Tag Archives: BOTW

BOTW: Home and Away

Jul 4, 2011 11:01 am by Paul Jenkins in Book of the Week

BOTW David French Deployment Home and Away Mitt Romney Nancy French Snow skiing War

Meet David French: a 37 year old father of two, pencil-pushing attorney turned soldier after feeling that he was meant to be one.

Meet Nancy French: a 33 year old freelance author and mother of two turned the parenting version of a Swiss Army knife for a year while her husband went to war.

Meet Home and Away, by David and Nancy French: a wonderful book written from each of the 2 unique perspectives that the authors had during that year.

Throughout the book, the husband and wife team take turns writing the chapters, and I found myself overwhelmed with a new appreciation for what our military and military families are going through during deployment. In fact, I wish I had read this book a year or so earlier, since I’ve had friends whose families have been in this same situation and I now know how I could have helped them during the time they were separated from each other.

Those kind of insights – both personal and patriotic – are what I’m taking away from this well-written book. The fact that it was written in a easy-to-read manner with lots of clever wit made it far and away one of the best books I’ve read this year. I highly recommend it, and if you can read through Nancy’s account of snow skiing with Mitt Romney without LOL’ing, I’d probably be willing to pay you the money it costs you to buy the book. Classic!

BOTW: Life, In Spite of Me

Jul 1, 2011 1:47 pm by Paul Jenkins in Book of the Week

BOTW Hope Kristen Anderson Suicide

When a 17 year old girl runs down railroad tracks toward an approaching train, lays down on the tracks so the train can run over her, and yet miraculously lives to tell about it, I want to read about the thoughts and motives she was experiencing that led her to that tragic choice. Thankfully, she wrote a book, and Life, In Spite of Me, by Kristen Anderson, is exactly that: a look inside the thoughts, emotions, and circumstances that surrounded her choice on that fateful January day.

Since this is a book review, let me address the book issues first, and then deal with the message later. Without giving too much away, let me just say that it felt like the book moved very slowly at times, and it seemed to take three-fourths of the book for Kristen to get to the point where she realized that she had, in fact, attempted suicide. But then, it seemed that every other major section after that would begin with “Two years later” or “It had been 10 months since.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but the flow of the book felt good until suddenly the timeline hit hyperspace and the reader was rocketed past large chunks of time in the author’s recovery.

Two of the features that I loved about the style were the inclusion of personal notes to the reader from Kristen at the end of some of the chapters. These gave a nice, personal touch to the difficult issues she had dealt with, and acknowledged that the reader could be, as well. The other inclusion that I found helpful was the Afterword written by Kristen’s mother. Those pages really helped tie together some of the threads that still felt like they were dangling a bit at the end. She addressed the circumstances around the night of Kristen’s suicide attempt and also the personal guilt she’d felt over knowing something was wrong in Kristen’s life but not being able to “figure it out.” This also led to a resource page giving warning signs of depression and suicidal tendencies, which I think was extremely helpful for parents and others who are around teens.

But without a doubt, the best feature of this book is it’s undeniable message of hope in the light of horrible choices. Anderson never once backed away from her responsibility in what she did, and the book allowed us to see the way she struggled to come to terms with “what now?” after her failed attempt. She shows honesty, faith, doubt, and courage all the way through the book, and that is the one quality in this book that will resonate with readers every time.

You will not be disappointed that you pick this book up. I know I wasn’t.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

RATE MY REVIEW AND FEED MY BOOK ADDICTION!! THANKS.

BOTW: Surprising Insights

Jul 1, 2011 11:45 am by Paul Jenkins in American Christianity, Book of the Week, Church planting

BOTW Lee Strobel Surprising Insights Thom Rainer

I’ve gotten a few weeks behind in posting reviews of the books I’ve read, and this is a great day to catch up. I’m quickly approaching the halfway point of this one year reading challenge, and honestly, I’m wondering if I’ll be able to keep it up. I’m still trudging along, but right now it feels every bit like that word – trudging.

Enough about the apparant hardships I’m experiencing from reading more! Let’s get to the review of book #24: Suprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them, by Thom Rainer. It’s a long title, but it does live up to it, and the book chronicles the research findings from a 6 year research project that included studying 2,000 churches and giving surveys to people who never attended church but made the decision to start attending. Without trying to simplify the survey too much, it basically asked why they eventually landed in the churches they did, and then compared those churches to others who weren’t chosen.

Rainer had some pretty consistent standards that allowed churches to “make the cut” as an effective church. In order to be an “effective church,” a church body had to see at least 26 conversions a year and have a conversion ratio (number of members/number of conversions) of less than 20:1. These standards are pretty strict, as the national ratio is 85:1. In fact, less than 4% of American churches meet both of these criteria.

True to its title, the first surprising insight came on page 21 with the very first graph. When the formerly unchurched were asked why they chose the church they did, the top 2 answers were…

1. Pastor/Preaching
2. Doctrines

Not only were those the top 2, but they were the top 2 by a mile. The distant 3rd was friendliness, and way at the bottom of the reasons a church was picked was age specific ministry and worship music/style.

The rest of the book breaks down the results of the research project in 2 parts. The first part shares the insights of the unchurched who were now plugged into churches, and the second part shares insights from the pastors of those churches.

As the quote from Lee Strobel says on the front of the book, it’s pastoral malpractice to ignore this book.

I agree.

BOTW: Radical Together

Jun 15, 2011 12:53 pm by Paul Jenkins in Book of the Week

BOTW David Platt Radical Radical Together The Church at Brook Hills

Early in my book a week challenge for the year, I read Radical, a challenging book by David Platt (you can read the review here). Admittedly, that book seems to have ruined the B99 and me, and so as we stand on the edge of launching a brand new body of believers here in Stanly County, we thought there would be no better way to do it than by ruining as many others as we can by reading Platt’s follow-up, Radical Together, as a group. First, of course, we needed to read through it to get a feel for what we’re about to navigate. Warning: life bombs ahead.

Honestly, I picked it up and assumed that I’d be ready for anything Platt might throw in this one, simply because I assumed it would be just a group application to the truths in Radical. If reading his first book challenged us to consider how big (or small) a house we really need as a family, then I was prepared to find in the second book obvious parallels to churches and the sizes of their buildings.

That would have been a lot easier to digest. Instead, Platt took the opportunity in Radical Together to pick up right where the intensity of Radical left off and, instead of just focusing on easy issues like trimming a little fat off the church budget, he kept plowing into the deeper heart work that he is developing a reputation for.

From honest examples of how the Church at Brook Hills (where Platt is the pastor) has taken major initiatives in becoming a radical community of believers to probing questions about how the reader’s community of faith can do the same, Radical Together seems to alternate between gripping the heart and the throat. I found myself in tears and then breathless at the thought of what could happen in my area if a band of believers took to heart the call to lift up the Word of God and the God Who speaks it. Story after story brought me closer to the place where I can feel the ground ending beneath my feet, and as scary as jumping from the cliffs of comfort may be, it is impossible to read this book and not feel a deep desire to leap.

BOTW: You Were Born for This

May 30, 2011 11:18 pm by Paul Jenkins in Book of the Week

BOTW Bruce Wilkinson Miracles You Were Born for This

For my 21st book in my Book a Week challenge, I read a great little book about how God wants us to be actively involved in helping Him deliver daily miracles in the lives of people we come in contact with.

Written by Bruce Wilkinson, You Were Born for This brings a practical teaching to a topic generally reserved for mystic rhetoric that makes miracles seem out of reach in our everyday lives. It’s quickly apparent as you read the book that Wilkinson is an excellent teacher, and he does a great job mixing teaching points with real-life examples of how the lessons he’s teaching have played out in his life. One of the best examples of how the author makes our role in delivering miracles to others seems very doable is his encouragement to start using a “God Pocket.” Yeah, it’s a weird name, but those odd labels are part of how he gets his teaching across (“bumps,” “nudges,” and “cues” are just some of the steps you’ll read about).

The “God Pocket” helps to give legs to our desire to see God meet the financial needs in others’ lives, and keeps us from simply having the “want to.” Practical ideas like the “God Pocket” (Wilkinson’s name for money kept in our wallet or purse that is designated for being used in a money miracle for people we are sent to by God) enable us to actually do what we want to do.

Without a doubt, this book was one that I’m glad I read and will more than likely read again and again. It has motivated me to live with my eyes open, looking for people God wants to send me to. I have no doubt you will have the same reaction, too.

THANKS FOR RATING MY REVIEW AND HELPING ME GET MORE BOOKS TO READ!!

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review as a part of their Blogging for Books program. Ranking my review helps me get more books to read!