You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

Second reading: I am not sure why the nuance of expressive and formative worship did not sink in the last time I read this, but it didn't. That was the biggest thing that I got here. I have been taught the importance of expressive worship so much that I think I was inoculated against really understanding it.

Second thing is that I still think that while Smith's cultural liturgies are important, there is so much cultural baggage with them that it is often hard to see deeply into the liturgies. I think Smith is too negative sometimes about his look at cultural liturgies. For instance when talking about the mall he never talks about the mall as safe space in a positive sense. After all that is why kids get together at the mall, it is seen by parents as safe and limited (whether it is or not is another thing.) And the inside waking space for elderly at 6 am is not mentioned although there is some real positives there.
On the negative side is also hard to get enough distance from a cultural liturgy to actually see it without significant cross-cultural contact. I think that is a place where advocating for a diverse church would have been a helpful addition.

One note about the audiobook edition. I thought it was fine, but for authors like Smith, who I have heard speak via video a number of times, I miss the actual author's voice. There were several mispronounced words here. I know not everyone has time to spend reading, but most of the time I really do think an author should read their own books whenever possible.

Full comments on blog for my second reading http://bookwi.se/read-love-james-ka-smith/

Short Review: This is a book I had been hoping that Smith would write. I have really challenged by my antipathy toward habit the past couple years. This is a good nail in the coffin to that antipathy. This is also a good lay person's understanding to Smith's idea of cultural liturgies. The three chapters at the end explaining how cultural liturgies work through the illustrations of family, children and education and vocation do much to make the concept understandable.

If there were half stars, I would probably give this 4.5 stars. The main area that I want more is an explanation about actually ecclesiology works here. On the one hand a number of historically liturgical denominations are weak on orthodoxy (and I think Smith would say those weaknesses are at least partially the fault of a lack of robust theology and worship as a focus outside of main Sunday service. But I could be wrong.) And on the other hand, theologically orthodox and evangelistic churches are often liturgically (and sacramentally weak). I have bought into Smith's main idea. But I have a hard time matching some of my reality (I am a member of a multi-site mega church) and the vibrancy of my church (it does better teaching children and youth than any other church I have been a part of, contra Smith's chapter on children and education).

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/love/