- 10 Books I Recommend + Video – January 2019 (1/29)
Here are books I recommend from what I finished reading this month. - Ordinary Is Underrated – The Ministry of Ordinary Places (1/25)
Don’t think you always have to go big; sometimes the most magic happens when you go small. Review of Shannan Martin’s book, The Ministry of Ordinary Places. - Connect Your Dots – A New Bible Memory Challenge, #Write28Days, and Hope (1/23)
Are you connecting the dots in your life? They can help us discover the bigger picture. Here are three dots in this season for me. - Only Love Can Do That – The Voice of Martin Luther King Jr. (1/21)
Martin Luther King said, “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that.” Read his original works. - What If You Have to Go Backward to Go Forward? (1/17)
Going backward is not what we like to do. But what if going back to the beginning is the best way to make forward progress? - You Might Be an Introvert If . . . (1/15)
You might be an introvert if…you have friends who talk more than you do, you prefer texts to phone calls, etc. Thoughts from Susan Cain’s, Quiet. - Resist and Persist – An Important Book for Our Times (1/10)
What role should people of faith be playing in the fight for equality? Erin Wathen lays it out plainly in Resist and Persist. - Hope for Later – But Also Right Now (1/7)
Hope is about trusting grace in the future. But hope also blesses us right now. - 5 Links, Books, and Things I Love – January 2019 (1/2)
Links and pictures of articles, books, and things I love – January 2019
10 Books I Recommend + Video – January 2019
Here are 6 non-fiction books and 4 novels I recommend from what I finished reading this and last months, including a 1-minute video review of a favorite.
Books I Recommend
NONFICTION
1. The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You
by Shannan Martin
[click here if you can’t see 1-Minute Video Review]
If you doubt your “small” ministry of ordinary things is relevant, this book is a wake-up call. Shannan Martin stresses how important the ordinary things are. She gives tons of examples from her own life to get you motivated.
[My book review of The Ministry of Ordinary Places]
2. The Bible Tells Me So
Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
by Peter Enns
This book will make my top 10 of 2019, I’m sure. Peter Enns has a witty way of shaking up our thoughts about why we believe what we do, and energizing us to think differently where needed. He is a Bible scholar who isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions about the Bible and faith.
3. Good and Mad
The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
by Rebecca Traister
Once upon a time, it was acceptable for men to get angry but not women. But that is changing. Rebecca Traister explains why it’s not only acceptable, but also healthy for women to be angry about injustices we see.
4. Resist and Persist
Faith and the Fight for Equality
by Erin Wathen
Along the same lines, but from a Christ-centered perspective, Erin Wathen explains how we all (both women and men) need to step it up in engaging culture on issues of inequality. She explains why the church should be the epicenter of dignity and justice.
[My book review of Resist and Persist]
5. 40 Days of Christmas
Celebrating the Glory of Our Savior
by Joseph Castleberry
I read this engaging devotional during the 40 days of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. I’ll return to it again in future Christmas seasons because it is short, gospel-centered, and thought-provoking.
6. Remember Death
The Surprising Path to Living Hope
by Matthew McCullough
Why are we so scared of death in this era of information and enlightenment? And even among saved believers? Matthew McCullough walks through reason after reason (or excuse after excuse) of why we fear death instead of embracing it as a reason to hope.
[My book review of Remember Death]
FICTION
7. The Great Alone
by Kristin Hannah
When her Vietnam veteran father decides to move the family to Alaska in 1974, teenage Leni isn’t thrilled about it. But as the story unfolds, we see both the challenges and beauty of the move in a riveting life and death drama of family dynamics. Kristin Hannah really knows how to tell a good story. I loved this one.
8. The Street Lawyer
by John Grisham
Michael Brock is a lawyer for a prestigious D.C. firm when a homeless man breaks into the office and changes his life forever. This novel is a winner on several levels: entertaining read, interesting plot, social justice. I listened to it on audio and loved it.
9. Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
This is a strange novel about children who grew up in an exclusive boarding school in England. Something mysterious is going on, and you only find out about it as the characters begin to understand it themselves. I enjoyed the suspense and relationships involved.
10. Big Little Lies
by Liane Moriarty
Madeline, Celeste, and Jane are three mothers of kindergarten students at a school in Australia. This novel highlights a year in their lives of interacting with each other and other parents at the school and outside of school. It is entertaining and light-hearted a lot of the time, but switches to some very serious issues at other times. It also contains an air of mystery which kept me wanting to read. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about the TV series.)
READING NOW
- I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening)
A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations
by Sarah Stewart Holland, Beth A Silvers - The Universal Christ
How a Forgotten Reality can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe
by Richard Rohr - Eternity is Now in Session
A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity and Getting to the Good Place
by John Ortberg - How the Bible Actually Works
In Which I Explain How an Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That’s Good News
by Peter Enns - The Time Is Now
A Call to Uncommon Courage
by Joan D. Chittister - Attachments
by Rainbow Rowell - Shameless
A Sexual Reformation
by Nadia Bolz-Weber
* * *
What good book have you read this month? Please share in the comments.
My books on Goodreads
More books I recommend
Ordinary Is Underrated – The Ministry of Ordinary Places
“Making the world better for one person makes the world better.“
– Shannan Martin
The Unqualified
I walk into the chaos on Wednesdays. People are lined up outside. People are crammed tight inside. The smells, the jostling, the noise. It can be overwhelming.
What am I doing here?
I don’t feel qualified when I go volunteer at Manna House, one of our local gathering spots to feed the hungry. My skills are limited. My default is quiet.
Sometimes it’s hardest to see where we fit in the big things. When we look at the masses, we don’t see individuals. We don’t know who to love. We’re not sure how to love them.
If we can’t do something big, we think we can’t make a difference at all.
But that’s faulty thinking.
Best Is Often Small
“We are all longing to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.”
If you need reminding of how much little things matter, look at Shannan Martin’s stories. In her new book The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You, she shows us how unprepared she was to love the poor, the needy, the displaced.
Yet one person at a time, one occasion at a time, Shannan Martin just did her thing. Small things. Imperfect things. Sometimes things halfway.
And those things matter.
“Every Sunday I’m inclined to believe that making the world a better, brighter place might really be as simple as making lunchtime brighter for one person.”
Just see somebody wherever you go. Just do a small thing where you are. Get uncomfortable; be messy; put your single drop in the bucket.
And miracles will happen.
God’s Bigger Love
“Simply put, we cannot love what we do not know. We cannot know what we do not see. We cannot see anything, really, until we devote ourselves to the lost art of paying attention.”
When we step out to love someone in our imperfect ways, God’s perfect love can step in and take over. If he has bothered to put someone in our path, we can be bothered to show that person simple kindness.
“Our purpose is not so mysterious after all. We get to love and be deeply loved right where we’re planted, by whomever happens to be near.”
When I feel overwhelmed at Manna House, I’ve discovered the best way to regain calm is to look for one person. One soul who looks a little lost. Or who has a question on their lips. Or who is offering a smile to me before I even offer one to them.
And talk to that one person. Just one. One at a time.
Where one person is, an ordinary place, is where ministry happens. It’s where God is made visible. And where people are loved. Including me.
I don’t have to do it well. Just do it.
“I promise there is no such thing as a too-small gesture of genuine kindness. It doesn’t exist. Any sacrifice drawn from a well of compassion is an act of everyday heroism, and I should know.”
* * *
I highly recommend The Ministry of Ordinary Places. It will encourage you to love right where you are.
Do you have uncomfortable moments in big ministries? Who is one person you can love this week? Please share in the comments.
My thanks to Net Galley
for the review copy of this book
Connect Your Dots – A New Bible Memory Challenge, #Write28Days, and Hope
New Challenges
The beginning of the year can bring extra challenges.
Fitness challenges. New Year’s Resolutions. Yearly goals.
They can overwhelm even those of us who appreciate a good plan.
How do we decide which goals to meet? Even the options between good, better, and best are enough to drown us.
What if we used a kids’ activity to help us?
Connect the Dots.
Remember these drawings? The sneaky goal was to help us learn to count: draw a line from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4.
But the larger life goal is this:
Connecting the dots helps us discover the big picture.
Dots for Me
These are three dots popping up for me this winter.
1. Fitness Challenge
My niece Amanda shared a faith/food/fitness challenge, The Little Way, with our family at the first of the year. I joined in. Today is Day 17 of 30 Days with Revelation Wellness. It encourages us to hope in little changes, that even they can make a difference.
2. Bible Memory
A new Bible memory challenge begins next week at Do Not Depart in Philippians. And because it’s my thing, I definitely want to participate fully in it. It will progress at a slow pace over the next few months. (If this interests you, I’d love for you to join, too!) Memorizing in the moment increases my hope both now and later.
3. Writing Challenge
And finally, beginning February 1 Anita starts the #write28days blogging challenge. I always enjoyed the #write31days so much and now that they’ve ended, I’m grateful Anita is picking up the baton. I’ll be sharing 28 verses/songs/snippets on hope.
I’m choosing each of these challenges because I want to do them. Thankfully they’re all staggered in time, go at different paces, and involve different areas of my life.
Connect the Dots
But how do they connect?
When possible, we like our lives to be integrated. Connected. Whole.
I’ve discovered the connection in my dots: It’s my One Word for 2019, Hope.
I’ve been looking for ways to practice hope, not just think about it.
And if Jesus is my living Hope, I want ways to practice Jesus, not just think about him.
So these three challenges, these dots of fitness, scripture memory, and writing, are each connected to each other through my commitment to hope this year. I love when God brings things into alignment.
Hope Happens
Based on the work of C.R. Snyder, Brene Brown says in The Gifts of Imperfection that hope happens when we do these three things:
- We have the ability to set realistic goals (I know where I want to go).
- We are able to figure out how to achieve those goals, including staying flexible (I know how to get there, I’m persistent, and I can tolerate disappointment and try again).
- We believe in ourselves (I can do this!).
My three dots check all three boxes.
Yet even with that, none of my three dots are end-goals in themselves.
My hope through them is not for weight loss or memory improvement or better writing skills (although if those things happen, I won’t object).
Nor for perfection. And maybe not even for completion (we’ll see).
These challenges are just points of connection for hope. They are useful to help me see the bigger picture, the larger-than-life Hope, a more accurate view of Jesus.
What are the dots in your life? Do you see a theme running through them? Is there a connection waiting to be made?
Even as we connect the visible dots of today, we still won’t uncover the whole grand picture until later. It’s too big to see at a glance.
But in the meantime, today’s dots are enough. They keep us moving forward. They stir us toward progress. To faith. To hope.
Follow your dots.
* * *
Do you see a thread running through your life in this season? Please share in the comments.
- If you want to join the memory challenge, get all the details here. Or ask any questions in the comments. Once you sign up, we’ll send you links to download the resources to help you memorize easier.
- If you want to join the writing challenge, details are at Anita’s place.
What If You Have to Go Backward to Go Forward?
One of the rules of Candy Land is that young players can ignore the backward cards. They might not can handle it. But older players?
When our Candy Land cards kept sending Jeff and I backward instead of forward toward King Kandy, we tried to model healthy adult behavior of accepting our backward movements as fine with us. (It wasn’t too hard.)
But the real test comes in everyday life.
Read it all here: What If Progress Means Going Backward?
* * *
I’m writing today at Do Not Depart for our #NewCreations series. Will you join me there?
Resist and Persist – An Important Book for Our Times
“Our brothers and sisters in the activist community have been telling us the same thing for years about our niceness. Our commitment to being nice, to just getting along, is literally costing lives. They were right then. And they’re right now.”
– Erin Wathen
Women are inching their way toward equality, but haven’t yet arrived. There’s much room left for progress.
“We use slang terms for female genitalia when we want to imply weakness…. Use that word as a symbol of aggression toward women, and it is ‘just locker room talk.’ Use it in reference to a man to imply that he’s weak, and it’s suddenly the worst insult imaginable, as though weakness is so inherent to femaleness that all you need to do is conjure up the image of our body parts and you can effectively make another man worthless. If you use that word as an insult to men, what does that say about how you value women?”
Erin Wathen in Resist and Persist points out that specifically the voice of the church should get louder in calling for more equality.
This book is a moving collection of many different ways that faith can advance the fight for equality for the good of all. Not just for women. Men also benefit when women are empowered. “Good news for women is good news for everyone.”
As Wathen clarifies, women’s issues aren’t only about women; they are humanitarian issues.
“These are matters the church is called to address directly: — poverty — racism — access to health care — family leave and healthy family life — human trafficking — sexual assault and domestic violence, just to name a few.
But all of these issues have one thing in common: none of them should be partisan or controversial. They are not women’s issues; they are humanitarian issues. They are systemic and societal issues that affect all of us—men and women alike.”
Wathen calls for churches to to break free of only “pink ghetto” ministries for women. She suggests that people with privilege learn to amplify the voices of those with less privilege. She says we shouldn’t only make room for others at our table, but we should also show up at theirs.
“But sometimes I wince at the implication that ‘we’ are the ones with the power to invite—with the ownership of the table that entitles us to extend an invitation. I wonder if, rather than finding ways of making room at our table, we would do better to support and lift up what women in other circles are already doing. Then it’s no longer about inviting them to our show, but showing up for theirs.”
This book goes deep in exposing our wounds. It will make you uncomfortable in places.
But it doesn’t leave us there. Wathen shows us how we can use our words as healing properties to move the conversations forward in healthy directions.
“Calling in is more nuanced than calling out. It is constructive. It offers the offending person a way forward without having to put them on the defensive. It puts the onus on them to dig a little deeper, to think more critically about the statement they just made. ‘Hey, Jesus, even dogs get the bread crumbs.'”
This is everyone’s fight. “Women, get other women’s backs. Men, step in more often.”
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to raise their awareness of the systemic issues of inequality in our culture, and who wants to find hope for its improvement, both within our faith communities and outside of them.
“This is about the systemic silencing of literally half of the world—and half of the body of Christ—and it is far past time we ended it, together.”
* * *
My thanks to Net Galley
for the review copy