21
November 2015
1. In the News: A Christian Response to Global Terror and Radical Islam by Ed Stetzer
-- this is
an excellent article synopsizing a Christian response to the events of last
weekend in Paris. Too often our response
tends to be one of anger and revenge. Ed
offers a different path, and I believe, Biblical path.
2. This week's Bible verse: John 1:16 (NIV) “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.”
3. Prayer Focus: Refugee Crisis and War on Terror
-- The
issue over the Syrian refugees and what the response should be to ISIS’ attack
in Paris have resulted in a deep divide in this country. Please pray for unity in the body of Christ
and for a brotherly spirit as we seek to understand God’s will and ask for
God’s grace in these situations.
4. What I’m Reading:
Other than the Bible and my daily devotional, I typically have multiple
books going at any one time, usually a work of fiction, a Christian nonfiction,
and sometimes another type of nonfiction in one of my areas of interest.
-- This
week finds me in a curious place, as I have just finished one of each and am
just starting three new books. Here’s what
I just finished reading:
--
This was just recently made into a movie that has done well at the box
office. I thoroughly enjoyed this read,
although you have to be aware there is some profanities in the book, but, hey,
if you are stranded on Mars with no hope of rescue, profanities would certainly
come to mind. As a scientist, I enjoyed
the reality of the story and the science was accurate. It was well-written, entertaining, and kept
me guessing throughout the entire book.
An easy, enjoyable read that I highly recommend.
--
When you pick up a Kindle Daily Deal for free, you never know what you’re going
to find. The title piqued my interest,
so I added it to my collection. Just to
summarize, this book is a short synopsis of the ministry of Randy Bohlender,
from his calling to be a pastor, his struggles as a youth pastor after college,
and then how Jesus led him from the confines of his traditional denominational
structure to a more expressive worship style.
Along the way, Bohlender discovered that there is freedom in
experiencing God outside of the “normal” ways of doing church, and ended up
leaving the church he planted to follow God’s call to a parachurch prayer
ministry. An interesting read and not a
lot different than the path I seem to be following, although our “unintentional
microchurch” that we planted has not closed.
--
I like Tim Ferriss. I enjoyed the
Four-Hour Workweek and I enjoyed this book, although I think most of what he
proposes in the book is not practical for most people. Ferriss is an entrepreneur and has time and
resources to spend in experimenting on his health and well-being in ways the
rest of can’t. And this book is a huge
tome on his experiments and his results from those experiments. However, I don’t believe what worked for Ferriss
will necessarily work for others. Our
bodies and our levels of fitness are just too different for a one-size fits all
approach. It was an interesting read,
but the big take-away for me was experiment on yourself. Try different things, write down the results,
and if it works, keep doing it, and if it doesn’t, try something else.
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