Recommend: More Lost Than Found by Jared Herd

The author writes about finding your way to God even if it is outside of organized religion and the church. He talks about how the youth of today aren't or shouldn't write off Jesus just because they write off the church. He explains that the church is NOT Jesus, so throwing out a bad church, shouldn't also equal throwing out Jesus.

The author also focuses on how church expects too much instant perfection from Christians and how new believers should be accepted with their sins and allowed to slowly shed those sins, instead of instantly stop living in sin. His example is a girl who sleeps around. He tells us maybe she should be allowed to continue to sleep around, as long as she works on some aspect of her life and make that part better. As long as she wants to change something, she should be accepted. She can always work on the sleeping around someday in the future, when she's ready to give that up.

I don't know his views but the author almost sounds like a Universalist or at least someone who really wants to make it as easy as possible for others to become Christians. He tries to tell the reader, it's okay to be disillusioned by church, just keep Jesus! Your angry feelings are okay. Your sins are okay. You can still love Jesus and Jesus will still love you.

The author spends a lot of time explaining that church WITHOUT culture doesn't seem to work and how church/Christian life needs to incorportate culture, not seperate from it. In other words, he seems to imply Christian music, Christian school, Christian books etc are put together to form a seperate Christian only society and when Christians try to come back into real life jobs/society, they are lost. They have seperated themselves from reality and now are unable to cope with an Unchristian culture. He also explains that Christians who seperate from non-Christian culture, lose appreciation for culture. He spends time telling us the value of culture and what it says about how we are raising our families. Culture and its elements (such as rap music) reflects human happiness/unhappiness, dissatisfaction, anger, etc.

Excerpt from PROLOGUE: I vaguely remember finding Jesus when I was a child, but I vividly recall losing him. My family’s carefully pruned image was shattered when my [minister] father’s affair became public. I didn’t know what sins my father had committed, but I knew this church had robbed him of his ability to be happy or to be home long before the choir started whispering about his transgressions. I watched him die there in that church while he gave his life to others. I would go to church, and then I would reenter life [and culture, leaving my Christian beliefs behind]. Perhaps the violent rejection of [the Christian] message by those on the outside isn’t an issue with Jesus—it’s an issue with how the Savior has been translated for them. Engage with God in a genuine way, a way that is not divorced from everyday life.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. I enjoyed it and it is thought-provoking and certainly not "mainstream" Christianity. It is challenging those mainstream beliefs and mainstream Christian lifestyle. Sadly, this book also seemed very fragmented and skipped all over the place with different ideas. The book didn't seem to make a coherent story. Although it had some VERY good points, I felt lost by the end of it and like I had to re-read it to try to make sense of it. I never did get the "jist" of what he was trying to convey. Or maybe this book just doesn't make sense by the end. I like the book for the good points it has and how it make me think, but I would guess most people will give it 3-4 stars.

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for this review but I did really give my honest opinion

Recommend: Right From the Heart by Bryant Wright

Right from the Heart is a 365 day Christian devotional that comes in a small size 7inches tall by 5 inches wide. The book is a little more than one inch thick but the the font/print is not too small to read - maybe a 10 point font. Each page has one bible verse and a life application or story to go with it for each day of the year. It takes less than 5 minutes to read through the page and no daily devotional is longer than one page.

This devotional is perfect for giving me a glimpse of God each morning, right before I start my crazy day schedule. I love that it only take 5 minutes to sit down and get a little gem to carry with me throughout the day. This book is easy to read and not too complex/hard to understand.

The only other devotional I have read is Utmost for His Highest and I found this devotional much easier to read. At the same time, it wasn't as deep, but it still serves a very good purpose - it makes you feel good, without being really heavy reading. I would expect women and new Christians to especially enjoy this book. But men should go with Utmost for His Highest and so should intellectuals and those who enjoy theology. This book would probably be a little too basic/shallow for them. So I recommend this book for women who enjoy Christian fiction and devotional lovers. Serious thinkers and theologans will probably not find a lot here but light reading and happy feelings. :)

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for this review but I did really give my honest opinion