The Little Friar

Sarah Bowling's In Step with the Spirit:  Infusing Your Life with God's Presence & Power is a beautiful reminder of God's presence in our lives, even in the midst of chaos and struggling.  Bowling writes with spiritual and pastoral wisdom to discern the Spirit's guidance in every moment in our lives.  But Bowling is also careful to remind us that that guidance is not always comforting; sometimes God's Spirit will lead us into the wilderness -- just as it did Jesus -- and that often our experiences don't look like what we expect them too but that does not mean the experience can't still be amazing. I was particularly drawn to her wisdom about how to handle closed doors in chapter 4.   This is a beautiful, and timely, book. ________________________ I received a free copy of this book from Chosen Books in exchange for my honest review here.

Arlene Pellicane's Calm, Cool, and Connected:  5 Digital Habits for a More Balanced Life offers practical wisdom about managing our technology use.  I remember a day when the world wasn't so consumed by smartphones, TV, and social media.  But I also remember a time when there weren't too many other options, either.  While I didn't love when my parents forced me to go outside -- I was far too much a nerd -- I do appreciate that I was encouraged to be creative and use my imagination as a kid.  Sadly, as an adult, I find it harder and harder to motivate myself to do something creative or get outside when spending time scrolling through Facebook is much more convenient.  Can you relate? If so, Calm, Cool and Connected is the book for you. This is one of those non-fiction books that can be life changing if you'll allow it.  Because, in just around 120 pages, Pellicane offers five tools that will help you develop a healthy HABIT: Hold down ...

Jon Laansma and Randall Gauthier's The Handy Guide t Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs is the perfect handbook for those who regularly read in the Greek New Testament.  It's a user-friendly quick reference which will be an important supplement to any New Testament Greek reference collection. The goal of The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs is to provide a set of vocabulary aids not found in other vocabulary lists.  As a student, I sharpened my skills in Metzger's classic Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek , but it unfortunately led me to believe that the present tense is a kind of "default" for Greek verbs (just think all those paradigms of  λύω that you learn as a student).  That's where The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs comes in.  Written from the perspective of such a student, this book brings together all those verbs which have unusual principle parts and are therefore the most difficult to reco...

I'm no fan of fundamentalist evangelical theology, but I'm also not a Liberal Christian, either. I suppose if painted into a corner of my own choosing, I'd self-identify as a "radical Christian" -- radical in the sense of getting at the root of the Christian faith.  I think Liberal Christians insist too much on the separation of church and state.  I think that demand is self-defeating and naive.  The distinction only makes sense when the church is powerful in its own right (this is what we call "Christian domianism").  That's why the separation of church and state exists:  The state in the modern world has always attempted to insulate it from the church's political power. Things are different now.  Ours is a church of the largely middle-class which bears so much of the work to keep the state in possession of its own power for political and economic purposes.  Protestantism (by which I probably should say "bourgeois religion") has ...

The sleepy world in darkness slumbers now, the quiet doze before the rising dawn, a peace that knows no troubled sigh nor doubt: the world in shadow, dream its only law. A seeping light begins to gild the clouds like joy as it infuses idle thoughts. The blossoms all with dewy crystal crowned are waved by breeze that tumbles on the lawn as birds are throwing off a raucous sound. The early-waking heart is touched by awe, to glory vowed.

Bri McKoy's Come and Eat: A Celebration of Love and Grace around the Everyday Table is a delightful read that brings together rich reflections about hospitality in every day life with a beautiful recipe collection.  If you're one of those who loves to host dinner gatherings -- or would like to be -- this is the book for you. In each of the chapters, McKoy shares something we should bring to the table while also sharing about different tables we encounter in our lives.  Some tables are full of joy while others may be painful.  She writes with such grace that her own stories become templates for the stories of our lives. Tables are meant for welcoming, McKoy reminds us -- and it doesn't matter if those are simple or extravagant tables.  They simply need to be hospitable ones. It's the 21 day recipe challenge at the end of the book that makes my mouth water at the possibilities.  _______________________ Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this...

Sheila Walsh's In the Middle of the Mess:  Strength for This Beautiful, Broken Life helps readers to develop those spiritual traditions -- like confession, prayer and meditation -- that can highlight God's presence in our daily lives, but especially "in the middle of the mess".  While Walsh writes specifically for women, this book is an amazing gift that helps its readers (whether male or female) to rest in God's love, despite the chaos around us.  Walsh develops a practice of those disciplines that will help readers live into the joy of God -- experiencing the love of God and being known in that love. There's little doubt that the world can make us hard.  Chapter three, "The Walls We Build", is perhaps the clearest description of the consequences that hardness can have in our lives.  The shame and the hurt that describe our modern lives -- Walsh writes of the enduring grace that brought her through them and into a richer, more beautiful experie...

This week's selection is one of Bonhoeffer's lesser-known works:  Spiritual Care .  I first read this work in seminary and it shaped so much of what I think and practice around pastoral care.  In it, Bonhoeffer begins with an important affirmation:  "The mission of spiritual care falls under the general mission of proclamation.  Caring for the soul is a special sort of proclamation".  He then goes on to connect that proclamation -- of the Risen One's reconciliation of the world to God -- through the variety of practices that make up the pastor's "spiritual care":  Home visitation, conversations with the indifferent, caring for those who are sick and tempted, hearing confessions, visiting another's deathbed, and ministering in funerals, weddings, and baptisms.  This is an important little book that every pastor should re-read every couple of years.

Bob Kellemen's Counseling Under the Cross:  How Martin Luther Applied the Gospel to Daily Life highlights an often underappreciated element of Martin Luther's writing and work as a theologian:  That Luther was, first and foremost, a priest who offered in word and counsel a message that pointed constantly and consistently to Jesus Christ. Just in time for 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Counseling Under the Cross shares scores of powerful vignettes, Luther quotes, and real-life narratives that illustrate how Martin Luther provided biblical counseling to hurting and struggling people. In his own life, Luther struggled to understand how to find peace with God.  After many failed attempts at gaining favor with God by works, Luther finally realized the truth of salvation through Christ alone by faith alone through grace alone.  He then spent the rest of his life helping others to come to the same saving realization.  He nailed his 95 Theses to the...

Alicia Britt Chole's The Sacred Slow:  A Holy Departure from Fast Faith offers 52 spiritual exercises that highlight the importance of soul-care.  Ours is a world driven by "fast" -- fast food and quick fixes.  Our culture has been conditioned to have it all, and have it now.  This beautiful devotional highlights the love of God that flows toward us every moment of life, and often in ways that slow all that fast living. Each chapter -- one for every week of the year -- offers a brief reading with two options at the end (a thought focus and a heart exercise).  Each chapter flows out of Chole's own experience as a spiritual director, so there is a depth to each chapter.  This is one of those must-reads for folks looking for a deeper intimacy with God. ______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Almighty God, fount of all wisdom, crown of all knowledge; give us eyes to see and minds to understand your marvelous works, that we may know you through your handiwork and use your creations to your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. God of mercy, you have blessed us beyond our dreams; you have set before us promises and perils beyond our understanding; help us to struggle and pray that the perils may be averted and your promises fulfilled. Save us, Lord, from the worship of power or science. Save us from making you in our image, and keep us humble. Amen.

Phil Newton's The Mentoring Church: How Pastors and Congregations Cultivate Leaders dives deeply into the baptismal waters of the Church's call to raise up new generations of leaders.  Having spent a good part of my ministerial career involved in mentoring ordinands, this book offers not only the rich foundation upon which that work is grounded, but also the rich pastoral insights of what it means to train young Christians to grow into seasoned leaders. The Mentoring Church dives deeper than most leadership training books on the issue.  As far as references go, this is certainly one of the more exhaustive works on New Testament mentoring.  With just under 300 cited works, Newton has certainly done some homework.  That makes The Mentoring Church a rich resource rather than simple reading. Newton sets out to demonstrate that training up the next generation of Christian leaders is the job of the Church.  Cultivating church leaders will most align with...

Andrea Logan White's Perfectly Unfinished:  Finding Beauty in the Midst of Brokenness  exposes the powerful truth that has changed her life:  God loves us just as we are, just where we are; for it's in the midst of our brokenness and imperfections that Jesus is at work completing us so that we may share fully in his holiness.   Alongside Andrea, readers discover from the word of God how to join God in the work he is doing in the midst of our unfinished and imperfect lives. White appeared to be living the "American dream" or what many would call a "perfect life".  However, underneath the happy veneer of the model, actress, and producer, was a subtle, caustic voice leading to emptiness and self-destruction.  She was being crushed under the weight of her own drive for "perfection". Her remarkable (and often tabloid-worthy) journey that took her from hanging out in the Playboy mansion to finding God at a stop light on Hollywood Boulevard is a pag...

Gretchen Rubin's The Four Tendencies:  The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (And Other People's Lives Better, Too) brings the perspective that made her Happiness Project an amazing book to this new endeavor:  Sorting ersonalities into four "tendencies" -- upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels -- according to people's motivations for undertaking actions.  The Four Tendencies is a light reading in pop psychology, but it ultimately left me feeling like I need to revisit my copy of Please Understand Me for a better template of human personality. Each tendency gets two separate chapters devoted to understanding and dealing with people with a specific trait.  There's even a Venn diagram and brief, if arbitrary, quiz.  The simplicity of the profiles is comforting, but the science is questionable.  While Rubin created a brief survey, the anecdotal evidence is used to support The Four Tendencies , and all...

Portraits of a Pastor:  The 9 Essential Roles of a Church Leader is a collection of essays that deals with the primary roles that fall to ministry leaders.  There are two primary questions that drive each of the essays:  "Who is the pastor to be?" and "What is the pastor to do?" In answering these questions, Portraits of a Pastor explores roles and provides insight and practical application into areas such as the pastor as shepherd, husband and father, preacher, theologian, church historian, evangelist, missionary, leader and man of God.  (While I wish more had been done to explore women in ministry, this collection is written by Southern Baptists, so in full disclosure, wouldn't include those insights on theological grounds.  I think the refusal to ordain women for ministry is built on faulty theological grounds, but that's for another day.) The book walks a delicate line between high expectations and encouragement and counsel for the work ahead....

Lynn Cowell's Brave Beauty:  Finding the Fearless You is written for tween girls and offers, in 100 mini chapters, the God's perspective on some real life issues.  Things like peer pressure and body imagine, certainly, but other things like bravery and personal transformation, too.  This is a resource that helps teens think deeply about their faith in ways our culture wants to discourage. In Brave Beauty , Cowell encourages girls to find their worth and identity in Christ.  In a time when girls are bombarded with images of what the world considers beautiful and valuable, this book empowers girls instead to turn to our faith for the truth about how beautiful they really are.  The book begins at just the right place -- how to enter into the community of faith and finding their place in it -- and continues with a number of important affirmations that structure the rest of the book:  "I am Loved", "I am Brave", etc.  The artwork is whimsical and o...

Mike Fabarez's Raising Men, Not Boys: Shepherding Your Sons to Be Men of God dares to venture into territory that gripes every parent's imagination in our culture:  How to raise godly children. Parents find themselves dealing with challenges that simply didn't exist in their childhoods, and dealing with them drawing upon resources that are already strained.  In years gone by, stronger extended family networks and social fabrics like church had a greater impact and role in a parent's ability to raise men and not boys.  Now, those two are both in tatters, and have left parents more alone than ever.  Into that void steps Fabarez with a gift. This book is that gift.  Raising Men, Not Boys offers hope, as parents envision what kind of man they want their boys to become, and to live in that reality -- not this one.  Just as their environment for parenting has changed, the environment in which children grow and mature has also changed.  Fabarez tackl...

I have, for quite some time (20 years now), been thinking of what a theology of politics might look like.  Since my own context is American, my thinking about that theology has been shaped by and in that American context. Then I happened upon a thought while reading through Ecclesiastes this week. What would happen if we treated the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes as if it were a theology of politics? Solomon, after all, supposing him to be the author (as tradition does), was perhaps one of the greatest political figures of the Old Testament. So why was he so depressed? When I first discovered the book of Ecclesiastes, I was a college student, and taking a course on Old Testament Wisdom Literature.  I was struck by the book's existential angst and found it one of the more meaningful texts at the time (given, as I was, to reading guys like Miguel de Unamuno et al ).  The main point of reference that I have for Ecclesiastes is "vanity", "dung" -- that...

I haven't forgotten about my blog, but I've been unable to accomplish nearly anything productive all week.  I've been struggling through an eye infection that has made reading and writing entirely too painful.  I'm hoping this weekend to finish the pile (!) of books that has collected on our living room table as well as to start back to writing on the new book manuscript with some gusto.  (I promise I haven't forgotten about my promise to write the hell book, Marisa.)

I have lately been thinking quite heavily about returning to parish ministry (at least on a part-time basis) and have, therefore, begun to think a lot about the regular practice of preaching.  To that end, this week's Friday's Finds selection is the essential three volume collection of Preaching through the Christian Year .  Edited by the great preaching teaching, Gene Tucker and features work by Fred Craddock and others, this series is a must-have for those who will regularly work through the Revised Common Lectionary (you'll notice the Handbook just next to them, that brings together hymn and prayer resources for each day in the RCL). Preaching the RCL keeps my preaching fresh and doesn't allow it to fall into the rut of preaching those texts I'd love to preach regularly.  It therefore allows the congregation to receive a balanced diet of preaching from the full swath of biblical texts over a three year cycle.  And preaching week in and week out is hard stuf...

Give us, we pray you, gentle God, a mind forgetful of past injury, a will to seek the good of others and a heart of love. Grant us, Jesus, that tender, indestructible love which asks forgiveness for its executioners and gives hope to the thief on the cross. Keep us compassionate when the way is hard, and gentle with those who oppose us. Lord God, you have taught us that anything we do without love is worth nothing, for whoever lives without love is counted dead before you; send your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues; grant this for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jody Jean Dreyer's Beyond the Castle:  A Guide to Discovering Your Happily Ever After brings some of the best of the Disney experience into the lives of its readers in order to offer wisdom and inspiration for finding and being who you were created to become. Disney characters are here assigned personality types -- and those types together create a balance in our lives (much as Disney wouldn't be Disney without all the princesses).  The behind-the-scenes bits of Disney history, of how certain things have come to be, intrigue me -- how decisions are made, risks are taken, ideas are born.  The lessons that can be learned from Disney's successes and failures are inspiring. Beyond the Castle is a book that explores some of the best of Disney in an effort to help readers discern their best selves. _______________________ Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers < http://booklookbloggers.com ...

For the early Christians the ceremony of the breaking of bread -- the Eucharist -- was intimately connected with the sharing of bread. It was not a mere formalist ceremonial.  The Eucharist signified sharing. It also brought about what it signified.  The rite and the reality were intimately linked.  The symbol was for real.  They tried to practise what they professed.  We have seen how the early Christian groups shared what they had so that there was no one in need. For Jesus too the last supper, the first and inaugural Eucharist, was closely associated with his selfgiving.  He gave bread and wine saying "this is my body"; "this is my blood".  This was not merely a symbol, rite or ceremony.  He said that he was giving himself -- his life -- for his people.  He then gave a new commandment "love one another; as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. If there is this love among you, then all will know you are my disciples ..."  ...

Geoffrey Wainwright's Doxology:  The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life.  A Systematic Theology is this week's Friday's Finds selection.  Wainwright's is a systemtic theology written in the frame of other liberation theologies (that is, with experience as its guiding metaphor), except that Wainwright chose liturgy as that guiding metaphor.  Doxology is essentially a conversation between liturgy and systematic theology; liturgy is not only the data for theological reflection for Wainwright, but also offers the most faithful way of articulating systematic questions. That makes Doxology one of the most important systematic theologies out there for understanding how I think theologically about anything.  As a young theologian, who parrotted more than spoke with my own voice, Geoffrey's was the way I learned to speak theologically.  And that helped me to preach and offer pastoral care in a way that made me a better theologian.

This is National Suicide Prevention Week .  Since it's not something the Church has ever really thought about well, suicide is a topic whose time has come here. Last Friday I received a message from a friend who was asking about the suicide of one of his closest friends.  "Where is he?  Do you think he was judged more harshly for that decision?" His question is far from academic.  When his friend committed suicide, there were doubtless those who thought what lots of Christians have thought for a long time:  "Suicide is an unforgiveable sin.  Your daughter has cut herself off from God entirely, and is now paying the price, forever".  To those folks, it would mean my friend's friend, whose life was filled with enough tormenting pain that suicide became a choice, would now experience the torment of an eternal hell.  Such folks fail to be good pastoral care givers, but, perhaps more importantly, they fail to be good theologians.  Despite thei...

Yesterday, Kendra and I attended an event at one of Kendra's favorite entertainment venues in the region, Alcatraz East, to listen to Dr Art Bohanan speak about his experiences as a medical examiner on that Tuesday, 9/11/01.  He spoke about the experiences of attempting to identify body parts in the days and weeks following the event.  I'll spare readers some of the more graphic details, but really curious folks can find them in his book .  Doubtless he was there to speak because we're approaching yet another anniversary of that day. Yet another anniversary that will be filled with so much reflection on the event of 9/11 that I pause before I add to all that cacophony.  But then I realize how important it is to hear the Word that's been given me to say, so ... I remember 9/11/01.  That Tuesday, at 8.45am, I was standing in line in an airport.  I, along with countless others, watched in horror as acts of murder were committed in front of us, on tele...

Gordon MacDonald's Ordering Your Private World (revised and updated) is a modern spiritual classic that explores the disciplines necessary to order our minds and hearts and spirits in a world that wants to keep us distracted amidst so much chaos in the world.  That distraction, MacDonald is right to point out, creates an inward chaos when we have not learned the habits like keeping time ("Sabbathing") that go into living an intentional Christian life. Ordering Your Private World rejects the "quick fixes" that pass for Christian spirituality and instead urges us, like gardeners, to take intentional, delicate care of our inner lives: Many of us are tempted to reach out for a sort of 'quick fix' that makes God seem real and more intimate.  Some feel deeply enriched if they are caused to feel terribly guilty by a preacher who angrily thunders forth with accusations and denunciations.  Others quest after emotional experiences that lift them out of...

Jim Bradford's The Awakening of HK Derryberry:  My Unlikely Friendship with the Boy Who Remembers Everything recalls the inspiring story of how Jim Bradford willingly stepped out of his comfortable world and into the life of HK Derryberry, a young boy with multiple disabilities and a bleak future.  This book chronicles their enduring seventeen-year friendship and the discovery of HK's remarkable gift of memory.  Diagnosed with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), HK has an extremely rare gift of memory that allows him to recall details of every day of his life since the age of three. This book is an amazing memoir of the importance of friendship, and the miracles that are part of those friendships.  It's a moving tale that everyone should read. ____________________ I received a free copy of this book from the Handlebar Blogging Program in exchange for my honest review here.

Lance's Hahn's The Master's Mind:  The Art of Reshaping Your Thoughts explores one of the most demanding questions of postmodern life:  If what we think shapes who we are, why are so many of us depressed and anxious?  Are there ways to change what we think in order to transform our minds?  More importantly, if God desires our lives to be filled with hope and peace, with joy and love, what does God desire us to think about ourselves in order for our lives to overcome so much negativity?  Hahn has given us a strong spiritual meditation on God's desire for our minds, by focusing on Jesus and Jesus' own life as the pattern for our living.  Our enemies are thereby exposed -- anxiety, temptation and all the other forces of darkness that encroach on the light of the mind that God has for us.  Filled with the wisdom of a pastor's heart, The Master's Mind reaches its most important insights in chapters 10 and 11.  Those two alone make this book worth ...

Edie Littlefield Sunby's The Mission Walker is a breath-taking account of what happens when Sundby is diagnosed with cancer and given three months to live.  It's the story of Edie overcoming cancer not once -- but twice.  We are there with her in the beginning during her treatments but the part of the story that is impossible to stop reading is when she is walking the trails. If there is a mantra she tells herself, it is "If I am moving then I am alive".  So after her first cancer treatments are surprisingly successful, Edie decides to walk the 800 Mile northern part of the Historic California Mission Trail.  When the cancer returns two  years later, she decides it is time to walk the El Camino Real from its' origin in Loreto, Mexico to the US border.  This time with only one lung. When Edie is walking the trail, she makes us feel as if we are there.  I just had to keep reading to see what would happen next.  Did she complete the t...

This week, I want to highlight a lesser-known collection of essays from Eberhard Bethge from 1995 on Bonhoeffer, Friendship and Resistance:  Essays on Dietrich Bonhoeffer .  It contains a beautiful essay on Bonhoeffer's "Theology of Friendship" that I wish were more well-known and widely-circulated.  That essay offers, I think, lots of fodder for the contemporary lack of dialogue in the Church towards those whom Christ has called his "friends".  For Bonhoeffer, friendship was an important theological category precisely because Bonhoeffer's particular approach to friendship which emphasizes concrete, personal encounter with "the other" in community is uniquely suitable for Christians in an increasingly pluralistic, politically-polarized and techno-social world. His theology of friendship is deeply grounded in the paradox of what God is doing in Jesus Christ.  That I-Thou relationship (which he highlighted in his initial dissertation, Communio S...

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it.  Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.  Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw -- the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.  If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you all are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you all ?  If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person.  For God's temple is holy, and you all are that temple ...

I have lately returned to reading James Leo Garrett's two volume Systematic Theology:  Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical .  The first volume was the required textbook when I took Systematic Theology as an undergrad; the second volume appeared in 1995, so I'd never read it until yesterday. I began noticing little places, littered throughout the text, where a much younger theologian -- a budding theologian that I would have been in 1992 -- would later (in 2017) not find himself reflected in the text.  That's inevitable, for sure.  But it's made me wonder.  My undergrad institution was known more largely as "a bastion of liberal thinking" (whatever that might mean) among Southern Baptists.  (I've come to realize that even a "liberal" Southern Baptist isn't all that liberal, by the standard of Theological Liberalism.  The pesky authority of the biblical text gets in the way.  Every.  Single.  Time.)  So I'm a bit surprised to find...

White Christendom in America survives pathetically. The traditions and ethics of the inherited, white denominations -- as their adherents sense privately, and everyone else acknowledges openly -- are moribund, nostalgic for a legendary past, extravagantly irrelevant to virtually anything to which one might attempt to relate them.  White Christendom's institutions are truly secular, that is, utterly preoccupied with their own survival, and hence dissipated in anxiety.  Their human constituency is being visibly depleted by dropouts, deaths, and other departures.  The people of these churches have been stunned by the renunciation voiced by their own offspring, bewildered by the long overdue rejection of their paternalism by the blacks, and so traumatized by their guilt that their conscience has been both perverted and paralyzed.  They have feted a doctrine of achievement in work and in charity that is bereft of biblical authority and that now turns out not even to have...

As Marianne Williamson says: "Evil is the power of God inverted".  I would actually modify that a bit, and say:  "Evil is the love of God inverted -- or absent". This is what so called "religious" (read:  pharisaical and people opposed to the goodness of God in Jesus Christ) people do -- they use holy, life-giving words and concepts to divide, destroy, demean, discriminate and decimate all those they see as "other". Witness the recent 14-point Nashville Statement . Jesus, though, didn't give one whiff what the fundamentalists of his day thought or said.  He challenged them on their exclusive interpretation of scripture, broke their laws right in front of them, overturned their corrupt power and economic systems and called them names to their faces.  (That whole "brood of vipers" thing is something that continually runs in my head on the occasion of the pharisees using holy words to alienate human beings from the love of God kn...