Adam Shields

Short review: He gets the grace right, but then has such a amorphous (and undefined) view of what truth is that it is quite unhelpful. Overall, the idea is communicated, but I would not really recommend it. Mostly focused on evangelism, but I would like a lot more about grace and truth within the church as well.

My full review is at http://bookwi.se/grace-truth-alcorn/

Short review: This is a very good book on what it means to parent a prodigal child. It is heartrending, but hopeful. The author is a father that is watching his adult son struggle through bad decisions, alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (after serving in Iraq), homelessness, etc. I think it is very good both for parents and those outside the family to understand the real struggle. It also frequently reflects back to his own relationship with God and how he is a prodigal from God. This is not a complete story. The struggle continues.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/butterfly-stone-mayhew/

Website for the book http://stonebutterfly.net/

Short review: This is the best theology book I have read this year. What I appreciate about Wright is that he is not just an academic, he is a pastor. You can tell from his writing that his real interest is in serving the church. This is a re-working of his 2005 book “The Last Word”. The main text is not supposed to be much different from The Last Word, but Wright added two chapters at the end to help illustrate how we should work our in real life a scriptural issue. The two chapters are about the Sabbath and Monogamy vs Polygamy in marriage. These are not pressing controversial issues for most people so I think he does a good job of helping people really think through how to read scripture and how to understand the whole of scripture.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/scripture-authority-wright/

Short review: There is some great stuff in this book. But it is very repetative and some of the analysis I think is just wrong. So I have a hard time recommending. If you do read, I would read the first section, the chapter on parenting, chapter on consumption and the end section. I think the web chapter is very poorly analyzed and much of the rest of the middle is repetitive. But the concept basic content really is facinating.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/narcissism-epidemic/

Short review: This would be a useful guide to someone that is trying to understand why they should get more into theology. It is very readable and brief with a good bit of humor. If you are looking for a short systematic theology, this is not it. It is more an overview of the study of theology and Christian thought than systematic theology. It is wide ranging in its quotes and references and a good summary of different streams of theology.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/theology-mckim/

This is a good book. The author is funny, thoughtful and has a point. The basic point of this book is that we need to work to the best of our ability and for God. The central biblical story is the building of the temple and the 200 pomegranates that were put on the top of the columns where no one could see them but God. The builder could have just not done anything up there but instead choose to put some of the best work there, for his audience of one (God).

Strangely I think it is a good complement to NT Wright's book on heaven (Surprised By Hope). Wood is talking about what we do we should do for God, whether others know we do it or not. And Wright was talking about how being too focused on heaven prevents us from living in the now. We should view the current life as preparatory for the work that we will have in the next life.

The reason I gave it a four star review instead of five is that I read it on kindle. (Amazon gave it away last week!) The formating on kindle is not the greatest. It is a topaz formated book (which as I understand it is at base and Optical Character Recognition instead of formated directly from the text). There are also a couple places where there are some discussion questions at the end of chapters and those are not at all readable. They are images and just too small. A bit more work formating and this would have been a much better read.

A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/200-pomegranates-and-an-audience-of-one-creating-a-life-of-meaning-and-influence/

Full review at http://bookwi.se/a-long-obedience-in-the-same-direction-by-eugene-h-peterson/

short review: This is the type of book that young Christians need to read to really absorb the wisdom of our elders. Wisdom, and spiritual growth take time and effort.

Short review: I have been working on this for almost 3 months. I am giving up. There is some good insights into writing and politics. But the audio is bad, I don't have enough background in the era and I have too many other books. So I am giving up. But there really were some good things in what I read.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/oak-calf-solzhenitsyn/

Good book. Not a great one for audio, too many quotes to understand well when you are listening to it.

I have a full review on my blog http://bookwi.se/so-beautiful-divine-design-for-life-and-the-church-by-leonard-sweet/

What I have learned so far is that if you are going to read this book, skip to chapter 10. Pretty much everything else before that is not worth reading.

__

Final review is pretty much the same. Skip the first 9 chapters. There is about 40 to 50 good pages out of about 210. My recommendation is that if you were thinking about buying this book, don't. There are better ones out there. If you have it and want to read it anyway, then skip to the 10th chapter and skim.

A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/good-books-mixed-up-in-a-bad-book/

Full review at http://bookwi.se/living-prayer-the-lords-prayer-alive-in-you-by-dennis-fuqua/

Additional comments at http://bookwi.se/a-few-thoughts-from-living-prayer/

Short review. This was a very good book on prayer. It gave good practical advice, was theologically deep and sound and was well formated and thought out. I highly recommend picking it up. It is only available (as far as I can tell) at http://www.livingprayer.net

Short review: This was an ok short book. But nothing ground breaking and just not enough for me to recommend purchasing. I was distracted by the King James only scripture quotes. More than anything else this showed me how much we need to think and write about how to disagree as Christians (since this was one of the very few books I found.)

My full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/saying-yes-to-no-a-biblical-approach-to-disagreement-among-christians-by-patrick-webb/

So this is a paraphrase of scripture with prayers thrown in. It is a good idea, but there were a few things that were annoying. I liked the prayer (although some just didn't seem to fit the passage.) But the formating was really annoying. It was completely formated as if it were poetry (capitals at the beginning of every line whether it was the beginning of a sentence or not.) If the formatting were different I would have a much higher review, but honestly the formatting really hindered my reading. I do like the idea but one was probably enough for me.

full review at http://bookwi.se/praying-the-book-of-acts-and-the-general-epistles-by-elmer-towns/

My full review is at my blog http://bookwi.se/the-hole-in-our-gospel-by-richard-stearns/

Short review. This is a great response to people that want to assert Evangelism only at the role of the church. The basic thesis of the book is in a quote from Stearn's former pastor. “It is not just what you believe, but what you believe enough to do that matters.”

His theology is sound and he does a good job illustrating his changed in thinking through his life story. Highly recommend the book. Every Christian should read and implement this book.

Full review at is on my blog in three parts
Part 1 at http://bookwi.se/your-church-is-too-small-by-john-armstrong/
Part 2 at http://bookwi.se/your-church-is-too-small-by-john-armstrong-part-2-truth-church-and-god-in-history/
Part 3 at http://bookwi.se/your-church-is-too-small-by-john-armstrong-part-3-moving-forward/

Short review: This is a book that anyone that is interested in the church should read. It really spends time thinking about how the church can think about itself and how to fully follow Christ, the church needs to pay attention to all of its brothers and sisters in Christ (catholic, protestant and orthodox.)

Full review at http://bookwi.se/hear-no-evil-my-story-of-innocence-music-and-the-holy-ghost-by-matthew-paul-turner/

Short review: I had mixed feelings about this book. As essays about Christian's perception of music (both Christian and non-Christian) it was interesting. I did not grow up in a stream of Christianity that rejected Christian rock completely, but I was aware that it was out there.

It also was good and illustrating some of the issues that Christians have with interacting with the wider culture in general.

Overall it was good, I liked the author, but it didn't grab me in the way that I thought it would. Maybe I had too high of expectations.

My full review is at http://bookwi.se/fasting-by-scot-mcknight/

Short version review: This is a very good book. I think the best of the three Ancient Practices books I have read. It is enough background and history to understand fasting while still being personal and relevant to fasting today.

The majority of the book was really about how not to fast (bad motivation, bad theology, bad health, etc.). I have read or started a few books on fasting in the last week or so and the main addition of this book was the focus on motivation. McKnight says that “fasting should always be the natural result to a grievous sacred moment.” Something that draws us to fasting, not because of what we can learn or what we can get but something that causes us to fast because we don't have any other thing we can do.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/different-eyes-the-art-of-living-beautifully-by-steve-chalke/

Short review: This is a great introduction to the idea of Christian ethics. It is similar in theme to NT Wright's After You Believe. It is not as dense as NT Wright and is much more of an introduction to the topic (instead of a “how to develop virtue” book) it is quite good at that goal.

The main part I did not like was the attempt at showing different sides of thorny issues (homosexuality, just war, capitalism, euthanasia.) I did not think that the issues were really given enough weight. They were 1 to 2 page letters, and did not really address the strongest arguments of their own side or the real issues of the other side.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/chronological-guide-to-the-bible-explore-gods-word-in-historical-order/

Short review: The concept is good, the execution of it left a lot to be desired.

Short review: This is designed as a daily devotional on prayer. Written in 1915, it feels fairly modern most of the time. It was mentioned by Eugene Peterson in his memoir The Pastor. It has some unique thoughts about prayer and I found it a useful book to think differently about prayer, but I got distracted and did not finish. I will come back to it again late to finish the last 1/3.

My full thoughts on my blog at http://bookwi.se/prayer-fosdick/

Short review: It is ok, but is a hagiography more than a balanced biography.

A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/amazing-gracewilliam-wilberforce-and-the-heroic-campaign-to-end-slavery/

Short review: This is a short book by Manning. I really like Manning but I still have not liked any of his books as much as Raggamuffin Gospel. This book is about how much God want to pursue us. Decent (especially when you find it on sale.)

Full review at http://bookwi.se/furious-longing-manning/

Full review at hhttp://bookwi.se/skin-tight-by-carl-hiaasen/

Short review. I like Carl Hiaasen's writing style. I don't really care for his characters. So I am not all that excited about the book.

I really appriciate how Piper is trying to make sure he accurately reflects what Wright believes, not only by using a very well cited quotes, but also a pretty generous reading. His intent is to make sure that Wright would not have any issues with the way that Piper explains what Wright believes.

All that to say, I really respect Piper for putting together a pretty academic responce to Wright and keeping it pastoral in concern and at least so far, bending over backwards to tell people that Wright is one of us (Christians, and maybe even Evangelical).

But about 1/2 through I got bogged down and distracted and didn't ever get back to it. I want to finish it eventually

Some longer thoughts are at http://bookwi.se/the-future-of-justification-a-response-to-nt-wright-by-john-piper/

Full review at http://bookwi.se/lessons-from-the-road-by-nigel-james/

This book is intended for fans. It gives a brief history of the band, some insight into life on the road, a history of how Nigel started being their road pastor, some background on the guys as individuals, background on a few of the songs and some of the bible studies that Nigel has led while on tour.

It is not a real deep book and only is 4 hours long. But it is put together well. Nigel reads (which I always like) and the guys from Third Day read their own quotes and memories. It is a group effort. The production values are a little shaky. (There is one point when you can hear a door slamming a couple times, there is some other background noise and even though it is an mp3 file it still asks you to put in the next CD once an hour.)

But if you are a fan of Third Day (or Christian music in general) it is probably a decent four hour listen. Especially if you find it for $5.