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I do not often read books of essays. Frankly, I do not frequently read essay length works. I read a lot of blog posts and I read a lot of book length works. But the essays are difficult for me. Jacobs is a very good essayist. And that is why I wanted to read the book. He was (and is) a professor at Wheaton College when I was there, but I did not have him (and do not remember meeting him.)

Over the past couple years I have follow his blogs and writings fairly closely, but this is the first book of his that I have read. I bought it a bit over a year ago to take to the beach (found it for $3 including shipping on Amazon.) Unfortunately it ended up in my Sister-In-Law’s beach books and I forgot about it until I went to the beach this year.

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Takeaway: Some new friends, some characters die.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook
(Kindle Edition is lendable if someone wants to borrow the series)

The series is aging.  Percy is now in 8th grade.  Annabeth is trying to live with her Dad and Stepmom again.  Tyson has found a home and Grover has found two new children of the Gods that need to make their way to Camp Half-Blood.  Percy is still the main and center character, but he is not in charge of the quest, in fact he is chosen to join the quest at all.

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Takeaway: Friends are important.

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In the second book of the series, Percy is getting comfortable in his role as one of the half-bloods and excited about going back to camp for more training.  But as normal, the mosters that seek after the children of the Gods cause problems and another adventure is started.

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Takeaway: We often live like Jesus is the Life, sometimes like Jesus is the Truth, but often forget that Jesus is the Way.  It is a path that we are to follow, not just a belief that we are to ascribe.

This is the second time I have started this book.  A couple of years ago, I got bogged down and did not finished it.  Because it was the only one of Peterson’s series of practical theology that I have not read, I decided that I should go back and read it again.  This time I got it.  That is not to say that it is an easy book to get through, I still think it is the weakest of this series.  It is a bit disjointed.  The beginning of the book talks about the reasons that we need to follow Jesus.  This section primarily revolves around the passage of Jesus saying he is the Way, the  Truth and the Life.  Peterson says we spend a lot of time on Jesus being the truth and the life, but we do not often think a lot about how Jesus is the way.

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Takeaway: Very few topics get more to the heart of Christian love and community more than racial,  class and economic reconciliation.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

I first heard about John Perkins in the spring of 1992 as I was preparing for a summer missions trip with Wheaton College. We read one of his books (cannot remember which one, but according to his Wikipedia page, only A Quiet Revolution was published in 1992, now out of print).  Later that year, after working for a summer in Houston with kids in a long term homeless shelter, attended my first Christian Community Development Association meeting.  It was there that I first heard John Perkins speak.  Since think I think I have read almost everything written by or about him.  He truly is one of the modern prophets that has done much to change the direction of the modern Evangelical church.  So I am always surprised how many people have not heard of him.  A the last Catalyst conference, Perkins was one of the main speakers and I saw dozens of tweets quoting him and many questioning why they had never heard of him.

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