I am not a pastor, (but I play one on TV). No I don’t, but I did go to seminary and in many ways I quite understand many people’s frustration with pastoral education. It is not theological enough for pastors to deal with the many theological problems they will have to deal with. It does … Read more
Yesterday as I was sorting through my RSS feed I ran across several John Le Carré articles on Slate. Since I posted a review of Smiley’s People (last book of Le Carré’s Karla Trilogy and 8th book in the George Smiley series) I held the posts to turn today in the John Le Carré day. … Read more
James Matichuk is certainly the person I seem to link to most often on these offsite reviews. He reviews books that are interesting to me and he seems to have fairly similar taste to mine. (So follow his blog if you are not already.) Jonathan Martin popped up in my radar several times over the past … Read more
I have read both of Anne Miller’s books, Permission to Speak Freely and Mad Church Disease. Both are worth reading. But Permission to Speak Freely is one of those books that I think all Christians should read. It is relatively short, it is focused on grace, but acknowledges the brokenness of the world and of … Read more
I am a fan of Jim Gaffigan. I love to read. I will be a dad soon. So this new book by Jim Gaffigan on parenting (reviewed at the very good site Mockingbird) immediately caught my attention. This is a book that I will get soon. Here is the beginning of the book review at Mockingbird: … Read more
I have been increasingly impressed with James Matichuk’s reviews on his blog Thoughts, Prayers and Songs. Yesterday he posted a glowing review of The Relational Pastor by Andrew Root that looks like a very good book for pastors and people in ministry leadership. Ministry is relational. This seems like a no-brainer; yet as ministers we … Read more
Goodereader.com has an advance hands on review of the new Kobo Aura HD ereader. Kobo has been making solid, but unimpressive ereaders for a while. But according to this review, that has changed. The Kobo Aura HD has the highest resolution of any eink reader (and more than most tablets). It has a 6.8 inch screen … Read more
In case you are wondering (and are a facebook or twitter friend) yesterday’s announcement of my wife’s pregnancy was real. So I am anticipating reading more books like this in the future. Until then I will leave it to people like James Matichuk at Thoughts, Prayers and Songs blog to write the reviews and make recommendations. In the … Read more
I almost picked up Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation and God to review when it came out last summer. But I had too many review books already and I decided to wait. It is currently on sale for $2.99 on kindle so I thought I would link to Englewood Review of Books review of it. I … Read more
Since reading Matt Rddmond’s excellent book the God of the Mundane, I have been a subscriber to his blog. Today he posted a ‘non-review’ of Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor: A Memoir. If you are a pastor, or you are a lay person in leadership and work closely with a pastor, this is definitely in a handful of … Read more