This Week’s Sermon – Heeding the Call

 

Hi everyone! This week’s sermon was strongly influenced by an event in our church family. Last Saturday night, an eight-year-old in our congregation suffered a brain aneurysm. The next few days were touch and go until doctors could address the loss of blood in her brain and stabilized her. That crisis, and the expected questions of “why,” greatly impacted how I read this week’s scripture. I would love to hear your thoughts…

SCRIPTURE – Mark 1:14-20

 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

SERMON
Heeding the Call
Mark 1:14-20
January 25, 2009

You just never know in life, do you? It seems like the moment you think you’ve got it figured out, the moment you begin to believe things are going well, life reminds you that nothing can be taken for granted. Last Saturday evening, Sean and Susan Bracken went out to dinner at Noodles and Company with their kids, Grace and Sean Jr. A few hours later they were in a private consultation room at Children’s Memorial Hospital, waiting to hear if Grace was going to survive the night.

She did, thankfully, miraculously, and has since survived a surgery to cut off the blood flow to the aneurysm in her brain. She still has along road ahead of her, but the immediate threat has been treated. Who would have thought a week ago that this is what would be on our minds and in our hearts this morning?

It certainly raises a lot of questions for me. As I was working on the sermon for this scripture this week, the question that kept coming up was, “If the kingdom of God is near, why is Grace lying in Children’s Memorial Hospital? If the kingdom of God is near, why are there so many names on our prayer list?”

When something like this happens to someone we love, questions of “why” are often the first things to come into our mind. I think this is especially true when it happens to a child. Grace didn’t deserve this. The Brackens didn’t do anything to bring this on themselves. There are millions of people in the world a lot more evil and deserving of hardship than them. Why?

I’ve been thinking about that question all week, and I don’t have an answer. I don’t know why things like this happen. They happen because that’s life, and just living is a risky proposition. Whether it’s MS or cancer or a drunk driver or just plain old age, something will get all of us one day.

The challenge for us is not avoiding the dangers of life – because they can’t be avoided – but choosing how we respond to them. I learned another lesson in that area this week as I watched Sean and Susan deal with this overwhelming ordeal in their lives. I can’t begin to imagine how they felt as they walked this journey, as they looked at their daughter lying in the hospital bed with tubes and monitors and machinery all around her.

But what I saw in them and in their family was this incredible sense of trust. They trusted in the nurses who were providing constant care for Grace. They trusted in the doctors who were going to be doing the procedure on Grace’s brain. And they trusted in God.

I know that may sound flippant but I promise you there was nothing flippant about God’s presence with the Brackens this week. Susan mentioned several times how she could feel everyone’s prayers surrounding them. On Tuesday, after the procedure was finished, we had not one but two prayers of thanksgiving. Sean said to me, “You know, we’ve spent a lot of time asking God for things. I think we should be about thanking Him.”

I don’t believe that trust comes quickly or easily, but I do believe the Bible gives us a blueprint for how to build up our trust and faith in God. Jesus says it in our passage today: “Repent and believe.” Turn from trusting in ourselves or in the world and trust in God. Leave behind thoughts and behaviors that destroy life and turn to the God who has given us our lives. Repent and believe. Turn and trust.

That makes for good bumper sticker material, a nice slogan for a brochure. But thankfully Mark doesn’t stop there. He gives us a first-hand account of what that looks like with the calling of Jesus’ first disciples. Jesus calls to Simon and Andrew and James and John and says, “Follow me.” And, strangely enough, they go.

Realize at this point in the story, those four men probably didn’t have any idea who Jesus really was. He hadn’t worked any miracles or delivered any sermons. And these men had other responsibilities to think about. They had families, they had jobs. They had 100 different reasons not to drop everything and follow this wandering prophet. And yet they went.

Talk about trust! I’m not sure about you, but I don’t know that I would have responded the way they did. I might have been curious about what Jesus had to say, but I would probably want to ease into the situation a bit more slowly. Maybe I could put my name on a signup sheet for potential disciples or attend a potluck presentation on the Kingdom of God. Maybe if I waited a bit longer Jesus would offer a less rigorous category of auxiliary membership with which I could get the same rewards with such a radical commitment.

But Jesus isn’t asking for our auxiliary membership. He’s asking for our lives, our faith, our complete trust. I enjoy the intellectual part of faith. I would teach a Bible Study every day if I could. Understanding the theology beyond your beliefs is an important part of having faith. But being a disciple is about more than talking theology or praying an eloquent prayer. Being a disciple means that when we are faced with a crucial moment in our lives, we respond we trust. When we are called to serve, or when we are called to take a stand, or when we are called to have faith in a surgeon’s skill, we respond with trust.

That trust is built upon faith, not knowledge or training. If a certain level of competence were required to be a follower of Jesus, I’m not sure any of us would make the cut. There’s a lot to like about this Jesus guy, but he wouldn’t make a very good headhunter for a company. As the pastor of this church I’m blessed to work with an incredibly skilled and delightful group of folks. Every person on staff here is hard-working and a joy to be around. But they are also very, very talented at what they do. Imagine me calling out to one of you to direct the choir in their anthem or provide childcare for our toddlers every week. Good luck! We have made it a point to hire people who are good at what they are hired to do.

But not Jesus. He needs to recruit 12 people to help him spread the word about God’s kingdom here on earth. I’m thinking he needs a few marketing folks, maybe a motivational speaker, a few talented salespeople. So who does he recruit? A bunch of fishermen and tax collectors and other blue-collar workers. Really, Jesus? Have you seen these guys’ resumes? Have you smelled your resumes?

But what Jesus knows is that God doesn’t call those who are equipped; God equips those who are called. The only prerequisite to being a follower of Christ is a genuine desire to follow. After all, how do you prepare yourself to be a disciple? How do you prepare yourself to trust, no matter what life throws at you? We can’t know what it’s like to have faith in the midst of a crisis until we are in that crisis. Our trust is not built upon knowledge or training; it is built upon a step-by-step journey of faith, a daily commitment to following Jesus.

And if we can commit to following Jesus in calm times, I believe we will be better equipped to following Jesus in the tumultuous times. I’ve had the privilege of working with Sean and Susan in a variety of capacities in the church. Susan is an Elder here and Sean has been on several mission trips. I have seen them put their faith into action, following Jesus’ call to serve. And when the time came for them to trust God in a time of life and death, the faith they had cultivated over the years sustained them.

You may think it’s easy for me to speak about this since everything so far has worked out well. Would I be talking about faith and trust and God’s goodness had things not turned out so well? I believe I would. When we trust in God during difficult circumstances, we aren’t trusting that everything is going to turn out OK. Not all children survive aneurysms. Not all cancer victims become cancer survivors. Trusting in God doesn’t ensure that everything that we want to happen will happen. But what it does mean is that we believe God is with us through it all. Romans 8 says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according this purpose.” That doesn’t say God will make everything work out like want. But it does say in ALL things God is at work.

I believe that. I can’t explain it, no more than I can explain what the neurosurgeons did with Grace Bracken. But I don’t have to understand it to believe in it and trust in it. The time will come for me and for each one of us when we face the same decision. Trust or not trust? Follow or not follow? Ignore the call or answer it? Keep living in our old ways or turn to a new one? How you respond, the faith you build and cultivate, starts with the choices you make today. Repent and believe. Turn and trust.

This week’s sermon – The God of Creation

Greetings, everyone! I find it awfully hard to preach about creation when there was so much “creation” to shovel the last few days here in the Chicagoland area. I have to keep reminding myself that it all is a gift from God, even the things that come in snowy packages. In this sermon I move into some sensitive areas about understanding the creation story. I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you disagree with me. Have a great week!

SCRIPTURE – Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

SERMON
The God of Creation
Genesis 1:1-5
January 11, 2009

I’ve been thinking lately of writing a book. I have a few ideas bouncing around, but my problem is I’m not sure how to start it. Not the first chapter or the first page, but the first words. How would you start your book? “Once upon a time?” Think about how some of the most famous book beginnings you know. “Call me Ishmael” from “Moby Dick.” Or “All children except one, grow up.” That’s “Peter Pan.” How about “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” That’s Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities.” Here’s another one: “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day.” That’s how Dr. Suess starts “The Cat in the Hat.”

The author of Genesis chose an incredibly understated way to start the most famous book in history. “In the beginning.” Those words launch a story that has profoundly shaped history and culture to this day. Who knew that three little words could be the start of a book that inspires such great faith and such great controversy? “In the beginning.” This opening statement has amazing intellectual and personal implications, and we’ll look at both this morning.

Here’s what I want to know: In the beginning of what? That’s a very dangerous question. Because as soon as you start asking questions about the Bible, you have to start looking for answers. The Bible in general, and the creation story in particular, has been mined repeatedly for answers to all the significant and meaningful questions in life. And some people have claimed to have found all the answers. Really? If they’ve found all the answers, I’m not sure they’re asking the right questions.

Let me explain that statement this way. A four-year-old boy came to his mother one day and said, “Mommy, where did I come from?” The mother, caught off-guard, began hemming and hawing, trying to figure out how to appropriately answer. She mumbled something about when a man and woman really love each other, they hold hands until a stork comes to give the woman an epidural and brings a baby in a basket. The boy looked puzzled for a second, then said, “That’s weird, because Jimmy said he comes from Indiana.”

When we are looking for answers, we have to be sure we understand the question, or else we may end of finding a perfectly plausible answer to the wrong question. I believe this happens a lot with the creation story at the beginning of Genesis. As you know, you can use certain passages in the Bible to prove just about anything, if those passages are taken out of their context or used in ways there weren’t meant to be used.

The creation story is a good example of this. I’m in no way condemning or condoning a particular scientific understanding of how we got to where we are, be it creationism or evolution or the Big Bang Theory or intelligent design. But what I have learned is that the book of Genesis wasn’t written to for that purpose. There is not a single example of God revealing scientific information to the Israelites. God never says, “Let’s watch this filmstrip about how photosynthesis works.” Using Genesis to support a scientific hypothesis is like using a cookbook to learn how to fix a car or using a Picasso painting to explain human anatomy.

In other words, when we approach Genesis, we have to be sure we’re asking the right questions. We shouldn’t ask, “Can I use Genesis to defend this or that theory of creation?” We should ask, “What is God trying to tell me here? What can I learn about my faith through this story?” We shouldn’t ask, “What does this story say about us?” We should ask, “What does this story say about God?”

Our thoroughly modern understanding of how things work has led us to the prevailing belief that the only truth is scientific truth. That’s the way our brains have been conditioned to work. But what the Bible challenges us to ask is this: For something to be true, does it have to have a purely scientific explanation? I know how the rotation of the earth works in relation to the solar system, but does that mean it isn’t true to say the sun rises and sets? Scientifically, that may not be true. But experientially it is absolutely true.

We can’t prove the events of the creation story. But we don’t have to, because the Bible and science aren’t trying to do the same things. Instead, they could be seen as working in harmony with one another. My understanding of harmony is that different notes and different voices combine together to make the final product. Likewise, scripture and science work in harmony to help us try and understand what is ultimately not understandable. In fact, you could say that science is one way of describing the work of God in this world.

OK, enough intellectualizing. Let’s go back and see if we can the right question. What does this story tell us about God? In these first few verses, we learn a lot about God. First of all, God’s primary role is Creator. In fact, the Hebrew word for “create” is only used in the Bible to describe what God does. Humans don’t create. We may move things around and put things together in new ways, but only God creates.

And what God creates in these first few verses is profound. When we enter the story, there is chaos. The earth was formless and empty and darkness reigned. As I’ve shared with you before, the Hebrew for “formless and empty” is “tovuvabohu,” which sounds like what it is. In fact, I learned from a German teacher that Germans use that same word to mean “ruckus” or “mess,” as in, “You’ve sure made a tovuvabohu of things!”

What God does is take the tovuvabohu and make order out of it. There’s nothing sinister or evil about this chaos. It simply means that God has not finished working. The Spirit of God hovers over the waters and God says, “Let there be light” and separates the light from the darkness, creating our understanding of time. How do you mark time without day and night? You can’t. What God does here is order our lives by giving us day and night.

It’s important to talk about these events in the present tense. I’ve made the point that this isn’t science, but it also is not history. There’s a song in our hymnal called “Creator God, Creating Still,” and that’s the mindset we should have when digesting this story. Instead of saying, “God created the world,” we can say, “The word is God’s creation.”

This has important implications for our lives because it means God is still creating, still at work. And that’s a very good thing, because I certainly see a lot of chaos in my world and in my life. We’ve sure made a tovuvabohu of things, haven’t we? Whether it’s something we’ve brought on ourselves, or something brought on by our aging bodies or the capriciousness of life, it would easy to convince someone that the world is formless and empty and chaos reigns.

But the presence of chaos simply means that God has not finished working. God still has a creating word to speak into our world and into our lives, sending us God’s spirit to hover over us and around us and bring order out of chaos. God has not called this world to be chaotic, fragmented or in conflict, and God will stay with it until it becomes what it has been created to be. God doesn’t cause the chaos, but God can work through the chaos for God’s purposes.

But God is not the only one with work yet to do here on earth. As the creation, we have a role to play, as well. This story tells us it is the Creator’s job to speak, and it is the created’s job to listen and respond. God says, “Let there be light” and the creation responds with light. God says, “Be fruitful and multiply” and storks start showing up with epidurals. God says, “Go and make disciples of all nations” and people are touched and lives are changed.

But we can’t respond as God’s creation if we aren’t listening to the Creator. We are called to listen, to pay attention, to look for answers to the question, “What does this tell us about God?” and then to tell others what we discover. God is not sitting back waiting for us to get it right. God is active in this world, working to make it the creation God called it to be. And we should be active doing the same thing.

I know there’s still chaos out there. And in here. So many bad things that happen to good people.  So much suffering. So much sickness. So much tovuvabohu. We’ve been in the hospital beds, we’ve been in the funeral homes, we’ve stared at the stack of overdue bills. So many questions that seem to go cruelly unanswered. So many endings – of dreams, of promises, of lives.

But the good news of this story is that our God is a God of beginnings. Not just repetitions or moving pieces around or rehashing old patterns. God is a God of beginnings, of order in the midst of chaos, of resurrections. To all our questions, God provides an answer. It’s not a scientific answer. It’s not an historical answer. It’s something so much more. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.” God is not doing working yet.  Are we?

This Week’s Sermon – The Word Made Flesh

 Happy New Year, everyone! A new year means a new  blog layout and hopefully new blessings from God. I started this year at the beginning of John’s gospel. What better way to begin 2009 than trying to understanding this amazing prologue? I hope you are blessed by this sermon!

SCRIPTURE – John 1:1-14

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

SERMON
The Word Made Flesh
John 1:1-14
January 4, 2009

My family and I had a wonderful trip back home to Indiana. It’s always good to be with family during the holidays. While we were there, we experienced something truly amazing. It was this strange meteorological phenomenon. When we arrived in Indiana and got out of the car, I looked up into the sky and saw this glowing orange ball. It seemed to be emitting both light and heat. I seem to recall seeing something like that around here, but it’s been so long I can’t remember it well.

In fact, our trip back to Chicago reminded me of this. When we left Jeffersonville on Thursday morning, the sun was shining. By the time we hit Indianapolis, a few clouds were scattered around the sky. By Lafayette, more clouds had gathered, but you could still find patches of blue. When we passed through Valparaiso, the blue was harder to find and the sun had trouble finding an opening in the clouds. By the time we got home to the frozen tundra of Grayslake, the sun had set, it was bitter cold, and the sky was gray.

I think we suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder, which is also called the “winter blues.” It’s hard not to get depressed in this weather, isn’t it? It’s only appropriate that the acronym for Seasonal Affect Disorder is S.A.D. S.A.D. is literally caused by not enough exposure to sunlight. If you go too long with the sun, it starts to affect your mood, your personality, your whole way of life.

One of the treatments for S.A.D. is what’s called a therapy lamp. This lamp gives off powerful doses of light, basically tricking your brain into thinking you live in Fiji instead of Lincolnshire or Lake Forest. While this therapy lamp might have its benefits, nothing is better the real thing. To survive these winters, we need exposure to the light.

In our gospel reading today, John is making the same point, but about a different kind of light. The other three gospels have more conventional beginnings, but not John. While Matthew and Luke start with the birth story and Mark starts with Jesus’ baptism, John starts with this poetic prologue, which reads more like a hymn than a story.

John is trying to do several things here, including conveying the idea of Jesus to a Greek audience. One of the challenges in early Christianity was how to sell the idea of Jesus to a group of people who had no connection to Judaism and were not rooted in that tradition. To the Jews, the concept of a Messiah was powerful. But to the Greeks, it meant little or nothing. So how do you talk about the coming of the Messiah to folks who don’t know what that means?

You put it into their terms. While the Greeks might not understand the Messiah, they do understand the idea of “logos.” “Logos” in Greek means reason or mind and that idea carried a lot of meaning in Greek culture. So when John writes that the “logos” was with God and the “logos” was God, he’s making a statement to the Greeks. When he says “the logos became flesh and dwelt among us,” he’s saying to them that the mind of God became a person.

But John isn’t trying only to convince the Greeks about the nature of Jesus. John says “the world did not recognize him,” so he’s also talking to followers of Christ who may have missed the point of Christ’s coming. There was a tendency to try to characterize Jesus as either fully human and not divine or fully divine and not human, to compartmentalize Jesus’ sphere of influence. And we’re guilty of that as well. We turn to science to deal with external issues and to psychology to deal with internal issues, which leaves Jesus to handle the rest, whatever the rest is. But John is saying to his ancient readers and to us that Jesus is over it all. Not only is Jesus the Word and the Word was God, but Jesus also became flesh and dwelt among us. Through Jesus, God became one of us, bringing with him a new beginning.

There’s another book in the Bible that starts out, “In the beginning.” We’ll be looking at that passage next week. John’s opening calls to mind the opening of Genesis, when God created the world. In effect, Jesus’ coming is a new creation, a fresh beginning for humanity. God has broken into the world to present to us a new way of knowing and relating to God.

And through Christ, God has given us a powerful tool to help us live our lives. John says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of humanity.” John uses the word “light” 21 times in his gospel, often times in contrast to the word “darkness.” “The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.”

Our whole creation is geared toward the light. If you put a plant in a dark room and let in a shaft of light, the plant will grow toward that light. A car’s headlights only shine a few dozen feet, but you can travel a thousand miles that way. I still remember fondly that golden orb in the sky over Christmas vacation. We crave the light in our lives, maybe because we are so often surrounded by darkness.

John’s metaphor of light is illuminating for us. Think about how our use of light corresponds to Jesus’ role in our lives. For example, Psalm 119 says that God is like a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. In other words, Jesus is like a flashlight, guiding us through the darkness or helping us find our way when we our lost.

Psalm 27 says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” When I think of light that drives away fear, I think of the nightlights in our girls’ room. Jesus offers us assurance and protection, even when we feel the darkness pressing in.

John says in verse 9, “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” In other words, Jesus imparts wisdom and understanding, like a light bulb in our heads. Our relationship with Jesus and our reading of scripture can help us understand things we might not be able to comprehend otherwise.

And then there’s the sun, which gives both light and heat. Jesus lights up our life and provides warmth to our hearts. My friend David Shirey says, “No plant will grow, no flower will blossom, no fruit will ripen if deprived of the light of the sun. And as far as John is concerned, no soul can grow, no personality can blossom, no one’s faith can fully ripen if deprived of regular exposure to the Light of the World.”

The challenge is making time for that regular exposure. One of the things Jesus’ coming did was it disrupted the status quo and changed the rules about how people related to God. Christ’s coming was an interruption, “inter” meaning “into” and “rupt” meaning “break,” like “rupture.” Jesus’ coming was literally God breaking into this world.

Have you ever had your day broken into like that? You think you know what you are going to do but then something comes along and shakes your world like a snow globe. You plan on running errands but get a flat tire. You had hoped to have lunch with a friend but woke up feeling sick. You were going to get some work done around the house but got a phone call from a relative in need.

I’ve found that in my job, my most significant ministry often gets done by way of interruption. But I don’t see them as interruptions; I see them as opportunities. When someone calls me while I’m writing my sermon, which happened this week, it’s not an interruption of my work, but a chance to live out what I’m writing, to take the word on the page and let it become flesh by embodying God’s care and love.

The light that gives life has indeed come into the world, has come to each of us, interrupting our plans and our lives. And we are called to reflect that light into this world, into our conversations and relationships and even into our interruptions. Because that’s where God is most needed and most present, and it’s often where life is most meaningful. Who could schedule the moment you first fall in love, or your child’s first step, or your grandchild’s first word? Could you imagine treating those things as interruptions? What if we saw interruptions as opportunities for God to do something surprising?

We’ve just gone through a period of giving gifts to each other, but I want to encourage you to give a gift to yourself today. I want you to give yourself permission to be interrupted by God, to let God break into your life and shine a little light. Maybe this will happen as you pick up the Bible and read a few passages, or as you sit quietly and think about your blessings. Maybe this will happen as you call a friend you haven’t talked with in some time or while you’re serving at a soup kitchen. Give God space in your life to break in.

There is darkness in this world. But we also believe there is light, a light so strong that the darkness cannot destroy it. It’s a light that guides us along our way, offers assurance and protection, gives us understanding, and fills our life with warmth. I know a lot of people who live in darkness and could use that kind of light. I bet you do, too. Reflect God’s love in your life. Live like you believe Christ has come. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Let there be light!

Turning the Page…

I keep a running bibliography of what I’m reading. I do this partly because the Elders at my church like to see that I am continuing my education. They want to know that their pastor isn’t sitting around eating Reese’s Cups and playing Wii (that’s only on weekends). But I also do it as a reminder of my literary journey. Below are the books I read in 2008. I have divided them into “work” and “fun” but there is obviously a lot of overlap in those categories. Many of the “work” books were a lot of fun to read, and many of the “fun” books informed my work. I’m not going to take the time to provide a link for every one of the books. If you’re curious about a book, search on Amazon for it. Also, I’m glad to offer any comments if you’d like to know more about a particular book. Happy reading!

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2008

WORK

Breaux, Mike. Making Ripples.

Bridges, William. Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes.

Brown, Raymond. The Message of Deuteronomy.

Buford, Bob. Halftime.

Easum, William. Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers: Ministry for Anywhere, Anytime, with Anyone.

Enns, Peter. Exodus: The NIV Application Commentary.

Gane, Roy. Leviticus, Numbers: the NIV Application Commentary.

Gray, John, M.D. Mars and Venus.

Halvorsen, Delia. Teaching and Celebrating the Christian Seasons.

Keller, W. Phillip. A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.

Lawrence, Rick. Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry.

Lucado, Max. Every Day Deserves a Chance.

McLaren, Brian. A Generous Orthodoxy.

Moreland, J.P. and Tim Muelhoff. The God Conversation.

Ortberg, John. When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box.

Rainer, Thom, and Eric Geiger. Simple Church.

Reeves, Nancy. Spirituality for Extroverts.

Schmitmeyer, Jim. Preacher in a Hard Hat.

Sisk, Ronald. The Competent Pastor: Skills and Self-Knowledge for Serving Well.

Stanley, Andy. Next Generation Leader.

Wheatley, Margaret. Turning to One Another.

FUN

Blakley, Brian, M.D., and Mary-Ellen Siegel. Feeling Dizzy: Understanding and Treating Dizziness, Vertigo, and other Balance Disorders.

Cornwell, Patricia. At Risk.

Evanovich, Janet. Metro Girl.

Evanovich, Janet. Three to Get Deadly.

Evanovich, Janet. Four to Score.

Evanovich, Janet. High Five.

Jacobs, A.J. The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Man in the World.

Lamott, Anne. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year.

Lamott, Anne. Blue Shoe.

Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight.

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.

Patterson, James. Four Blind Mice.

Piven, Joshua and David Borgenicht. The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel.

Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers.

Steinbeck, John. East of Eden.

Young, William P. The Shack.

MAGAZINES
Leadership Journal, Preaching, DiscipleWorld, Discipleship Journal