Do What Jesus Did by Robby Dawkins

There are certain books that are packed full of amazing stories of miracles, but instead of inspiring me they leave me feeling impressed but inadequate. This book has all the classic elements of that genre - a miraculous birth story, glorious events in the toughest of places, battles with demons, stunning healings, hardened criminals being transformed - but at the end, and indeed throughout the book, I felt inspired to go and 'do what Jesus did' for myself. I felt like this could be something I could do. Why is that?

Well, for starters, I got to meet Robby Dawkins this summer. One of the great things about speaking at summer festivals is you get to hang out with some fascinating people and see them close up, and I really liked Robby and how he really got stuck in and served humbly during the Soul Survivor and Momentum festivals. So I wanted to like this book, and I did. I wouldn't be reviewing it if I didn't!

Another factor here is that Robby is very honest. For every amazing story there is an example of how he messed up, or prayed for someone who wasn't healed. One of the most poignant examples is how earnestly he prayed for his mother to be healed of cancer, but she died, and yet the lady with a similar condition in the same hospital was healed instantly when he prayed for her. Robby explains these contradictions in terms of the spiritual battle we are in, and he does not shy away from telling the stories of failure, including those who were gloriously saved but then just as spectacularly went away from the faith. This honesty and ability to tell it how it is, is very comforting to all of us who work with broken people in tough places. 

The chapter on perseverance is probably worth the price of the book on its own. Using the example of Elijah who felt deeply alone and depressed immediately after seeing a great miracle against the prophets of Baal, Robby is very open about the times he felt like giving up, about seeing miracles then having to get the leaky church roof fixed, and how all these things shape our characters. 'If you're looking for a shortcut, if you want to skip the character development... Getting involved in kingdom ministry is not the way out. There is no shortcut'. 

This is the stuff that sets this book apart from the usual 'miracle on every page' book, and makes it potentially a story that can bring real change and help us to go after this stuff and not be disillusioned when nothing happens at first. I recommend this to anyone interested in the use if the gifts of healing, prophecy and the like, especially in mission contexts, and also to anyone who just wants to read a gutsy, real and wonderful story of God's power and love.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Jesus-Did-Real-Life-ebook/dp/B00B85M3PQ/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1378325952&sr=8-1

A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans

Brilliant. Rachel Held Evans has made it easy for me to decide what I am going to buy all my family and friends for their birthdays this year. All the way through the book I was thinking 'I must buy this for my Mum', 'this friend would LOVE reading this', 'I've got show this to so and so', etc. The book is funny - hilarious at times - but also poignant, challenging and theologically astute. It manages to entertain and keep you gripped the whole way through, whilst making important points in subtle yet powerful ways about gender equality and 'Biblical Womanhood'.

The premise is straightforward: to spend a year trying to obey all the biblical commands for women in the Bible. It leads her into a great adventure of meeting some interesting (and at times very odd) people, covering her head to pray, calling her husband 'master', staying in a monastery and much more. I loved it. I don't want to write to much about it so as not to spoil the fun for you. And it's not all about the story. The story is just a vehicle for teaching some deep truths in a winsome and easy-to-read manner.

Just one quote for you from this book, I loved this:
'Too many Easter services begin with a man standing before a congregation of Christians and shouting "He is risen!" to a chorused response of "He is risen indeed!" Were we to honour the symbolic details of the text, that distinction would always belong to a woman'.

I have noticed that the author has taken some serious stick from people in the US over this book and the whole project. This is a real shame as we all have lots to learn from her discoveries, whether or not you agree with all her conclusions. Please buy this book, then buy it for everyone you know.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/year-biblical-womanhood-Rachel-Evans/dp/1595553673/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363556562&sr=8-1-spell

What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell

This is Rob Bell's first book since Love Wins. Some people loved Love Wins, some hated it. It certainly created a strong reaction in most people. I felt it was not Rob Bell's best book by a long way, though it did contain some great stuff. With What We Talk About... I think Rob Bell is back with a real cracker. I read it in two days and really enjoyed it. It will be of interest to anyone thinking about issues of faith, whether Christian or not, and will stretch your mind when it comes to thinking about the way the world works and how God interacts with us.

He looks at how God relates to us using three central concepts: With, For and Ahead. God is with us, for us and ahead of us.The first two are basic Christian truths expressed in beautiful and challenging ways as Rob Bell is known for doing. The third reminded me very much of Brian McLaren's book The Story We Find Ourselves In, in describing how God stands in our future, calling us forward into progress and fresh understandings of ourselves and the world. He describes a kind of progressive revelation in how God relates to humanity, bringing restrictions to a barbaric culture and eventually revealing himself fully in Jesus. He uses this to explain some of the apparently barbaric commandments God gives in the Old Testament. This is interesting but only partly convincing.

My favourite chapter was Open, where he gets into a bit of quantum physics, and blows your mind with some crazy facts about universes and atoms, relating it all to how we think about God. For example, 'if all of the empty space was taken out of all the atoms in the universe, the universe would fit in a sugar cube'. That's all well and good Rob, but where would you find a sugar cube when all that empty space has been removed? Seriously though, it is a great chapter and typical of how the author's mind works in brilliant ways.

As ever, some quotes to whet your appetite:
(on science and religion) 'Science does an excellent job of telling me why I don't have a tail, but it can't explain why I find that interesting'
'the same creative bang that formed the universe is unleashed in us through our trust in what God is doing in the world through Jesus'. 
'Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you fell better - you feel cleansed - when you're done'.

So get this book, whoever you are, and chat to some other people about it. It's well worth a read. You've done well, Rob Bell.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-God/dp/0007427336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363552381&sr=8-1

The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

As with all books by Eugene Peterson, I initially found this book difficult to get into. I find that the way he writes forces you to slow down, get into a quiet place, and only then do you really find his writing having an impact on you. And it does have a big impact, especially this book.

Peterson writes in a poetic way, painting vivid pictures in your mind as he tells his story. He revisits similar themes all the way through the book. It is not so much a linear narrative as a piece of classical music, each movement echoing but building on the last. At times you wonder why he is telling a story in so much detail, and then he brings it together in a powerful way. He describes how he became a pastor, having been warned against it by friends, and the gradual and sometimes painful process of realising what his calling involved, and what it did not involve. I loved how the whole thing is soaked in the scriptures, how he uses biblical stories and characters to summarise different key periods in his life and the life of his church.

You really need to read it for yourself, so I'll just give you a couple of quotes to whet your appetite:
(On the church growth movement) "The momentum of what was being termed church growth was gathering... it was more like church cancer - growth that was a deadly illness, the explosion of runaway cells that attack the health and equilibrium of the body"
(On the role of a pastor) "My work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life"
(Discussing the Christian pursuit of happiness and the next spiritual fix) "our task is to obey -believingly, trustingly obey. Simply obey in a 'long obedience'".
(On pastors being asked for 'pearls of wisdom', and meals as sacramental) "Jesus didn't drop pearls around Galilee for people as clues to find their way to God or their neighbours. He ate meals with them. And you can do what Jesus did. Every evening take and receive the life of Jesus around your table".

Some quite provocative thoughts, obviously you need to read them in context to fully understand where he's coming from, but I hope they will give you a desire to buy and read this book. Get yourself in a quiet room for a couple of hours and just let his well crafted words and paragraphs reach into your soul and create a desire for a more authentic relationship with God and church.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pastor-Eugene-H-Peterson/dp/0061988219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362260047&sr=8-1

The Language of Science and Faith

This book addresses lots of big questions about the origins of the universe and Christian faith. It is co-written by Frances Collins, a world-renowned scientist who also happens to be an evangelical Christian. Depending on what you believe, it could be hugely controversial or incredibly helpful!

Here are some of the chapter titles:
Do I have to believe in evolution?
Can we really know the earth is billions of years old?
How do we relate science and religion?
Can scientific and scriptural truth be reconciled?
Why is Darwin's theory so controversial?
What is the fine tuning of the universe, and how does it serve as a pointer to God?

The book is basically contending that science and faith can and should go hand in hand, and advocates what the authors call biologos, a type of theistic evolution, 'the belief that God created life using natural processes, working within the natural order, in harmony with its laws'. This is in contrast to many views that evangelical Christians hold, such as young earth creationism as taught by Ken Ham and others, who believe that the earth is 6000 years old and Genesis 1 is literal historical narrative, old earth creationism which sees the 'days' of Genesis 1 as epochs of time, and the Intelligent Design movement. 'The main distinctive of Biologos is its affirmation of generally accepted scientific theories about origins, including evolution, properly understood'.

So if you are looking for a carefully argued book, simply written by top scientists and easy to follow that contends for the idea that God used the processes identified by modern science to create the universe, this is for you. It takes all the questions you might see on Ken Ham's website/videos, and gives a totally different answer to each one! I would challenge anyone, whatever your current view, to read this with an open mind. Of course a book of this size can only begin to address the issues, as it's not just science but biblical studies that needs to be addressed here. But they open the subject up in an incredibly clear and articulate way, and this will hopefully be a real breakthrough for many Christians who are wrestling with this issue.

I would recommend this to anyone and everyone, whether you're a Christian or not, and whatever you think about how the universe came about, read it and let it help form your opinions.

Francis Collins has a website, www.biologos.org, which picks up many of the questions in the book and continues the conversation.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Science-Faith-Straight-Questions/dp/0830838295/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357507457&sr=1-1

Red Letter Christianity by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo

I'm a big fan of Tony Campolo's speaking and Shane Claiborne's writing, so was looking forward to this book, which is effectively a conversation between them covering a vast range of topics including Hell, Islam, Environmentalism, Women, Economics, Homosexuality and much more. The conversational style keeps the book moving at a fast pace. If you have read books by either author before, some of the material will feel familiar, but it remains challenging and thought-provoking.

The title of the book refers to an attempt by the authors and others to find an alternative to the tired and maligned phrase 'evangelical', with a particular focus on the teaching of Jesus (hence the red letters), especially the Sermon on the Mount. I found it particularly interesting when they looked at the differences between the older Red Letter Christians such as Campolo, Ron Sider and Jim Wallis, and the younger generation (Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove), and how the emphasis of the former is on direct involvement with politics, whereas the latter are attempting to create a new society in the shell of the old, to provide a glimpse of a new world.

As you would expect in a Tony Campolo book, there are some great stories and challenging quotes from Kierkegaard, and as I often find when reading Shane Claiborne, there were many moments when I found myself thinking 'that's all very good, but is everyone called to do that?' in a way designed to excuse myself from having to radically change my life!

All in all, highly recommended to anyone looking for a challenge. It's very easy to read and it could lead to some serious action and a change of lifestyle!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Letter-Christianity-Living-Matter/dp/1444745387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357494859&sr=8-1