David Javerbaum is the former head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has co-authored both of the books Stewart released… so he’s funny, very funny, and tends to follow things down trails looking to see if there is some more funny to be found.
This book, The Last Testament: A Memoir by God, fits right in line with what you expect. Its an imagined additional testament from God, giving a behind the scenes look at what God has been doing and how he thinks its going so far. Like other products from The Daily Show family, it’s a little longer than it needs to be, but it’s still really funny.
If you can handle someone poking fun at your orthodoxy, this book will give some laughs. I like to read unbelievers’ comedy about God because it shows me connection points in our culture and helps me understand others’ viewpoints… the laughs then, are a bonus.
Check it out if you want; if you see it on the shelf be sure to at least pick it up and enjoy the center of the book illustrations, pure comedy gold.
Being a pastor is a unique role in our world with unique challenges to your faith and life that can become difficult during seasons when you feel isolated or alone – for whatever reasons. David Roher wrote this book, The Sacred Wilderness of Pastoral Ministry out of his own experiences as a pastor to help isolated pastors overcome the common hurdles of ministry and to have joy in the calling that God has trusted them with.
I picked this up primarily because I am fascinated right now with the forming nature of the wilderness in the story of the people of God. It seems to me that the wilderness is where God changes people; where our baggage becomes heavy enough that we finally put it down and we move in new ways because of the experiences we have living so close to nature and to God.
Ends up, this book is more of an encouragement for solo pastors in traditionally-minded churches to stay the course, love the people and bring them into God’s presence in community. So, being as I have never been in a solo pastor situation, much of this book wasn’t written with me in mind. I imagine, though, that it would be an encouragement to pastors whose calling is to a smaller community and/or a smaller church, where the connections between people have long histories and deep loyalties. It would be a great book for you if that is the situation you are in – or as an encouraging gift for a pastor you know who goes it alone.
Here’s some goodness for you,
p.15, “It may be that we have to do more thinking than we’d like to about matters of organizational development and the character of contemporary ecclesiastical institutions. Yet we cannot allow our answers to those questions to define the essence of our work.”
p.61, “When we come to believe that our primary task is to build or save congregations, it is easy to slip out of the place where we sound like prophets and into the place where most of what comes out of our mouths sounds like what might be said in a creative meeting at an advertising agency. If our focus is merely the attempt to get people to ‘buy’ our church, then I submit we are directing people’s attention to a product rather than a personal relationship with the living God.”
p.89, “Even a quick survey of the role of the wilderness in the Bible reveals that, in God’s scheme of things, it is anything but a barren and unproductive place. It is a place rich with opportunities for encounter with the truth. It is a place where God’s people are invited to wake up both to themselves and to God…we have to acknowledge how adrift and unstable our lives really are.
p.98, “It’s hard to imagine Jeremiah saying, ‘I have a passion for preaching and that’s why I’m willing to take all this abuse.’ Instead, what we find in both the Old and New Testament is the description of a group of people who would rather have been doing anything but preaching, yet found themselves in those figurative and literal pulpits because they couldn’t dodge the call of God.”
The morning I wrote this post, I was reading the Bible and came across a verse which seemed to contradict what I believed. It was a minor, outlying doctrine – not the Trinity or the deity of Christ or virgin birth, etc. – but it still was not what I had been thinking and so I was faced with a choice of holding onto my doctrine or being conformed to the Scripture. If I hold my doctrine, then I have to do some hermeneutical gymnastics to get around what the Bible plainly seemed to be saying. If I hold to the Bible, there’s the chance that I will feel or look silly, for changing my belief on some minor doctrinal point. Thankfully, I had a great prof in college who told us to hold our Bibles close to our hearts and our doctrines at arm’s reach. The Bible is authoritative, our doctrine is flawed. These days I would go event further to say that the Bible is perfect and all doctrine is flawed – just by the nature of their authors. When God writes the Bible, it comes from a perfect author. When we create doctrine it comes from flawed people. So, the choice of priority of reading doctrine into Scripture or allowing Scripture to form and re-form doctrine becomes remarkably simple…and I changed what I believed.
I was also asked recently by a young friend in ministry about some systematic faith questions and what are some good books for forming one’s doctrine. It’s a long question, so I’m turning it into a little blog post. It was good for me to think through, and good to revisit some great books that have helped shape what I believe about what the Bible teaches. It was difficult to put together because so many books that have helped me aren’t doctrine books, but have some magic in them. So, here’s my little selective doctrine bibliography with some great books that helped me, and might help you!
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. This is a really awesome systematic theology that you can actually read through. It’s practical, not wonky, and has real life applications in addition to strong theological observations. Reading through a systematic is crazy, and everyone should do it.
Christian Theology by Millard Erickson. The very first systematic that I ever read. A definite step up in difficulty to read through; it’s dry and thick, yet good. Don’t read this one first…or ever unless you are having trouble sleeping and want to use the time to grow your doctrine.
Exploring Christian Holiness, Volumes 1-3 (Biblical Foundations, Historical Development & Theological Formulation). These books are excellent resources for understanding theology with a bias towards holiness, or the living out of our theology in practical ways. For me, practical theology is where it’s at, so this is really helpful in this direction.
Practicing Passion, by Kenda Creasy Dean. This book is a youth ministry text, but it approaches youth ministry from practical theology. This makes it, for me, the best book on theology in youth ministry. I consider practical theology is the best approach for pastors serving people and churches; even more so for youth ministers.
The Story of Christianity by Justo L. Gonzales. While not a theology or doctrine book, putting theology in its historical context helps us understand why people believed the way they did and how theologies have developed. In turn, this helps us understand our current doctrines and how the culture we live in affects our core belief systems – especially in doctrinal focus and knowing what issues are the issues of the day.
Surprised by Hope, NT Wright. This is an absolute must read to develop a strong and biblical theology of the end of the world, heaven and hell, and where people go when they die. This one is just plain awesome.
The Power of the Powerless by Jurgen Moltmann. I can’t imagine that this is the best book on liberation theology in the world, but it’s the best I’ve read. Moltmann is a German theologian, writing of liberation theology, which is on the rise in the southern hemisphere, and therefore, becoming increasingly influential in the way that people follow Jesus around the world. I would not call myself a liberation theologian at all, but it is important for me to know and understand this line of thought as it grows globally.
A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. Everyone has an atonement theology, or more than one, but most people don’t know that what they believe probably has a name and probably has a volatile history to go with it. This book isn’t any kind of a systematic, but it is so helpful in developing an understanding of the major theories of the atonement and their contributions to the church and it’s mission.
I recently finished reading the whole Bible through again.I used the ESV Bible plan from YouVersion, so I read every verse in the Bible and the Psalms twice.
It only took me 15 months this time, which is a vast improvement over my 58 months last time. I know some people who can read through the Bible every year which is amazing to me. I’ve read through Genesis about 12 times thinking I was going to read the whole thing and I rarely make it because it’s so great I need tome to reflect and ruminate on what I am reading. Other sections of the Bible are just insanely boring; I mean do you really need to read the dimensions of the tabernacle every year? Or it’s just really depressing; I read through Job this year during a bit of a stressful time and it didn’t help much at all.
If you’ve never read through the whole Bible you should. Even if it takes you a decade, it’s such a great exercise and will help your faith grow. There are guides online and YouVersion makes it so simple to do – it really is just a matter of commitment.
I read the vast majority on my smart phone, until the very end when the app kept stalling and it was driving me crazy. I spent more time loading the app than I was reading the Bible, so I finished the last 10ish days on the computer instead. I still like YouVersion for what it is, but, for me, it still doesn’t compare to a regular old book. Books don’t crash, don’t stall in the middle of your reading and let you change pages whenever you want – almost instantly! Still, I cannot carry 4 versions of the Bible with study notes and any relevant information that I can think of in my pocket…so books may not be the greatest thing ever…
Understanding the way that our current cultural context affects the way we understand God is a real key to growing in Christ and having honest theological views that carry historical truths forward. Since we live in the most judicial society in the history of planet earth, we naturally see God in a judicial way. It hasn’t always been this way, though, and it won’t always be this way either. Since we are living in a time of massive transformation and discovery (a transition into what people are calling postmodernity) it is natural that we are able to examine our beliefs and our doctrines and make massive new shifts and growth that will help us love God, grow in faith and share this hope with others.
This is the goal of Rob Bell’s new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God. He aims to make a contribution to a growing body of Christians that are eager to follow God into the future, and not see God as something that belongs in the past and calls us back to the old days (which have been romanticized into some kind of perfect Christian era).
I will say, if you are beholden to some literal interpretations of poetry sections in the Scripture, this book will challenge you. Young earth creationists that like to fight for a literal seven day creation are sure to ban this book from their local library. Bell seems to ascribe to that funny creation theory that there was a big bang, but it was God who made the big bang. I’ve always thought that was the funniest of all the creation accounts, the agnosticism of creation, if you will.
In addition, the middle of the book is a less than scholarly treatment of quantum mechanics that can get a bit cumbersome. If you already are familiar with quantum physics, it’s a bit boring. If you are overwhelmed by science, it’s a bit heady. All the same, it’s a trendy summary of some recent developments in physics which is fun…but it does drag on.
It’s a great book, and one I will reach for a lot in the future for people who are struggling to believe in God, His existence, or His place in an ever changing world of new discoveries. If you are a Bell fan (guilty here…), or already then some of the material will be repetitive, but for most normal people, this will be a great book with fun information and encouraging words to help us follow God wherever He leads.
Here’s some money quotes to remember for later:
p.2, “And then there are the latest surveys and polls, the ones telling us how many of us believe and don’t believe in God and how many fewer of us are going to church, inevitably prompting experts to speculate about demographics and technology and worship style and this generation versus that generation, all of it avoiding the glaring truth that sits right there elephant-like in the middle of the room. The truth is, we have a problem with God.”
p.7, “…have suffered great pain in their young lives, and the clean and neat categories of faith they were handed in their youth haven’t been capable of helping them navigate the complexity of their experiences. And so, like jilted lovers, they have turned away. God, for them, is an awkward, alien, strange notion. Like someone that they used to know.” (cue Gotye)
p.15, “What I’ve observed is that while we want more of a connection with the reverence humming within us, we often don’t know where to begin or what steps to take or what that process even looks like.”
p.18, “I believe God is with us because I believe that all of us are already experiencing the presence of God in countless ways every single day… I believe God is for every single on of us, regardless of our beliefs or perspectives or actions or failures or mistakes or sins or opinions about whether God exists or not.”
p.19, “…when I talk about God, I’m not talking about a divine being who is behind, trying to drag us back to a primitive, barbaric, regressive, prescientific age…”
p.41, “Neils Bohr said that anyone who wasn’t outraged on first hearing about quantum theory didn’t understand what was being said.”
p.93, “Certainty is easier, faster, awesome for fundraising, and it often generates large amounts of energy because who doesn’t want to be right?”
p.99, “Great effort, then, is often spent trying to prove that that God even exists, which can, of course, fail spectacularly.”
p.150, “…at the heart of Jesus’ message is the call to become the kind of person who is for everybody.”
p.179, “There’s a church near where I used to live that did a survey of its congregation, asking how important people’s spiritual lives were to them. Spiritual lives? as opposed to their other lives?”
And a couple promotional videos that Bell produced that contain ideas from the book:
Gotta lot of stuff to write about on the old blog, so I’ll be pumping out some more content in coming weeks. Been through a disturbingly busy season in my life, which is not the best way to live my life, but got some help and have been putting things in order – having way better quiet times and feeling more alive.
Plus, I finished Rob Bell’s What We Talk About When We Talk About God and what else is there to blog about but Rob Bell! And if I mention Rob Bell a lot, I get a lot of blog hits! So all sorts of strangers from Uzbekistan can read my opinions on Rob Bell. Rob Bell.
So, this is just a weird lead in, to remind me, when I read through my blog in 2104 as to why there was a stark gap for a couple months. Here’s some random thoughts that don’t deserve their own posts but I am just loving right now -
the best part of american idol this season is watching Nicki Minaj whenever Mariah Carey speaks. Those two seem to be really getting along!
If JT’s Suit and Tie and Britney and Will.I.am’s equally terrible song are going to be our summertime radio hits, I’m going to need to upgrade my spotify to listen to it in the car….
I can’t wait for the Heat-Spurs game coming up soon. If the Heat win, they have a bonafide chance of running to 33 (and sweeping the east in the play-offs)
I got to play basketball with grown men last week for the first time in two years…it was awesome! Just love playing ball.
I think Peyton Manning wins NFL MVP next year, and gets another Super Bowl too. I also think the Jets should sign another QB, because 4 just isn’t enough depth.
Stuff and Things
I’m actually excited for the new Pope Francis and the hope that people have for some real changes to the Catholic Church – too many kids have been victimized and it has to be dealt with.
I’m thinking about hiding everyone of the people I am friends with on facebook so that I can have actual interesting conversations with people, and not always have the preface, “did you see what I (or someone else) posted on facebook?” In other news, I am carrying printed out pictures of my food to show people, since that’s what’s socially appropriate these days.
Tom Rath and Barry Conchie wrote this as a leadership follow up to the Strength Finder 2.0, which is also available from Gallup Press. It’s a leadership development tool that follows the philosophy of leading from one’s strengths for maximum impact. This book builds on this pattern so that teams can be formed that are greater than the sum of the parts. Though it seems like a thick book, most of it is reference material and there’s less than 100 pages of actual text to be read. It really is a great resource, though the leadership styled strength finder online test that comes with it doesn’t produce the same level of reports that the original 2.0 version does. I bought just one copy of this text and several 2.0 books for the group I was doing this test with, which gave more in depth and personalized insight for the participants.
The real development that is found in Strengths Based Leadership is the dividing up of the strengths into 4 areas of leadership, which allows for simpler building of teams that will be complementary. (As a side note, it’s no surprise that the majority of my strengths were categorized in the “Strategic” domain.)
If you lead people, this little group of books can be a great encouragement and affirmation tool and will help you to place people in spots where they can shine and contribute in an energizing way, and actually love the work that they do!
