Lisa notes

If you like satire, especially satire pointed at yourself, you’ll love this book.

How to Be a Perfect Christian obviously does NOT tell us how to be a perfect Christian. Instead, it gives us lots of funny examples of ways we trick ourselves into thinking we can become perfect Christians.

For example, in Chapter 2, “Worshipping Like a Pro,” you learn about church swag. (If you’ve ever had a church bulletin riddled with grammatical errors, you’ll appreciate this.)

“Researchers have discovered that every church bulletin in existence contains no less than three hundred spelling or grammar errors. If you find one with less than that, hang on to it—it’s gonna be worth some money someday.”

In the next chapter, “Doing Life Together,” you find a few simple tricks to help you pray in public with your small group.

• Use the phrase “Father God” like it’s going out of style.
• Say “just” every other word. . . . Ninety percent of any good prayer is comprised of the three words “just,” “Father,” and “God.”
• Take on a Puritan persona throughout your prayer.
• Pray for almost three hours so everyone sees how holy you are.
• Correct other people’s prayers.
• Pray two or three times just to keep the group on their toes.
• Use big, bibley words, even if you don’t understand them.

We internet Christians aren’t left out. Chapter 5, “Looking Really Spiritual Online,” has these pointers.

“So to begin to revitalize your prayer life, you need to learn the biblical practice of posting pictures of yourself during your quiet times with Jesus to every social media channel available.”

To get a really spiritual picture of your open Bible, they suggest you follow the acronym CHAFF.

C—COFFEE

“Make sure you get a cup of tasty joe in your picture. Taking the picture while at a coffee shop even shows that you don’t care if the world knows you’re a Jesus freak. Bonus points, baby!”

H—HASHTAGS

“Hashtag that sucker for maximum reach. We recommend hashtags like #blessed, #amen, #holy, #iambetterthanyou, and #lookeveryoneimreadingmyBible”

A—AUDIENCE

“Don’t forget that you’re doing this for an audience of one million.”

F—FILTER

“A plain-Jane picture of an open Bible never got anyone on the express lane to heaven. You need to use filters to make the image appear deep and spiritual. Apply an authentic vintage look, and you can be sure you’ll get a like from Jesus Himself.”

F—FAT

“As in the size of your Bible. Use a fat, thick, leather-bound study Bible. Make sure to get the gold-embossed title on the spine in the picture, so everyone knows you read your MacArthur Study Bible regularly.”

And so it goes.

This book might make you cringe. Sometimes we need that uncomfortable feeling.

But this book will also make you laugh. We need that, too.

“Now get to work! It’s not easy being perfect.”

* * *

If you want to see the book trailer, watch this.

My thanks to Net Galley
for the review copy of this book

The odds seem stacked against her. As a child, my friend had ill-equipped parents. Year later, the parents still lack necessary skills.

My friend’s husband is in jail. She is on her own with three small kids. She has no job. She has very little money month-to-month. Her resources are extremely limited.

Pam Ecrement had a friend in hard circumstances, too. Her friend Becky had a difficult childhood, was sexually abused, and was used and abandoned by various men.

When I began reading Becky’s story in Pam’s new book, Bring Me a Vision: A Story of Redeeming Hope, I didn’t see much hope in Becky’s life. One situation after another, one poor decision after another, spiraled her life downward. Broken relationships and substance abuse and fractured families seemed to point nowhere but down.

Yet God.

After one too many losses, Becky met a Christian counselor who not only cared about her current situation, but also about her soul. Pam, who was that counselor, showed love to Becky in a way she had never felt. The unconditional love that comes from God flowed through Pam to Becky. And week by week, it changed Becky.

“Little by little the counseling and the working of the Holy Spirit were beginning to open Becky’s eyes to who she needed to know versus what she needed to know.”

Becky kept a journal. Many of her entries are included in Bring Me a Vision.

“Pam started our session by sharing with me that she is humbled to have been a part of my coming to the Lord and a part of my growth over the past two years. That was an incredible compliment to me. One that I won’t forget and possibly the first compliment to ever penetrate my flesh and stick to my heart.”

As Becky’s story continues to unfold, we begin seeing the fruits of grace ripening again and again.

And one of those fruits was a new ministry: RAHAB, Reaching Above Hopelessness and Brokenness.

When Becky began ministering to women on the streets in her town of Akron, Ohio, she prayed for a clearer vision from the Lord on what more to do. RAHAB was birthed in 2002 to form relationships and provide resources to equip women who had been trafficked.

By sharing her message with others, Becky was able to gather needed resources to help these women.

“She felt an urgency to help those in her audiences to understand what seemed unthinkable to them, and to be reminded that Jesus calls us not to look away from those we might see on the streets. No one awakens one morning and decides to be a prostitute. No one asks to be abused and often it is the abused who are snared into prostitution as a part of being caught in the dark web of human trafficking.”

RAHAB has since opened a safe house for women who need a stable place to live as they break free of chains.

God used Becky for years to lead this ministry. Her own brokenness allowed her to touch other broken women. And her own redemption shined a light of hope on their own lives.

Bring Me a Vision is a real-life story of love and life and hope. It reads like a novel, but it actually happened.

If you need a reason to praise God today, praise him for the life of Becky. And Pam. And all the women and children who are now free from sex trafficking.

I continue to pray for God to move mountains in the life of my own young friend. Progress seems slow at times, but I know God can still do miracles.

It’s clear that he performed a miracle in Becky’s life.

* * *

All profits from Bring Me a Vision go to RAHAB Ministries. Read more about the book or order a copy here.

Read more about RAHAB Ministries here.

Watch Becky Moreland tell about RAHAB Ministries.

Inside Your Frame

What’s the last thing you say to your kids as they’re walking out the door? To your spouse?

I want the last words I say each time to be: “I love you.” But too often, it might be this: “Be careful!”

I sometimes frame my life too much around safety.

The words we use build a frame around our lives.

What is the picture inside your frame?

Reframing the Soul

In Reframing the Soul by Gregory Spencer, our words are given the importance they’re due.

“We label, we name, we frame all of our experiences, past, present, and future. We give words to our inner and outer worlds. In doing so, we construct a kind of home we carry with us.”

When we remember the past, we don’t do so with perfect clarity. We individualize the frame to fit us. When we look at the present, we do so through our own personal lenses. And when we think about the future, again we’re framing it based on our experiences and worldview.

Spencer doesn’t suggest that the goal is to frame everything positively. He’s not trying to convince us to put our spin on things.

But he does want us to see that every word is a window.

“Since every word is a window, we are all called to examine our speech, our conversation and writing, to ask whether the view out a particular window is worth our gaze, whether our THAT should actually be a THIS.”

Throughout the book, Spencer helps us frame our world in more appropriate ways. He uses a method called the four essentials of the soul:

• Remembering the past with gratitude
• Anticipating the future with hope
• Dwelling within ourselves in peace
• Engaging with others in love

Spencer relates the story that a blogger, reflecting on her parenting, noticed she always told her kids, “Have fun!” when they walked out the door. And when they returned, “Did you have fun?” Until she realized: her framing was reinforcing a worldview that everything should be entertaining and highly pleasureable.

And we all know, life isn’t always about fun.

Jesus talked about measuring our words. In Matthew 5:22, it’s recorded that Jesus said, “Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

“Though Jesus doesn’t mean that our words are all that matters, he does mean that our words matter.”

And so I recommend the words of Gregory Spencer in Reframing the Soul. He brings a needed emphasis on how we’re framing our lives. And a clearer focus on choosing to frame them better.

“Yet, no matter how severe our circumstances, we have choices about how we frame things.”

More Favorite Quotes

“Our confidence is not in our circumstances (which might not improve) but in God (who will redeem the circumstances).”

~ * ~

“No matter what one person tells you, no matter how airtight their case seems to be, there is always, always, always another way of looking at it, another (not necessarily equal) way of framing.”

~ * ~

“Much of the time, we struggle to remember that the stories others tell make sense to them. Some stories we hear are so contrary to our ways of framing that we are flabbergasted. But it is immensely helpful for ‘engaging well’ to listen appreciatively to a different version of the story, to listen to others the same way we want to be heard, with respect. Though intentional deception is always possible, more often than not, people have their reasons for framing their story the way they do. We might disagree—even strongly—but unless we hear the story out, we are unlikely to work things through.”

~ * ~

“Or maybe the human memory is more like a stomach, something that changes what it ‘digests.'”

~ * ~

“Instead of saying, ‘This is exactly what happened!’ we might say, ‘This is how I remember what happened.’“

* * *

My thanks to Net Galley
for the review copy of this book