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...