I almost put it down. The first three chapters, while very humorous, just left me wondering what I was doing wasting my time reading this when there are so many good books out there on my reading list.

However, I stuck with it and am glad I did. Miller’s book goes much deeper and is more profound than his earlier Blue Like Jazz. He deals with some fantastically deep concepts of human personality and societal tendencies in an eminently readable way.

In fact, before I finished the book, I realized I was holding a wonderful tool for postmodern evangelism and apologetics. Miller is able to share the glory of Christ in a work that is relational rather than propositional.

Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies.

With just such pithy analogies, Miller pulls the Christ follower back into following Christ in a love relationship and away from our reductionist tendencies to make Christianity more important than Christ.

I recommend it!

Mark Batterson is the founding pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. Carolyn and I missed the opportunity to attend when we were there two years ago. It’s a unique church that has one of D.C.’s best coffee houses as its primary outreach ministry – called Ebenezers. NCC has chosen strategically to use movie theaters along the metro line as their worship locations.

In a Pit is a fantastic, easy-to-read book that is harder-to-digest. It’s difficult dining simply because Batterson packs so much challenge and encouragement into such a small book. You won’t put it down scratching your head, but you may put it down holding your heart.

He uses the little-known Old Testament passage about one of King David’s mighty men, Benaiah, in 2 Samuel 23. Batterson builds a bridge from Christian inactivity to faithful adventure. As you read, you’ll be inspired and encouraged to quit sitting on the bench and get into the game of hope, faith, life, and joy. He calls you into adventure that is promised and compelled by Christ’s love.

He cares about the little things like wedding receptions and borrowed ax heads. God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great because nothing is too small for Him either.

How does one quit cowering in a corner and embrace risk? Batterson’s short book may not tell you exactly how, but it will lead you to the edge of your seat wondering whether perhaps the life you’re living is only a non-life and the greatest experiences are out there… on the end of the high dive.

He makes an excellent point talking about sin avoidance in our lives. Too many “Christians” try to avoid sinful things… yet they excuse themselves for all the things they never do which they should be embracing as followers of Christ.

The servant who buries his talent and breaks even is called “wicked.” Why? Because he wasn’t willing to take a calculated risk. Maybe risk taking is at the heart of righteousness. Maybe righteousness has less to do with not doing anything wrong and more to do with doing things right.

And I would add that perhaps righteousness is not just doing things right but doing the right things. Batterson urges us to become lion chasers just like Benaiah. To do so requires a radical trust in a God that will have you in His hands – whether you die or live.

The real issue is not in chasing the lion or even in killing it. The real issue is in facing the lion. Facing the lions of life is much like facing our fears. They will retain terrible control over what we attempt and what we avoid until we destroy their power over us through faith in His Greater Power.

I can’t think of a book that I would recommend more to someone who has a limited reading attention span. Tell me what you think of it after you climb out of the pit. And leave the lion behind.

This book is a collection of materials that was presented to the conference hosted by Desiring God Ministries in October 2003 to celebrate the 300th birthday of pastor/theologian/philosopher/reformer/Puritan Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is a giant in American Christian life, having help lead and direct the Great Awakening in the 1740s.

It is a wonderful, concise synopsis of Edwards’ life, family, ministry and teachings. Co-author Justin Taylor says in the book’s concluding chapter, “We often stuff ourselves with intellectual junk food while failing to feast upon the rich banquets that are available to us. We have become the unwitting co-conspirators to the ancient heresy that ‘the newer is the truer, only what is recent is decent, every shift of ground is a step forward, and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject.’” (the latter quote from Os Guiness’ Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It).

My advice to you is: Read Jonathan Edwards. Stop going to so many meetings; stop craving for the various forms of entertainment which are so popular in evangelical circles at the present time. Learn to stay at home. Learn to read again, and do not merely read the exciting stories of certain modern people. Go back to something solid and deep and real. Are we losing the art of reading? Revivals have often started as the result of people reading volumes such as these… So read this man. Decide to do so. Read his sermons; read his practical treatises, and then go on to the great discourses on theological subjects.

It has always been one of my main endeavors as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but it is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire… Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old.

It was Edwards who said, “The Christian life is not a sprint, but a marathon,” indicating that one cannot achieve what he desires with God overnight. It is a journey, a process of perfection as we learn to understand, surrender, and enjoy our relationship with God in Christ.

And it is the marked joy that sets Edwards apart from many. It is a wide misconception that the Puritans were a sad, mad lot. Rather, as Edwards is so eloquently able to portray, they were a joyful, passionate, hopeful people who discovered that “holiness is a duty of delight.”

Not only was the man prolific in his writings and effective in his ministry – in spite of being kicked out of the same church in which the Great Awakening began – but Edwards was a loving father and husband. To those who think that “family comes first” must necessarily mean occasional neglect of church and the equipping of saints, one has to marvel at Edwards ability to maintain a stunning schedule of preaching, traveling and pouring himself out for the Gospel and the result in his family and following generations:

13 college presidents
65 professors
100 lawyers and a dean of a law school
30 judges
66 physicians and a dean of a medical school
80 holders of public office including -
3 U.S. Senators
mayors of large cities
governors of 3 states
a Vice President of the U.S.
a controller of the U.S. TreasuryMembers of the family wrote 135 books… edited 18 journals and periodicals. They entered the ministry in platoons and sent 100 missionaries overseas, as well as stocking many mission boards with lay trustees.

I read Stetzer’s Planting Missional Churches while I was at Glorieta this summer – mainly because I had borrowed it from Jackie Flake last year and wanted to return it to him at the conference. The book was a HUGE encouragement to me.

A friend at Lifeway had gotten me an autographed copy of this book, Breaking the Missional Code, and I was just as impressed with it as I was with Churches.

Perhaps one of the most helpful concepts in the book is found early in the first chapter where Stetzer underlines the necessity for the North America church to realize that it must view its own culture as a “foreign” culture. We are no longer living in a “Christian” society – if anything, it’s post-Christian. Because of this reality and the great need to contextualize ministry strategy, he urges a “glocal” view. It’s a combination of thinking that sees local and global at the same time.

It is important to note that the shirt to postmodernism has not happened everywhere – it has not yet impacted many in the church culture because the church culture acts as a protective shield, unmolested by a secular culture’s music, literature and values.

I see this evident in my own community. The strange thing is, that even with a four-year college, Monticello exhibits a surprising resistance to many of postmodernism’s tendencies.

The rest of Breaking the Code urges leaders and church members to become missionaries to their own towns, neighborhoods and local culture. We must think all over again about how to reach those we live among. We can no longer assume that “they” are like “us.” With international students, local ethnic populations, business associations and more, even the most sleepy Southern town may be more glocal than we realize.

Any church that continues to do church as usual will quickly discover that it’s only ministering to its own and not making a relevant impact on its community. Stetzer has dozens of practical suggestions and processes for “breaking the missional code.”

Beginning with the heart of Father God for all people and progressing to a renewed affirmation that all Christians are “sent” into the world for the purpose of bringing others to the Father, Stetzer and co-author David Putnam hold back no punches in their passionate endeavor to urge churches to get back in the game of missions, beginning at home.

“If only God’s people would spend as much time and money learning how to be witnesses as they do reading a fiction series on the end times, then maybe we would not be living on the only continent in the world where the church is not growing.”

As they enumerate the ways to break the code, the authors remind us “the church is one of the few organizations in the world that does not exist for the benefit of its members”. Indeed, they take time to unpack the damage some of the recent church movements of the past have caused for Christendom in North America in particular. We have also been guilty of “exporting” a flawed methodology overseas as we’ve done missions.

There are a few chapters that bothered me in their sheer pragmatism. I kept getting a conflicting whiff of “it’s-not-about-methods” to “try-doing-this.” However, some of their practical suggestions are extremely helpful and at times challenging.