Book Reviews

Drop, Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection A.J. Jacobs

 

Years ago when I read My Year of Living Biblically with a book group at church, I loved the book. I loved the humor he brought to the task of attempting to follow every single rule, commandment, and suggestion in the Bible. Everything was so difficult for him to accomplish that it was funny. I was excited to discover this audio book to accompany me on my long travels.

I was disappointed in this book. The audio book is 11 hours long! When he got to month 12 and I still had many CDs to go, I wondered what was coming next. He did not feel he could complete the challenge in only 12 months and so he extended it to two years and then even longer.

While the Bible has many rules for him to follow, the sky felt like the limit with his quest for health. He kept coming up with more and more body parts and organs to try to improve. I wanted him to have a goal (not as lofty as bodily perfection) that he was going to spend 12 months trying to achieve. Every time he visited a doctor, specialist, or expert, he was left with many more healthy habits to explore.

I appreciated that he did seek out various experts in each challenge. For example, in Chapter 5, The Immune System: The Quest to Conquer Germs, he met with someone who is trying to eliminate all germs (extensive hand washing, etc) and a woman who only washes her hands when they are dirty. In the Prologue, he said, “Only by exploring the limits can you find the healthy middle ground.” And this seemed to be his point. He would attempt almost anything to try it. He was open to any “expert” who had health advice. I was overwhelmed by all the facts presented and challenges attempted.

I did appreciate learning that Protestant ministers live longer than Catholic priests. After sharing the results of a study about this, he did go on to talk about the difference between causation and correlation which led me to believe that I shouldn’t bank on living longer just because I am a Protestant minister.

He tells a story about how excited he was when he learned to listen to podcasts at double speed. I think this is a great idea. I might have enjoyed this book more if I had listened to it at double speed.

Let me sum it all up for you. It all boils down to three things. Eat less! Move more! Relax!

My recommendation for anyone who wants to read a book by A. J. Jacobs  is that you read My Year of Living Biblically.

Downtime: Helping Teenagers Pray Mark Yaconelli

Emotional Response-4

Scholarly Response-4

I finished reading this book while having some downtime at a dear friend’s home. And as I finished the book, I reflected on how busy life is. When I asked my youth about their lives, I am overwhelmed by all that they fit into a day and week. Sometimes when I look at my calendar, I wonder how I can get everything done. This book is a gift to those who work with youth and anyone who longs for some prayer time in their lives.

 

“Downtime is repentance-a returning to our natural dependance on and need for God” (25). This book encourages us to look at our time differently. By encouraging us to “withdraw, keep silence, read, go outside, rest, imagine, create, travel”, and many more things that should be part of our lives, we are given the tools to pray through the things we already do and create space to pray by taking time away. More than fifty prayers and exercises are shared in these pages.

 

The theme that runs through the book is seeking space apart from our busy-ness and the noise of life to seek God. In reflecting on 1 Kings 19:11-13, “God speaks to Elijah not through the overwhelming spectacles of wind, earthquake, and fire, but through a “sheer silence.” Teenagers live within a culture enamored by power and pomp, a culture that has lost its ability to hear the quiet sacrifices, the hidden creativity, and the humble acts of love that continue to sustain our world. Our young people need the silence of God so that they too might hear God say to the, “Who are you? What are you doing here? What is it you desire in this life?” (107).

 

With just that snippet of what you’ll find in this book, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to do youth ministry differently. This book offers an opportunity to include quiet prayer time in regular youth ministry nights and retreats. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to include more prayer time in your own life. Although the book is written for youth ministers, there is plenty to be gleaned by anyone who reads it.

Psalms for Young Children

Marie-Helene Delval

Illustrated by Arno

 

I love how this book features child-friendly language and beautiful, diverse illustrations of God’s children from around the world. When I am preaching on a psalm, I turn to this book to see if that psalm is featured in these pages, and when it is I am delighted. The writers of the psalms articulated so many emotions, and they are present in this book in the words and illustrations.

My only criticism of this book is that the only pronoun used for God in this book is he. Because the psalms use such diverse language for God, this is only a problem in 10 of the psalms in this book. I raise this as a caution if this is a concern for you.

I highly recommend this book for children as a way to introduce them to the psalms and help them see that the psalms are applicable to their lives. Also, I recommend adults get a copy of this book to enjoy for themeselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family, and Church

Sarah Griffith Lund

Emotional Response-4

Scholarly Response-3

 

This is an honest and brave book. It is the author’s testimony. In her story, I saw the reality of mental illness. I saw how the church failed and fails to talk about it, to support the ones who live with it, and to welcome mental health consumers and their families as they are into the body of Christ. This isn’t an easy story to read because it is so real and heartbreaking. And in the midst of the struggles, I saw hope and possibility and community shining through.

 

I don’t want to tell you too much about this book because her words are so powerful and unlike many other books I review this is a story and I do not like it when people ruin the story.  In Chapter 6, she shares her hope for how the church can change. She encourages us to tell our stories and to listen to others’ stories. She asks us to care for caregivers. And she recommends we all pray for ourselves, for each other, for an easing of the pain and stigma of mental illness.

 

For me, this book is a challenge to the church to do better and to be better. I recommend we all read this story. I recommend we open our churches to support God’s children who have mental illness. I recommend we open our churches as places of hope, support, and comfort for those whose loved ones have a mental illness. For too long, the church has not talked about this and I thank Sarah Griffith Lund for changing that. You can change it to by reading this book and utilizing the resources she mentions.

 

“Church taught me a lot about a loving God, but not how to tell my own story about love, or the lack of it. My Sunday school teachers wanted me to learn about God’s love for the world and that this love sent Jesus to save us. But no one in Sunday school ever asked me what I needed saving from in my own life. Bible truths would magically set us free from sin. Yet there was no place for us to name, in our own words, the sin in our lives, the sinfulness of our families, or the sinfulness of our world” (7).

 

“If we believe that God knits us together in our mother’s womb, do we therefore believe that God knits crazy into our being? If God is in all places and is present in all times, is God also in mental illness? If we are made in God’s image, then is God crazy too?” (37).

 

“The gift of prayer is that over time it can transform worry into something else. Spiritual transformation doesn’t happen immediately, like creating light by striking a match. It is the day-by-day, hour-by-hour practice of lifting our worries up in prayer that brings change. By taking our worries to God in prayer, we can free our minds” (52).
“As a Christian I want so badly to believe that God has the power to save us. But what life has taught me is that God cannot save us from situations where we choose to give fear and hatred power, and, in so doing, choose other gods. When we choose the God of love, whose very nature is to reconcile all things, then we have a real shot at saving the world through Christ. Salvation means wholeness and it comes through relationships, not through individual piety” (70).

The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage Rob and Kristen Bell

Emotional Response-3

Scholarly Response-2

I believe we are created to be in relationship with each other and with God. One of my gifts and joys in ministry is supporting relationships-individuals and congregational relationships with God, loving partnerships, family, friends, etc. To help support these relationships, I’m always searching for good resources to share. As my readers know, I find Rob Bell very readable with an easy to follow style. And this book was a quick, easy read.

The word zimzum is the theme that holds this book together. It is a Hebrew word that means in order for God to create God had to withdraw and create in a space where God wasn’t. Basically, God moved over to allow space for us to thrive and grow and be. They take this word zimzum and use it to describe how we interact with the person we love. “You meet this person, you fall in love, and you zimzum–creating space for them to thrive while they’re doing the same for you. The zimzuming unleashes energy and creates space that didn’t exist before, generating flow that is the lifeblood of marriage” (19).

Many things in this book just make sense. In order for your partner to thrive, you need to know what he or she needs/wants. Talk to the one you love (25). Stop keeping score of who does more (31-36). “How is the space between us?” Are we too close or is there too much distance? (56-58). Give your partner the benefit of the doubt (61-62). Go places and do things together. Shared experiences are essential (76-83). Extend grace and forgiveness with reckless abandon (100-110) as long as it is safe to do so.

All of the things mentioned in the previous paragraph are wonderful ways to support and strengthen the relationship you have with your partner. Are they new and revolutionary? Probably not. What I found the most wonderful of this whole book was the set of questions at the end (123-127). Even without reading the book most of these questions could be excellent ways to start a discussion about your relationship in pre-marital counseling, with your partner, or even by yourself to see how well you know the one you love.

This book is for people in any stage of a romantic relationship. This book would work for those who are just getting to know each other and for those who have been together for decades. Most of the book keeps the pronouns fluid enough to allow this book to work for all couples. I noticed a few places like page 57 where the couple language is “husband and wife”. This book contained excellent nuggets of conversation starters for couples. When I finished reading, I wanted more. I think this feeling was a wish that the book had explored any of these ideas on a deeper level instead of skimming the whole concept of marriage and romantic relationships in only 120 pages. I would recommend checking a copy of this out of the library and going through the questions at the end with the one you love.

 

This is What I Pray Today: The Divine Hours for Children Phyllis Tickle

Illustrated by Elsa Warnick

 

In this book, Phyllis Tickle introduces young children to the concept of praying three times a day. She does this with prayers that reflect what is going on in the lives of young children. Each day there is a prayer for the morning, a prayer for when it is time to rest (meaning naptime) and a prayer for the end of the day or bedtime. In this book, you’ll find a week of prayers.

I recommend this as a great gift to a young child in your life. It would also be a great addition to your church library. Tickle wrote the book so it could be used by followers of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths, so this book would also work as an inter-faith gift too.

 

Safe Sanctuaries: Reducing the Risk of Abuse in the Church for Children and Youth

Joy Thornburg Melton

Emotional Response-3

Scholarly Response-3

This is the most often recommended book for congregations writing Safe Sanctuary policies. I’ve led groups in writing policies at previous churches and developed a workshop to help with writing, training, and updating Safe Sanctuary policies in congregations. You will notice that this book repeats itself with only minor changes. That is because this is the combined children and youth edition. This book also exists for only children’s ministry and only youth ministry.

The author is an attorney and United Methodist minister. At many points her denominational basis shows as she talks about babies being baptized (7) when not all denominations baptize infants and not all parents choose to have their children baptized as infants and examples and explanations used are about the United Methodist Church.

I believe that Safe Sanctuary policies should begin with what to do. Training should also begin with the positive parts of the plan. The point of Safe Sanctuary policies is not to scare people. We can do our best to keep each other safe without living in fear.

I would recommend this book for a church that needs all information in one place and easily accessible. For churches that are willing to use a variety of resources, there are better options available that have good examples and better policy recommendations. I have also created a workshop to help others write a policy and would be happy to talk with anyone needing help with their policy.

 

Ideas and Reminders I Found Helpful–

-Giving volunteer forms and Safe Sanctuary policy to all new members. I like this idea because everyone needs to know the policy. In order for the church to be a Safe Sanctuary, everyone in the congregation must know and live by the covenant.

-List of types of abuse starts on page 29  and what to be watching for starts on page 37. Very helpful for training.

-Advertise your policy. Parents expect one.

-Talk about what to do is a sex offender wants to worship here before it a question being asked. A good resource for this difficult situation is found on pages 112-116.

 

Ideas I Found Difficult or Less than Helpful–

I believe that all Safe Sanctuary policies should begin by outlining what to do. Don’t start with the negative or what to do if/when something happens. Start with what people are expected to do. And in this first section use covenantal language to talk about why this is of sacred importance to us. Starting with the negative or what to do in case of an incident places the focus on the wrong spot. We are called by God to live in relationship with each other. A good Safe Sanctuary policy begins by outlining how that relationship works in this particular case. Section two of the policy can define what to do if that relationship covenant is broken.

Some of the examples presented were very upsetting to me. On pages 13-15, there is a story of a child who pretends to be abused so his father can record the incident and make money for the family. The church had a Safe Sanctuary policy, so the teacher took the father to meet with the pastor. The pastor said, “I know these teachers and I have complete trust in them” (14). I was shocked by the response of the pastor. As a pastor, I would never say this. I trust those who have been entrusted with the sacred duty of teaching children and youth. I would never say I have complete trust in them. I would want to hear as many sides of the story as possible to find out what had happened. Another example that made me sad was the pastor’s response to the single mom who had her child baptized (28). Neither she nor her child should be treated any differently during the baptism. Instead of admonishing the congregation to care even more for this child, the pastor should remind the congregation at each baptism of the sacred covenant being entered into during a baptism.

I would have prefered more examples of how to respond to questions about background checks. This was the most frequent question asked in my churches. Why do we need background check? Who will see my information? How will my information be stored? More examples about how other churches have answered all these questions would be helpful.

“No Workers under the Age of Eighteen” (87) – While I understand the idea, it saddens me to think that people must wait until they are 18 to share their gifts. If multiple people are present, it should not be a problem to allow children and youth to work with each other.

More detailed citations would have been very helpful. When statistics are quoted, it would be helpful to know from when and where they were sourced.