Coming soon...

I'm in the process of finishing reading and reviewing a couple of books right now. I expect to publish the reviews for them in the next few days.

Here are some of the upcoming reviews you can look for:


Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century by Hank Hanegraaff. This book delves deep in to the current state of what Hanegraaff identifies as false teaching that is leading many people astray. It mixes research and citation of these teachers and their doctrines with Hanegraaff's counterpoint views on the Gospel.




Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan. Chan digs into what might be a sensitive subject for many American Christians these days. His take on "Lukewarm Christians" and what God is really calling us to is intriguing and powerful.




The Coffeehouse Gospel : Sharing Your Faith in Everyday Conversation by Matthew Paul Turner. In this book, Turner relates several experiences that he and friends have had in sharing faith with others. The book has interesting discussions about ways that work, and some that don't work, when the opportunities come up to share faith.



I hope to see you back when the reviews are published. Keep watching....

The Purpose Driven Blog

Ok, I'm way slack. Over 2 months! I guess I can't call myself a blogger...

Seriously, I took a bit of an enforced break from a lot of online stuff recently. After looking at some long term relationships I have (or used to have in some cases) and realized that I was neglecting many things IRL (in real life) because of the time and energy I was spending online. Between blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and various things in my feeds in GoogleReader, I was constantly feeding my attention appetite.

I was having a hard time find a way to summarize it until I found Tyler's post about Look at Me mentality. In other words, my online community wasn't about being a part of something, it was one attempt after another to get people to be apart of me.

I've struggled with selfishness for all my life. I mean, I help people and do things for people but a lot of times there is a hidden motive of "people like it when someone does nice things and think well of them." It's not always there, but too often for me to feel comfortable with it any more.

So, I've tried to purposefully redirect the energy I was using online into doing things in the world around me and for the relationships I have offline. With somethings I've been successful. With others, not so much.

One of the decisions I've made is that this blog needs to have a purpose and that purpose can't be so much about me.

Therefore, I'm pleased to announce that, for the foreseeable future, I'm going to dedicate this blog to reviewing books and magazine articles that I've been reading. this ties in nicely with the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogger program that I have hooked up with. I'll be doing books from them as well as other books I've picked up. I also expect to review some items from Relevant magazine and Collide magazine periodically.

If you are a loyal reader of this blog I have two questions for you:
1) Why? :-) (No really, why?)

2) What are some of the books you have been reading recently?

Peace.

Photo credit to 'Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis' on Flickr

Passionate Prayers

Back around Thanksgiving '08, I stumbled on something called United Nerd Life Group (UNLG for short). You see, I was on twitter one evening just cruising around looking at what the twitterati were saying. I saw that a few people that I had been following were talking about this online group that was about to meet. There was a URL and everything.

So I clicked the link to see if I could find out more about it. First thing you know, I'm staring at Tony Steward's smiling face as he starts talking about online life groups.

Wait, who is Tony Steward and what is an online life group?

Ok. Tony is a member of the LifeChurch.tv staff and serves as an Online Community Pastor and member of the Digerati team. One of his jobs is to bring the idea of online Christian community to reality. That's where the UNLG thing plays a role.

UNLG is an online life group. That is, it is a group of people that meet, interact, talk, pray, create relationship and fellowship, and generally share in each other's lives through online means. Typically, these types of groups have been done "offline" with people meeting together in a physical location (church, home, coffee house, etc). The online communities remove many of the limitations that exist for the physical groups and allow a much broader range of options, connections, and opportunities.

That's not to say that online is better than or obsoletes the physical groups. Online communities are just another option. Go see what Tony has to say if you are really interested in learning more about online communities and lifegroups.

So, you back with me now? Good.

I hung around for a couple of weeks learning that UNLG was about creating an online community of people that would then propogate that community by creating online lifegroups of their own. We were using Mogulus at the beginning. It was kinda cool. We all got to see and hear Tony on the webcam and we could interact through the builtin chat. Then we decided to try out TokBox. Wow, what a difference it was to be able to see and hear all of the folks in the group. The interaction was amazing.

We did 6 weeks of meetings online with the goal that we would be ready to create and run our own online lifegroups starting in January '09. I'm not going to hit that timeline but I am working on putting the story together and figuring out who and when for my group. The key thing that has stuck with me from the "DNA" of UNLG that we discussed was having a belief in and passion for extraordinary prayer.

I will admit that I have historically been a lukewarm prayer guy. With the exception of a few times in a hospital chapel, my prayers were not very frequent, regular, or, to be honest, passionate. That has changed in the last 9 weeks.

As I spend more time in God's Word I see the call to be serious, passionate, faithful, and honest in my prayers and in quiet time each day. I see where I am called to be full of prayer for anyone and everyone God puts before me.

And it has been so great. I feel incredible and I can feel God's love on me and through me. It's a connectedness I haven't had much of before. I have been really missing out!

So, how can I pray for you today?

The circle of (social media) life

Here's what is on my mind today. Honestly, it has been on my mind a lot lately but it came into focus quite a bit today.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2, NIV)

Why? Well, let's follow the circle:
I read an article in the latest Relevant magazine on by Brett McCracken.
Carlos Whitaker wrote a post on his blog about the same article.
Tony Steward sent a tweet saying that he commented on Carlos' post.
I went and read the blog post. I realized it was about the same article.
I left a comment on the post.
I went back to a tab in Firefox that I had open to Conversant Life.
I noticed that Brett McCracken's name was attached to some movie review articles on there.
This reminded me that I probably followed his blog in Google Reader. So I opened it up and checked to see if it was the same guy.
It is the same guy so I went over to Brett's blog.
Brett's most recent post was about Romans 12. Especially verse 2.
I write a little blog post about how social media connects the dots.

Just goes to show you how God can use anything and anybody. Peace.

For These Tough Times

It's time for another book review. I haven't exactly had a lot of free time to do much reading lately. I put the blame squarely on K.C.

Fortunately, the most recent book I'm reviewing weighs in at under 100 pages. But don't let the low page count fool you, this is a substantial book. Enough buildup. I'm reviewing Max Lucado's "For These Tough Times."

Lucado opens the book with a question from King David:

When all that is good falls apart, what can good people do? (Psalm 11:3 NCV)

The rest of the book focuses on the truth in how David answered his own question. David's response isn't the type of answer that I would expect. Listen to David's declaration:

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord sits on his throne in Heaven (Psalm 11:4 NCV)

"For These Tough Times" isn't so much Max Lucado telling us his thoughts on what people do when the chips are down. It is a reminder of who God is and what He has promised for us.

Lucado writes through 8 chapters:

Where is God?

God's Great Love

Eyes on the Father

Good Triumphant

The Bitter Taste of Revenge

In the Silence, God Speaks

In the Storm, We Pray

From God's Perspective

He uses Scripture from Isaiah to Psalms, to Romans to the Gospels to illustrate how our faith in an almighty, all knowing, all loving God is how people have dealt with tough times through out history. And still do today.

Lucado closes with a Prayer for Troubled Times. In it he asks God to continue doing the amazing things in our lives that he has always done:

And Sarah? Remember her prayers? You heard them. Joshua? Remember his fears? You inspired him. The women at the tomb? You resurrected their hope. The doubts of Thomas? You took them away. Do it again, Lord. Do it again.

You changed Daniel from a captive to a king's counselor. You took Peter the fisherman and made him Peter an apostle. Because of you, David went from leading sheep to leading armies. Do it again, Lord, for we need counselors today. We need apostles. We need leaders. Do it again, dear Lord.

Lucado's small book can be a big reminder of what the Lord has promised us and has done to and through us. I think Lucado has picked the right things to focus us on.

Tell me what you think in the comments below.

Per the recent FTC ruling, I am required to tell you that I received a free copy of this book from Thomas Nelson in return for publishing my review.