First, a note about the author: John Green has had success as an online vlogger, as well as an author. In 2007, John and his brother, Hank, who lived in different cities across the US, created a vlog series where they only communicated through video messages that were posted on YouTube. I believe that it is fair to say that the Green brothers are two of some of the original YouTubers. In 2010, the began hosting an annual gathering of you tubers called Vidcon and are very well respected by and connected with many of the big names on YouTube. Even before I had read this book or even heard about John Green as a writer, I knew of him and his brother as a source for enlightening information on the internet (the two brothers currently have a channel where they discuss history and science). I was pleasantly surprised to hear that John was lauded as being an excellent writer of young adult literature. If anything, I would have expected a “geek” to be a writer of sic-fi. I continued to hear great things about his writing, especially this book, so I decided to give it a listen
Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works by James KA Smith
Takeaway: Worship, Spiritual Development, Discipleship, all are based on what we do, not just what we think. Plans for growth and worship based primarily on knowledge break down and leave Christians ill prepared for actual life as a Christian.
It has been six weeks since I have finished Imagining the Kingdom and I am still not sure how to write the review. But I finally decided that the review is not going to get better the longer I think about it, it is going to get worse. So I need to just write and apologize for not having fully processed this book.
Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works has a deceptively simple premise. Growth is based on practice.
Early in the book is a memorable illustration. Smith, having being influenced by his his wife to read more about eating healthy looks around for a pen to highlight a passage from one of Michael Polen’s books. As he is looking around he realizes that he is sitting (and eating) in a Costco food court.
Offsite: John Le Carré
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
Smiley’s People (A George Smiley Novel) by John le Carré
Summary: Smiley catches Karla’s trail again.
This is the sixth George Smiley I have read since August. It is also the third of the sub-trilogy that started with Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy.
Overall this is one of the best of the series. If you are not a stickler for reading series in order, then the three best of the series are Tinker, Tailor, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Smiley’s People.
In Smiley’s People, George Smiley has again retired. At the conclusion of the Honorable Schoolboy, Smiley had lost his shine. He and his people had found Karla’s plot, but the British Intelligence system was in disgrace, they did not capture Karla, Smiley’s agent was killed and the USA had swooped in and claimed the little credit that was left to claim.
Offsite Review: Prototype by Jonathan Martin
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
Through the Eye of a Needle by Peter Brown
Takeaway: The variety of ways that the Christian church understands wealth and economics has a long history.
One of the reasons that we should read Christian history is because it can give us context for our own modern issues.
Because there are limited sources for late Roman history, Brown uses a variety of historical methods. Most interesting for me was the personal narrative of Christians, Augustine, Ambrose, and a number of people that I had no knowledge of prior to this book.
Culture has always influenced Christianity. So late Roman culture expected those of great wealth to give gifts to the city either through the games and circuses or through community building projects.
Giveaway of Print Copies of Permission to Speak Freely
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
Heat Wave (Nikki Heat) by Richard Castle
Summary: First of a series of book that are written to be the books of Richard Castle (the author in the TV series Castle.)
My wife and I are huge fans of the TV show Castle. So ever since I found out that there is actually a series of books that were written to coincide with the books that Richard Castle writes in the show.
I was interested enough to want to read this, but not enough to actually buy it. I picked it up at my library on audiobook.
In the TV show, Richard Castle is a mystery writer that works follows the police murder detective Beckett. He is inspired to write the book Heat Wave about the police detective Nikki Heat and the journalist Rook.
Offsite Review: Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
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
A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett
Takeaway: God uses people. They will not be perfect, but those that are used, are usually changed by God.
A. W. Tozer has had a resurgence in my world lately. I have not read anything that he has written and really did not know anything about him, other than I know my grandfather liked him and people quote him all the time. Louie Gigglio only started using twitter after he decided to start doing Tozer Tuesday quotes. And then Out of Ur blog decided to copy the idea. After a friend, Matt Erickson, blogged about this book, I figured I would start reading here.
Lyle Dorset was a professor at Wheaton when I was there and I have met and talked to him several times, but never had him for a class. I really liked his biography on Dwight Moody, A Passion for Souls and the very brief biography of E. M Bounds (it was free last month at christianaudio.com but the offer is no longer good.)
Dorset’s biography was well done. It is brief (just under 200 pages), but very well documented with lots of personal interviews personal correspondence that was not available to the previous two biographers. Dorset does what I want in a biography, especially one of a Christian, showing the whole person. But part of my issue with a new introduction to Tozer (not having read any of his books before) is that he was a very broken man. Like many mystical oriented prayer warriors in Christian history, Tozer likely suffered with depression throughout his life. He was an introvert and almost never greeted people before or after church on Sunday. Instead he went to nursery to play with the children.