The Hole In Our Gospel

I have just finished "The Hole In Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World". Normally it takes me about a week to 10 days to finish a book. However with this book, I finished it in 3 days. It is a great book. It really brought things into perspective. I have often asked myself what does God expect of me? And YES, the book has changed and will continue to change my life. As Christians we are to help people -all people- and more importantly we must help the poor. Without a doubt this book and the message is extremely convicting and will make you think very long and hard about what our purpose is and what we are meant to do as believer’s of Jesus Christ. I would strongly encourage you to read it and then act on it.

Crazy Love

I just finished Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. I love Crazy Love. It made me look at my view of God’s love ask myself if I was passionately pursuing Him. It’s a book with a website video for each chapter that will challenge your faith.

Here is some of my favorite parts:

“The god of the universe—the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor—loves us with a radical unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.”

Has your relationship with God changed the way you live?

He has an entire chapter devoted to lukewarm people. I found myself described in so many of those profiles…it was kind of hard to read.

It’s a must read.

Willow Creek Leadership Summit – WOW!!!

I have never really considered myself a leader and have often struggled with several aspects of leadership (see lack of leadership blog from April) which is why the "lead where you are" from The Leadership Summit (TLS) really caught my attention. I must say that it was great. I ordered the DVD from the summit and several of the books. If you missed it I encourage you to log on the willowcreek.com website and read about future events. Some of the highlights for me were The Prodigal God from Tim Keller. It was a whole new way to look at the parable of the prodigal son and provided several ways to combat spiritual deadness. I also enjoyed listening to Jessica Jackley about KIVA. Harvey Carey definitely got me fired up with his talk about how Christians have been challenged to change the world. Bono and Tony Blair were also good interviews.

Unleashing Courageous Faith

Just finished reading Unleashing Courageous Faith – The Hidden Power of a Man’s Soul by Paul Coughlin. It was a good book with lots of messages for men. The first chapter was titled…When a Dog is more Manly…Kind of ironic since my last Sunday School lesson was about unleashing Christians and was inspired by the pictures in my last blog. You can read my previous blog to get the story behind it. Here are some of my favorite parts and quotes from the book.
Thumos – definition: a fight drive; courageous and animating spirit without which we don’t grow in spiritual depth and breadth, are unable to deeply love, consistently fail to lead or surmount the sins of our flesh. “It’s a reason why some men think that the men’s ministry should do more than flip pancakes.”

62% of American have passive personalities; 85% of Christians have passive personalities. Passive Christians run to Jesus for protection safety and sanctuary (which is what we call our places of worship).

Cowardice is the most under reported causes of depression in men.

We lose or integrity when we see something wrong and don’t act. Being content with the suffering of others is sinful.

There is a great quote from Rick Warren in chapter 6. Something to the effect of why do we applaud heroic strength in films if there is something wrong with having it at church?

Courage is contagious, but we must be willing to be infected. It’s not forged in isolation. For example, the Marines, disciples, Mormons, etc.

Put it on the highly recommend list.