Read This: Out Live Your Life (Max Lucado)

I've recently been on a Max Lucado kick - I just can't get enough of his books these days, and luckily, my dad owns a bunch of them that I have every intention of working my way through (thanks, Dad!) My church's lending library has a pretty impressive collection of his books as well, and I haven't found one yet that I didn't love.

It all started a couple of months ago when I received a copy of Out Live Your Life. The text on the back cover was a bit grim: "These are devastating times: 1.75 billion people are desperately poor; one billion are hungry. Lonely hearts indwell our neighborhoods and attend our schools. In the midst of it all, here we stand..." The first chapter highlights more of the sad situations we're faced with every day - and is what inspired my previous post about attending an adoption conference.

But the entire book is not gloom and doom - rather, a challenge to stand up and make a difference. To care for others, to help them, to live in such a way that we make an impact that lingers long after we're gone.

Lucado focuses primarily on the book of Acts, on the faith and works of the early church and how they impacted Christianity forever. Even more, there are inspiring stories in each chapter of how normal people - people like the disciples (fishermen and tax collectors), people like you and I - have made a difference. Some of the stories are simply amazing. Being a bit of a music nerd, I was enthralled by the story in chapter 16, wherein a renowned violinist wore jeans and a t-shirt and played for forty three minutes in a Washington, D.C. metro station. A musician who packs concert halls, with only "fairly good" tickets selling for $100 per seat, made only $32.17 that morning - and only person of the 1,097 who passed by recognized him.

What does this have to with outliving your life? Well, Max explains... "No one expected majesty in such a context. Shoe-shine stand to one side, kiosk to the other. And who had time? This was a work day. Most of us will someday realize that we didn't either. From the perspective of heaven, we'll look back on these days - these busy, cluttered days - and realize, That was Jesus playing the violin. That was Jesus wearing the ragged clothes. That was Jesus in the orphanage...in the jail...in the cardboard shanty. The person needing my help was Jesus."

It's easy to make a monumental difference if you have unlimited resources. How cool would it be to hop on an airplane and fly to Africa, to help build houses and cuddle orphans and share the gospel? But I can't afford that plane ticket...and even if I could, who would watch my children while I was gone? Gene certainly couldn't take off from work for that long to watch them, or to go with me. What I can do, what most people can do, is - to some degree - limited by their personal situations.

But we can make a difference in small ways every day, and that's what this book encourages us to do. Maybe someday I'll be able to do help people in huge, amazing ways - but there's no reason not to start now, doing what I can, when I can...and hope that you do too.

Need inspiration? Encouragement? Ideas? I highly recommend Out Live Your Life - as the book's subtitle says, "you were made to make a difference", and you'll be ready to do just that by the time you finish the last chapter.


Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from BookSneeze in return for an honest, objective review on my blog. I honestly loved this book and am happy to have it as a permanent addition to my library - and can't wait to read the rest of Lucado's books!

At least I still make time to read!

Most people know that my husband and I have known each other our whole lives, as we both attended the same tiny, small-town church. Flash forward about 31 years, and we're still at the same church (well, most of the time) - and everything is pretty much the same, only everyone has gotten older. We have 25 people or so on Sunday morning, a little handful that are willing and able to teach, preach and coordinate, and no children except for my two girls. As you can imagine, this is more than a little frustrating.

This is why - although I am in no position of ministry - I was attracted to Shannon O'Dell's new book, Transforming Church in Rural America. The back cover explains that it will help you to "experience the blueprint for transforming into effective, dynamic, and thriving churches - no matter where the location or how small it may be."

O'Dell writes in a wonderfully conversational style - much like sitting down for a chat with an old friend. I adore his sense of humor and his biographical anecdotes. He tells the story of being called to a rural church, not wanting to go, and trying to get out of it...then reversing his attitude to accept Christ's purpose in his life and working to grow his new church in Arkansas. Today, Brand New Church has a congregation of thousands, with several campuses and followers via satellite in several countries. The story of this church's growth is amazing, and you'll read all about it in this book.

However, it did seem more biographical than informational to me. Sure, there are insightful tips and words of wisdom that would apply to growing any church...but many of them were repeated throughout the book, and I'll admit that I got a little bored with it about halfway through.

If you are in a position of leadership and have vision for your rural church - which is one of the key ingredients to growth, according to O'Dell - then this book is certainly worth a read. His is obviously a success story, and there are many great web links scattered throughout the book that would provide even more information.

However, if you are not a church leader, or if your little church is resistant to change (as are many) or just doesn't have people willing to work toward that change...you may be left as I was, with wonderful new ideas but no practical way to implement them.


Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from BookSneeze in return for an honest, objective review on my blog. I honestly want to give the book a five-star rating because I really enjoyed the read and am amazed and inspired by the pastor's attitude and vision for his own church...but the repetition just bothered me a little. Sorry, Shannon.

One of my LEAST favorite topics...

We all know that it's taboo to discuss religion and politics with certain people, but there's one topic that I shy away from even more: money. It's something that's just hard to discuss when there's a certain lack of it (not that this is anything terribly uncommon in today's economy), and I tend to let He Who Brings Home the Bacon figure out how it is best distributed.

However...I recently discovered a book that dragged me right out of my comfort zone and demanded to be read. It's called Your Money God's Way: Overcoming the 7 Money Myths That Keep Christians Broke (by Amie Streater.)

You're not kept guessing about those seven money myths that keep Christians broke - they're spelled out for you right in the introduction. (We subscribed to at least four of them.) The rest of the book is similarly straightforward - everything is laid out on the table with no sugarcoating. After all, simply being a Christian doesn't exempt people from making dumb mistakes, and I learned about several of ours - as well as the steps we need to take to start repairing them.

Throughout the book, the author examines Scriptures related to money (and there are more than 800 of them in the Bible - obviously a pretty important topic!) How to get out of debt, how to save, how to become financially secure and stay that way...all explained in a way that made perfect sense to me, even with my tendency to shy away from handling the family finances.

Does understanding money management from a Biblical perspective mean that it's going to be easy? Certainly not, and the author doesn't make claims to the contrary. But at least now I recognize several areas that need improvement - and when we know better, we do better.


Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from BookSneeze in return for an honest, objective review on my blog. I honestly adored this book and it will be much re-read, referenced and dog-eared. However, keeping my review to about 200 words as suggested was hard. I could say a lot more about it - just ask.