’t do anything to change that, even if you wanted to.

2. Nobody can be good enough on their own. As bad as you think you are, everyone else is in the same boat. Sin touches us all, no exceptions.

3. Jesus was beaten and died so that he could make up for our sin. He knew death was the punishment required and willingly took it just so we could be reunited with God.

I know there’s so much more I could teach these kids. There are other themes that I could hit. Resurrection being one. I’ll definitely cover it, but I’m hitting the 123 hard tomorrow. There’s so much about the Gospel that I can’t do it all in one day. Boil it all down and this is what you get.

And it’s enough.

Multi-Site Church Road Trip ~ A Review

This video corresponds with this book:

I was provided a copy of this book from Zondervan in exchange for this review. Thanks to them for A Multi-Site Church Road Trip.

I again state that I’m no literary critic, so bear with me.

I suppose that I’m a bit behind the times, but I didn’t realize that Multi-Site is as popular as it is. I suppose I’ve been somewhat sheltered for the last few years. Spending the last decade in some form of rural Virginia will do that.

This was an all around education about Multi-Site, from concept to implementation and launching new campuses. I did a mad read over the weekend in order to finish the book before the blog tour this week. While I enjoyed it, I do feel like it was written for a more specific audience than the random curious mom of three willing to read/review books. (It does say Leadership Network Innovation Series on the cover.) It seemed to be a very helpful book for church leaders facing space issues and looking at options for expansion.

The purpose of the Multi-Site Church is to “instead of bricks and mortar, [Multi-Site Church] invests in technology to create more space for worshippers.”

It is not a fad, and it is becoming, quite possibly, the new normal. But, what exactly is a Multi-Site Church and how does it differ from what we are used to? They go into detail about the replication of the church DNA in the sites. Some churches use video to broadcast one message to each site, while others rely on Campus Pastors for the teaching, sharing common vision and mission for the church.

The desire to reach the lost and disciple newcomers to the faith is prevalent throughout the book. I love the idea that people are willing to look outside the box in order to “bring the church to the people.”

While reading this book, I kept thinking about the church I grew up in. This church is bursting at the seams and still growing. They have tried purchasing land to build a larger church, and when that didn’t work out, decided to expand on the property that they have now. I just kept wondering if this type of model would translate to this church. The problems they are facing are the kind you want, whatever the outcome. Those issues mean that lots of lives are being impacted, people are growing in Christ and introducing Him to others.

That’s a good problem, folks. And if you have to do church via internet (which, at this point in my life is verrry appealing) to get that done, so be it.

My inner Lord of The Rings Geek keeps escaping.

Ok. Pam got the day going with a great post that got all spiritual and stuff. See, we can be serious.

My personal favorite lines from this trilogy are in The Fellowship when Merry and Pip realize that Aragorn doesn't have the same values and standards that they do. How can they follow a man who doesn't even know about "elevenses"?

Aragorn: Gentlemen, we do not stop till nightfall.

Pippin: What about breakfast?

Aragorn: You've already had it.

Pippin: We've had one, yes. What about second breakfast? [Aragorn turns and walks off in disgust]

Merry: I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.

Pippin: What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?

Merry: I wouldn't count on it.

Ahh. I love these two. They speak my language. In my family we call this the Preventive Diet.

You eat all day so you don't get hungry.

Oh, I said something about being serious, didn't I?

Well, ok, fine, if I have to. (Insert teen angst huff here.)

My other favorite line from these movies is when Sam and Frodo are trying to make it up that big volcanic mountain. Mordor? I have a little geek in me but not enough to have the entire map of middle earth memorized. I was just on the IMDb site, where you can get all things movie related. I was right. Apparently that geek is more powerful than I thought.

Back to my point. Frodo is very weak. He is whining that he can't go on any longer. Anyone else get tired of Frodo towards the end of movie #2? Anyway...

It was already established that Sam cannot carry the ring. Frodo pitched a royal fit when Sam offered to help. Here Sam is on this journey only to help Frodo and Frodo turns on him. Yeah, yeah, the power of the ring and all that. Still, no way to treat your BFF.

What does Sam do? Does he give Frodo a taste of his own medicine? "Fine, do it yourself, see how far you can get without me."?

I'm glad to say that Sam was the bigger hobbit. (Hee hee, that makes me laugh.)

"I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you. "

Now that is a true friend.

Isn't that how we all should be? I can carry you, even if there's nothing else I can do to help.

This always makes me think of the church. We should carry each other. But our mission is not just to have a club where we get together and make each other feel better. There is a whole world out there that is depending on us getting that ring into the fire.

Even the people that have no idea that there's a struggle going on benefit from our carrying each other. But we can't stop there. Those unaware people are the ones I'm interested in getting to and helping. I heard a speaker once refer to those we call "unsaved". I like this man's term better. "The people God misses most." I'm doing my best to remain aware of this other world while living in the one I am surrounded by.

Whew, that's heavy stuff. Ok, enough for being all serious. It has really worn me out.

Can I say that I love these movies? We own all three. Extended versions. With additional DVDs of just about any info you ever wanted to know about New Zealand and the making of these movies. And we have watched it all.

There's that geek bragging. Sorry. :-D

Great flick pick, Pam.