The Little Friar

I'm a Christian. That probably isn't a well-kept secret. I probably should more accurately say that I'm still a Christian. I say that with all the humility I know.  It's a confession I make with all kinds of mental and spiritual exhaustion.  In fact, sometimes I'm even begrudgingly making that confession.  Sometimes I'm embarrassed to make that confession.  Not because I'm embarrassed of Jesus, but because I'm embarrassed of all the other brothers and sisters who make the same confession but look so unlike Jesus. When I watch the news, I'm embarrassed at what passes as "Christian" but looks so unlike Jesus. That confession now aligns me with bullies, politicians, white privilege and even overt racism.  It's hard to believe that the world -- which is now so mistreated that we can refer to parts of it as "shit holes" -- is the same world which God so loved that he died in order to prove that love. Once, being Christ...

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth:  Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Melissa Kruger's In All Things:  A Nine-Week Devotional Bible Study on Unshakable Joy is an accessible Bible study on Paul's letter to the Philippians.  Here, you'll discover what real evangelical joy and contentment look like -- despite one's circumstances in life. With a warm pastoral heart and a clear mind, Kruger helps reader read -- as if for the first time -- the biblical text, in order to discover the difference Jesus makes in difficult circumstances, and find the joy and peace that are themselves unshakeable.  No matter how discontent readers feel, Kruger gives us a vision of a secure contentment that rests in Jesus alone. Readers will find In All Things the most useful devotional guide -- complete with biblical text printed on the page in front of you -- for 2018. ______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Brant Hansen's Blessed Are the Misfits:  Great News for Believers Who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, Or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something is, like the Beatitudes on which its chapters are modeled, the Good News delivered to groups such as those who can't easily access their emotions, those who struggle with prayer, those who struggle with "imposter syndrome", skeptics, and those on the Autism Spectrum, among many others.  Brant is quite open with his own struggles throughout his book.  As a self-identified introvert, skeptic, and "Aspie" (person diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome), he weaves his own story into many chapters.  This is not a memoir per se, but one of the reasons he wants to include and reassure many of the groups that he does is because he falls into them himself.  He knows the issues well, and his form of self-confession and exploration allows the reader dealing with similar things to enter into what he share...

In the summer of 1937, just as the Gestapo was arresting Bonhoeffer's friends, the pastor preached about God's judgment in Psalm 58 -- but he didn't say what a modern American might expect. The wicked are perverse from the womb; liars go astray from their birth. ... O God, break their teeth in their mouths; pull the fangs of the young lions, O LORD.  Let them vanish like water that runs off; let the arrows they aim break in two. ...  The righteous will be glad when they see the vengeance; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.  And they will say, 'Surely, there is a reward for the righteous, surely, there is a God who rules in the earth'" (Psalm 58.3, 6-7, 10-11).  So how did Bonhoeffer preach that psalm? Is this fearful psalm of vengeance to be our prayer?  May we pray in this way?  Certainly not!  We bear much guilt of our own for the action of any enemies who cause us suffering. He continued: How then should we, wh...

The command Jesus issued those who would follow him that they must "love their enemies" as a condition of becoming a child of God (Matthew 5.45) isn't a popular one, especially among Americanized Christians.  Whenever the discussion comes up, there's always heated debate surrounding the issue.   In fact, this is the place at which I'm often accused of being un - or even anti -American.  If there's one thing we Americans know well, it's violence.  And any threat to that violence -- particularly of the Christian nonviolent kind -- is roundly rejected through the most violent of rhetorical means.   The reason for that is pretty simple:  Enemy love is simply too costly for Americans.  It's something that asks for that part of us -- namely, our living -- that we're simply not ready to hand over to just anyone.  To avoid having to truly forsake all, pick up a cross and follow Jesus, it becomes important to find a way around the command to love ...

Saundra Dalton-Smith's Sacred Rest:  Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity develops seven types of rest she found lacking in many patients in her internal medicine practice and how rest impacts every part of our lives: Physical:  The chance to use the body in restorative ways to decrease muscle tension, reduce headaches, and promote higher quality sleep. Mental:  The ability to quiet cerebral chatter and focus on things that matter. Spiritual:  The capacity to experience God in all things and recline in the knowledge of the Holy. Emotional:  The freedom to authentically express feelings and eliminate people-pleasing behaviors. Social:  The wisdom to recognize relationships which revive from ones that exhaust and how to limit exposure to toxic people. Sensory:  The opportunity to downgrade the endless onslaught of sensory input received from electronics, fragrances, and background noise. Creative:  The exp...

"Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp" (Leviticus 13.45-46).   "A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, 'Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean'.  And Jesus reached out his hand and touched him" (Matthew 8.2-3a).

Wayne Jonas' How Healing Works:  Get well and stay well using your hidden power to heal is a clear exposition of our inherent healing capacity to get well and stay well.  Backed by evidence and stories of patients with chronic illnesses who have healed, Jonas teaches us how we can tap into the four dimensions of healing (body, behavior, social, and spirit) to combat and prevent chronic disease. Perhaps the most important parts of the book, though, are the appendices, which offer detailed advice on working closely with your primary physician in developing a healthy life. How Healing Works should be read widely and shared among friends -- particularly those who started 2018 with new resolutions about health. ________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Kristen Kill's Finding Selah:  The Simple Practice of Peace When You Need It Most takes readers on a journey to transform what they think about work, rest and the little spaces between that make all the difference.  Kill is able to take readers on that journey by highlighting the "selah moments" in our lives -- those times when God, especially in Jesus Christ, speaks words that create space and rest in our lives. Finding Selah doesn't just teach about rest, though, but prepares our hearts to experience it afresh. _____________________ I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review here.

Jeff Vanderstelt and Ben Connelly's Gospel Fluency:  A Practical Guide to Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life (8-week study) develops a central notion:  That for most Christians the Gospel is not their native tongue.  It is more like a second, third or even fourth language.  Most Christians are simply not fluent enough in the Gospel. Vanderstelt argues that becoming a mature Christian requires the ability to "believe and speak the truths of the Gospel ... in and into the everyday stuff of life" (page 23).  The Gospel is not something to be merely understood propositionally.  For it to be truly transformational it must be applied ("spoken") directly into life experience.  His observation is that, even within the Church, personal problems are often given solutions that have no gospel content, such as relationship issues being met simply with training in better communication.  When ...

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world:  Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Jesus is Lord. This is the one political statement that Christians make that places a giant question mark next to every other political claim that humans make.  Including Americans. What do Christians have at stake in that confession of our faith?  Everything. Christians will always carry two passports:  One, for the country in which we happen (through the happen-stances of moral luck) to be borne into.  The other, that baptismal country that knows no bounds -- a people taken from every tribe, nation, tongue, socio-economic class, gender.  This is a nation we don't create or sustain, and it's composed of those whose knees and wills and wants have been bent to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I've studied Dietrich Bonhoeffer for most of my life.  Bonhoeffer understood, as the storm clouds of Nazi Germany, gathered -- in a way that was almost unique among Germans -- just what was at stake.  For him, Hitler was Verführer (mis-leader, or seducer). ...

If you were hiring a teacher or university lecturer, would you appoint someone who had posted these tweets? I didn't think so. But the British Prime Minister had appointed Toby Young to serve on the new regulatory body for universities, the Office for Students.  Young proceeded to attempt to reinvent himself through the deletion of several thousand tweets, but that totally missed the point.  These tweets, and the many others like them, point to a lack of judgement and respect for others which renders him completely unsuitable for an office of this nature. Ultimately, Young realized that and resigned. But here's the take-away from the fiasco. I keep telling my students that anyone posting anything anywhere on t'interweb needs to learn this dead simple lesson:  Think before you post.  Think about what you're writing, and all the people who might get to read it.  Your mom.  Your son.  Your boss.  Your potential future boss....

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.

Jennifer Ryan's The Chilbury Ladies' Choir:  A Novel is a fun novel told in the form of diaries and letters in the voices of the female characters and captures some of the richest experiences of women during World War II. In 1940, at a time when women's roles were still firmly rooted in home and hearth, the ladies of Chilbury, England, find themselves at the bleeding edge of progress as the ramifications of World War II begin to infiltrate their little town.  The men of Chilbury head to battlefields, and the village choir becomes the first casualty of the war.  When a female professor of music insists the choir can be reassembled as a ladies' choir, the small community is at first scandalized by such an idea.  But this is soon lost to other more salacious events.  There is the brigadier who hires an unscrupulous midwife to swap his baby girl for a boy, and his teenage daughter seduces a handsome artist who's come to town under mysterious circumst...

Gil Stafford's Wisdom Walking: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life develops a rich spiritual vision for pilgrimage.  Our lives are layered with pilgrimages -- with movement from one place to the next, either spiritually or literally.  Stafford helps us come to understand the wisdom in those journeys, using Jungian typology. Filled with personal anecdotes and stories about the pilgrimages of others, Wisdom Walking is a guide for others who understand their own lives to be a journey.  And helps readers see those journeys as having a particular destination:  Wisdom. It's a particularly useful book -- transformative reading! -- for those who experience dark days and dark roads. ____________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the Peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Jo Piazza's How to Be Married:  What I Learned from Real Women on Five Continents about Surviving My First (Really Hard) Year of Marriage explores how women in other countries adjusted to sharing space, money, time, and all the other minor and major aspects that affect the union of two people under one roof.  Before journalist Piazza met her future husband, she had a successful career and good friends, and she knew how to live happily by herself.  After marriage, she had to adjust to having another person in her life on a continuous basis, and like many newlyweds, she wondered if she was doing it correctly.  The wisdom she gleans makes this book an amazing collection. __________________ I received a free copy of this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

Cheryl Wunderlich's Sacred Rest:  Finding the Sabbath in the Everyday is a beautiful, hardcover collection of one hundred daily devotionals that offer readers the space and time to gain perspective on the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  Each devotional contains a brief story, anecdote, reflection, scripture and prayer.  There is space within each reading to leave notes and a bookmark ribbon to mark your place.  I highly recommend it for those whose daily hustle seems to crowd out so much time -- particularly for rest and sabbath. ______________________ Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers < http://booklookbloggers.com > book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 < http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx...

I guess it's because I've been online in some form or another since 1997.  By my count that's twenty years and still going.  I began a blog back in the day, over at the now-defunct Xanga.  And in all that time, I've realized something significant about an online presence for those in ministry:  The rise of social media makes ministry that much more difficult. It disturbs me to see the way that we Christians behave on social media. I can post one thing -- whether serious or not (and I do use humor intentionally as a part of my online presence) -- and it never amazes me how someone might respond.  I have referred to the practice as a "slam and run".  I just have to thank God at times for the delete option.  But, it's an example of a bigger problem.  Christians aren't always behaving well online.  What we'd never say offline we have no problem saying online. Seriously, this isn't a personal plea.  This is a Kingdom plea.  J...

I don't make New Year resolutions. It's tough enough living day to day, making all the necessary changes I have to make with my life, to worry about adding some over-arching change to which I will aspire for the New Year.  I'm enough of a mean-spirited, selfish, depressed, solipsist, that one resolution cannot make all the changes that need to be made. So I don't do it. Most people make so short-sighted and self-involved New Year resolutions that, typically, they'll have forgotten what they decided to change by the end of January, or at least most certainly by June. That said, I believe the making of resolutions -- since I do make them (just daily, not annually).  Resolutions offer us a time to give an account, if only to ourselves, about who we take ourselves to be and what we aspire to become.  That kind of honest introspection is anything but self-involved and narcissistic. With everyone one of us, there's a wide gulf between what we are meant to...

Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation:  Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.