Category: Books

This also appeared at YMX but is worth sharing here. It’s also worth noting that the author, Ray Pritchard, was our senior pastor in Chicago at Calvary Memorial. In the 5-6 years that we were there, I went from greatly admiring Ray as a great speaker to greatly respecting him as my pastor.

The ministry of Satan is alive and well in the world today. While great innovations make life more pleasant than ever for some, the armies of God’s adversary continue to make advances in both expected and unexpected ways. The poor are oppressed and forced to endure exposure to disease and endless cycles of despair. The wealthy become even more comfortable and complacent as convenience and purposeful pleasure-seeking force faith further to the hushed corners of their lives. In fact, these are expected, predictable satanic attacks which many of us are keen to spy out. We know Satan attacks our weaknesses. In fact, we have learned to expect that Satan will exploit these weaknesses.

Yet, Satan’s ministry takes on unexpected methods as well. In Stealth Attack, veteran pastor and author Ray Pritchard, outlines what he describes as Satan’s asymmetrical warfare. Making comparisons to the type of warfare the United States and its allies engage in the worldwide war on terror, Pritchard demonstrates how our spiritual adversary attacks us and terrorizes believers. For instance, sometimes believers are attacked at our strengths precisely because our defenses are left unguarded at our strong points while we are concentrating our attention on protecting our weaknesses.

Spiritual warfare is not a well-liked topic in Christian circles. Even in youth ministry there is a resistance to use military terminology and imagery to activate and educate students. For those people, Pritchard’s book will make them uncomfortable. While some complain that Christian leaders would be better suited to emphasize a message of love and hope, Pritchard expresses the exact opposite opinion in his matter of fact and practical style. He expresses that while we may feel inclined to soften the message of Christ to become more palatable to a global, post-modern society, the truth is that Satan rages literal war against us. In the end, we can call it what we like, yet Satan is waging war.

Pritchard’s question is never, "Are believers at war with Satan?" He presupposes such a war because the Bible makes it clear that Satan and God have been raging war for ages past and will continue until the return of Christ. Pritchard’s focus is to help us recognize the asymmetrical attacks Satan levies as well as provide practical, Biblical advice for fighting the true enemy of every believer.

Stealth Attack isn’t written as a theological text to be studied by seminarians or purely as a resource for pastors and youth workers. Instead, it’s aimed at everyone. It covers the practical implications of spiritual warfare. It’s even suitable for small groups and Bible study groups for high school ages and up.

How’s this for a shameless plug? Buy it now!

I just finished reading Craig Groscel’s book, "Confessions of a Pastor." He’s the pastor of Lifechurch.tv and widely regarded as one of the "innovators" of church ministries today.

In Confessions, Craig documents his struggles. He talks about his pride, the fact that he doesn’t like most Christians. The fact that he struggles to have a devotional and prayer life. The fact that he’s afraid people won’t like him. On and on he runs through a series of admissions to things that would likely shock most "in the pews" Christians.

This is powerful because pastors live in a fishbowl and are placed firmly on a pedestal in the eyes of congregants. In fact, it’s both the upside and the downside of our position. The Bible calls pastors to be "above reproach" and "worthy of respect" while at the same time Scripture teaches us that we hopelessly sinful beyond the grace of Christ.

At first glance, this books could be taken as offensive or even emo. But I found this book very encouraging. Not only because I have some of the same weaknesses and fears that Craig describes, but because Craig gently and courageously talks about his weaknesses and then points himself to Scripture to be taught, rebuked, and corrected in righteousness.

Living in a fishbowl on a pedestal isn’t easy. The reality is that I will never live up to people’s expectations. The reality is that God’s calling of "above reproach" is an awfully big stretch for a human… particularly in a shrinking world due to technology. But what I loved about Confessions is that he doesn’t say "Yo, fat pastor… be perfect like me." Instead he says, "Join me in striving for holiness in an unholy world."

We just finished reading this book as a staff and I have a feeling a lot of people will be talking about this book in the near future. As is always the case with churches, we’re about 12-18 months behind the curve because this book was hot in management in 2005-2006.

It is, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. What I like about this book is that it’s written as a narrative. In the story you see how the principles of the book play out.. very real life and easy to apply in a team setting.

For people at Romeo… get used to this book if you are on a board. You’ll likely be asked to hear or read it. At the very least, you’ll be reaping the benefits of a more cohesive leadership team as a result of applying some of the principles.

For people leading teams at churches, parachurches, etc… this is the buzz book for church leadership for 2006 and 2007. Pick it up, get ahead of the game and be a part of the conversation. If you are leading a team, at the very least you should read it. According to the authors website, even professional sports coaches are applying these principles on their teams.

thx to Todd for the reminder

While I’m proud of myself for actually finishing the DaVinci Code… it left me quite disappointed.

No one could walk away from the book thinking it holds truth. At least no one who actually thought about what they were reading as they read it. As the label correctly distinguishes it, it is clearly fiction. The story is fantastic, but it’s anti-climactic finish leaves the reader with neither the option of a cliff hanger nor a surprise. The book seems to peak somewhere in the chapter 60 range and then grinds to a halt 40 chapters later.

Chapters 55 & 56 are the full blown diatribe against biblical Christianity. Brown’s assertion is that Christianity was created by a power starved Constantine, Jesus possessed gnostic-like god qualities and it’s fine for people to believe whatever they need to get by in life. In fact, this is a well-worn humanist argument and nothing new. It’s relativism’s view of religion.  However, his assertion that the 4 gospels of the New Testament were chosen among the 60 reviewed is just a conspiracy theory. According to church history, there wasn’t any serious argument brought forth for the Gnostic’s… any controversy at all was over the handful of books in our NT whose authorship is veiled. (Hebrews for example.) If you aren’t sure why the others weren’t included… just head over to the nearest Borders and flip through the gnostic texts. It will immediately leap out at you why they were not included.

The conspiracy about a smear campaign against Mary Magdeline and the "secret lineage of Jesus’ bloodline" is a fun conspiracy. And entirely implausible and fictional altogether.

Why is the book so popular? Well, it’s pretty simple. Brown takes every conceivable cliche` and wraps them together with all the stuff that most people half-remember from high school Western Civ class. So he simply ties together oodles of names with secret sex cults, church conspiracy theories, murder mystery, a distrust of anything Christian, character double-crossing, riddles, knights of the round table, exotic locations, America’s fascination with Harvard, and the deep desire of American to figure out mysteries. Of course it’s popular!

For those who think this book contains truth: Is the DaVinci Code the revelation of "the holy grail" to the world? If the powers that are described in the DaVinci Code are real… do you really think that they would have allowed Dan Brown to publish this story? Or is the secret behind the church merely being revealed to 46 million of the books buyers? Is some albino monk going to come kill us all?

Glad I finally read it. It is worth reading. It’s fun, and it’s obviously fictitious!

Let me first say that I’ve not finished reading the DaVinci Code. I’m about 50% complete as of now.

This book is a page-turner and it is a great story… but I find it hard to believe that there are really people willing to argue that Dan Brown’s book has some sort of great secret in it. I think Time Magazine actually did a good job at looking at some of the backgrounds to Opus Dei and also a great look inside their "secret headquarters." [Read article]

Also interesting and found on the Opus Dei website is this response to the DaVinci Code:

In fact, The Da Vinci Code gets Opus Dei’s nature 180
degrees backwards. Monastic orders are for people who have a vocation
to seek holiness by withdrawing from the secular world; Opus Dei is for
people who have a vocation to live their Christian faith in the middle
of secular society. [Read article]

I am reading a book called Never Walk Away by Crawford Loritts. I will admit that I am not very far along in the books, but I am already learning a lot.

There is a concept in this book that I am struck by. Availability. This is a big topic with me because we do everything we can do to be available to our students, their families, etc. But I wonder how my kids look at that. Do they mind that sometimes "their time" is shared with someone else? Or does it matter mostly that I am "there."

I know I am still sorting that out in my mind. How we balance our time matters to our kids.