...to everyday life

Audio of Award-winning Bonhoeffer on Sale!

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxis. It's one of the best biographies I've ever read and it's on sale for only $9.98 through the end of the month at ChristianAudio.com. It recently was awarded the 2011 Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association Book of the Year. This is a great deal.

Here's the description.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace, this is a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler. A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.

After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Führer and was hanged in Flossenbürg concentration camp at age thirty-nine. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the twentieth century.

Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the twentieth century and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.

Holiness of God Free Download

When I read The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul about 20 years ago, it was a watershed in my understanding of God and of my faith. I highly recommend it, but it's not light reading. You can download the audiobook free at ChristianAudio.com. Don't delay. It won't be free forever.

Top Book I Read in 2011

 

Okay, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skeptism by Tim Keller is the only book I've read this year (and I read most of it in 2010), but I don't think I'll read anything better this year. The first half takes on some of the big faith issues: 

1. There Can't Be Just One True Religion
2. How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
3. Christianity Is a Straitjacket
4. The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice
5. How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?
6. Science Has Disproved Christianity
7. You Can't Take the Bible Literally

What I love about this book is that Keller's manner and method of addressing these issues is as informative as his answers. He is respectful at every turn yet manages to challenge and raise questions that skeptics (and our own skeptical minds) would rather avoid or simply neglect to ask.

The second half of the book builds a case for Christianity.

8. The Clues of God
9. The Knowledge of God
10. The Problem of Sin
11. Religion and the Gospel
12. The (True) Story of the Cross
13. The Reality of the Resurrection
14. The Dance of God

There is depth and insight here that I'll return to over and over again. I'm afraid I'll be quoting or stealing (I mean, borrowing) ideas from Keller way too much. I'll have to resort to saying "someone has said" and "I read somewhere" so as not to overuse his name. (Maybe I shouldn't have told anyone that.) Anyway, I highly recommend it.

This is also my number one recommendation as a book to give to a skeptic who likes to read and is willing to think. For those of you who have long commutes or spend a lot of time on a treadmill or stationary bike, consider the unabridged audio version. 

 

Top 3 Books I Read in 2010

...and that I highly recommend.

#3: The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God by Frederica Matthewes-Green - Greatly impacted my personal devotional life and outlook.

#2: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller - Great stories that shaped my perspective and inspired me to live my life as an adventure for God. I'll reread this one for sure.

#1: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas - A great life and very well-written biography. Read it and look at life, ministry and suffering differently. Inspiring. 

Eric Metaxas (Author)

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Free on Kindle--The Case for Christmas by Strobel

Very good, short book making the case for Christ by investigating the truth of Christmas. I'm using a story from chapter 4 this weekend in my message. Download here while they last.

Free Audio of Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper

Go to ChristianAudio.com for your free .mp3 download.

Tim Keller Free Audio Book Download

I love Tim Keller's work. It's this month's free download at ChristianAudio.com.  Here's a description

Why would someone risk his safety, destroy his schedule, and become dirty and bloody to help a needy person of another race and social class? And why would Jesus tell us “Go and do likewise”? Like the wounded man on the Jericho road, there are needy people in our path—the widow next door, the family strapped with medical bills, the homeless man outside our place of worship. God calls us to be ministers of mercy to people in need of shelter, assistance, medical care, or just friendship.

Free Audio of The Hole in Our Gospel

I can't recommend this book enough. I am thrilled that the unabridged audio is available for free. I already have the audio version and it's narrated well. Get the word out on this. Here are some highlights of what I wrote about the book last fall:

Just finished The Hole in Our Gospel today, by Richard Stearns, President of World Vision. The subtitle is "What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer that Changed my Life and Might Just Change the World." How's that for mouthful.

The Willow Creek Association sent a copy to all WCA churches and Willow Creek handed out 10,000 copies one weekend after their church services. So it comes quite well recommended...and it did not disappoint. If I could recommend only one book to someone to help them get a biblical perspective on compassion ministry in the context of local and global missions (what the P.E.A.C.E. Plan is about), this would be the book.

It's a very personal story, Richard Stearns story (remarkable, inspiring and one that most of us can identify with), but it's also like a comprensive textbook. Maybe too textbookish at times, but worth it if you want to learn and go deeper than normal. Reading this book was like taking all I've learned on this topic my whole adult life (a subject I've devoted tons of time and interest) and pouring it into one book that's filled with great stories. It should be required reading for everyone in our P.E.A.C.E. ministry leadership and in our church leadership. I really can't recommend it enough.

Lois and I both listened it. We were deeply moved and challenged. Some good conversations grew out of it, as well as some soul searching in both of us. I'd recommend listening if you struggle getting through long books. I downloaded it from Audible. Some of the stories he tells will undoubtedly be working their way into my messages over the coming weeks. Please read this book.

Get it at ChristianAudio.com. You can download a study guide there too. Could be an interesting study for a small group to take on since the book would be free and you could listen to it between sessions.

Book Highlights: Zero to Sixty by Bob Franquiz

I really like this kind of book by Bob Franquiz, Zero to Sixty: 60 Principles and Practices for Leading a Growing Church--fast-paced and reads like a series of "best-of" blog posts. Lots of great ideas and leadership wisdom. I've been following Bob's blog for some time, so it was exciting when my then 79-year-old uncle told me he had found a great church close enough to his house to ride there on his three-wheel bike...and it was Bob's church. This church is growing fast (and reaching out to my family in the Miami area). Also warms my heart that he's a fellow Cuban-American!

Bob also has a church leadership site with lots of resources--Church-Strategies.com. We've gotten a couple of his seminars on CD and come away with dozens of take-aways.

Here are some highlights (there are some very helpful principles here applicable beyond church leadership):

• [This book's] purpose is to highlight the conversation topics that often don’t make it to the platform at major Christian conferences, yet fill everyone’s conversation during the breaks.
• [Questions Bob asks other pastors from growing churches in his area:] How did your leadership style change between 250 and 500? What was the biggest barrier to your growth at my stage? How has a growing ministry impacted your family? What were your key staff hires that helped you get to the next level? What makes our city unique, and of what should I be aware?
• Pastor, the first thing that you put on your schedule (and should not be moved unless it is a life or death emergency) is your study time.
• I have learned that the people who can help us the most are those who are one or two steps ahead of us. If you are leading a church of 100, find a pastor of a church of 200-300 that has a similar style to yours…
• What will make or break your church is deciding who will be the people that lead and represent the organization--the staff.
• We know what numbers such as 98.6 or 120/80 mean--they’re gauges of our physical health. Likewise, we look at gauges on the dashboard to see if our car is “healthy”; if something lights up or goes into a red zone, we know there’s a problem. In the same way, churches have metrics--numbers that speak to the health of the body of Christ or to our need for help. The Bible says, “Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds” (Proverbs 27:23).
• This may be the most contrarian thing I say in this chapter, but I rarely talk to moms on Mother’s Day. Think about it, the moms in your church say one thing to their family on Mother’s Day: “All I want for Mother’s Day is to go to church with my whole family.” If this day is the one time we reach guys who never go to church, I want to teach a message that will connect with them.
• Your weekend services are the most important event in your community. Parades don’t matter as much, associations don’t matter as much, and PTA gatherings don’t matter as much. The most important hour in your community is what happens in your church on Sunday mornings. Now, are you executing your weekend services in light of that reality?
• So what is your facility saying? Is it shouting, “We don’t care?” Is it saying, “We are passionate about God and people?”
• The purpose of goal setting isn’t simply to attain the goals you set. The primary purpose of goals is to make us the type of person who can reach these goals. This is the reason I pray and set goals. It is because I want to continue growing as a follower of Jesus and as a leader.
• Too many times in the church, we shy away from challenging people because we don’t want to offend. Truth be told, the only people who get offended when we lay out a challenge are people who don’t want to grow.
  

The What and the Why

I put the challenge out there this weekend to get more educated about what you believe and why you believe it. Actually, it wasn't a part of my notes and something that hit me on Saturday night while I was teaching. Yeah, a lot of skeptics I know have a surface knowledge of the real issues of faith and do a lot of posturing. But so do believers.

So someone asked me (via the Communication Card) to recommend some resources for educating yourselves. Here are a couple of ideas you might want to pursue.

• Read the Bible daily and get in a small group study. Reading about the Bible (or theology or apologetics) isn't enough. It can't replace Bible reflection, reading and study.
• As far as reading one book that hits it out of the park, read The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why it Matters by Charles Colson.