Book Review: Average Joe
It’s really easy to read the biographies or books of accomplished Christian pastors, teachers and leaders and think that following Christ is all about doing something big and successful that’s measurable by large numbers, big crowds, fame and a bulky bottom line. But where does that leave the rest of us who are more or less average Joes?
Troy Meeder’s book Average Joe: God’s Extraordinary Calling to Ordinary Men is for men who don’t have profiles written about them in Christian magazines, don’t get up every Sunday morning to preach in front of thousands and aren’t currently or ever the Top 40 under 40 in their community. It’s for guys who mow lawns – like the guy Troy encountered at college who made a tremendous impact on his walk with Christ, work 9 to 5 jobs without much fanfare and raise families on average salaries. In other words, it’s a book for almost all men (somewhere there’s a joke referencing Occupy Wall Street in there).
Through personal stories, profiles of average Joes and insights on scripture, Meeder hammers home the point that living an average life is okay and that being an average Joe doesn’t mean God doesn’t want to use you or that he doesn’t have a unique and as the book title suggests “extraordinary” call for your life.
In a culture that’s obsessed with numbers, salaries and performance – how often do you hear the phrase go big or go home and believe it? – Meeder’s message is a welcome breath of fresh air. In my teenage years I remember praying many times at the altar at Delanco Camp asking God to use me in a mighty way and picturing that this meant something that would land me in magazine and newspaper profiles (though my byline has appeared in both as a writer) and make me some kind of Christian celebrity.
Sometimes when I look at my life now and compare it to what I thought it would be when I was a teenager I feel like I’ve fallen short of what God had planned for me, but as Meeder reminds me it’s not what I do that determines whether my life is extraordinary by God’s standards – it’s what I allow God to do through me.
Meeder writes:
“there is no need to strive to be anything more than a servant of our Creator. We expend ourselves, our precious life, and our very existence in pursuit of significance, prestige, wealth, and fame. I believe that these pursuits are meaningless, never ending, and often offer only hollowness, hunger, and pain. We seek to be something our Creator never intended us to be: self-important, shortsighted, and earthly minded.
I believe that every man – yes, even an average Joe – can and will be used greatly by God if he allows himself to be broken, refined, and shaped more into His image.”
If you’re an average Joe like me, definitely check out this book either for personal study or for a men’s small group. If you aren’t in a men’s small group, this might be just the right book to use as an excuse to start one.
Purchase a copy of this book at Christianbook.com using this link and Delanco Camp will get a percentage of the sale.
Interested in reviewing books for the Delanco Camp Blog? Email matt.ralph@delanco.org.
Book Review: Reggie
Whether at a school assembly, youth rally or large Christian music festival, you may have encountered Reggie Dabbs before. One of the most sought after school and youth speakers in the nation, Dabbs is an incredibly dynamic communicator who has a knack for connecting with young people who dread assembly speakers.
I’ve had the privilege of hearing Dabbs speak on a number of occasions both in Christian conference and public school settings. While the setting dictates how in-depth he can go about the source for his strength and purpose, he is consistent in telling young people and adults the truth of who they are – somebody loved.
His new book, Reggie: You Can’t Change Your Past, But You Can Change Your Future, which he wrote with John Driver, details the moving story of how Reggie himself overcame the tragic true story of his birth and the repeated lies he was told growing up of how he was worthless and would never amount to anything.
While he slowly unfolds the complicated warts-and-all story of his past and the sordid details of the two ten dollar bills that resulted in his conception, Reggie also tells the story of his present and how God has used him and continues to use him (of all people!) to reach thousands of hurting people around the world.
Like one of his speeches or sermons, you’ll find yourself engaged from the get-go, hanging on his words, laughing at his anecdotes and brought to tears when he gets to the biblical heart of the matter.
Though he’s best known for his ability to speak to teenagers – in one particularly moving passage he shares how he was led by the Holy Spirit to reach out to a young man in the audience who it turns out had a gun and was planning on killing himself – Reggie’s story is one that people of all ages can appreciate and gain insight and inspiration from. We all, after all, have a past and we’re all in need of the same loving touch of the savior that rescued Reggie from a life of sin and brokenness and brought him into the light and fullness of a life committed to sharing Christ with others.
A complimentary copy of this book was provided by its publisher, Thomas Nelson
Click HERE to purchase a copy of this book at Christianbook.com (a portion of the sale will benefit Delanco Camp).
Book Review: The Final Summit
Like a lot of books/movies with the element of time travel, suspension of disbelief is required and often easier said than done when reading Andy Andrews’ The Final Summit, a novel that uses a fiction story of a summit gathering some of the greatest leaders and thinkers of recorded history to teach lessons about leadership and succeeding in life.
A sequel to The Traveler’s Gift, The Final Summit finds modern day business man David Ponder, the only “traveler” living in present time, tasked by the angel Gabriel with leading a summit to decide the fate of humanity. Understandably hesitant with the task – who wouldn’t be with names like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David on the guest list? – Ponder reluctantly accepts the challenge to lead this historic gathering. Their task: to determine what humanity must do to “right its ship.”
Based on the assumption that humanity is worse off in the now more than ever before – didn’t the writer of Ecclesiastes say “there’s nothing new under the sun” and hasn’t the world been heading down the wrong path since Adam and Eve? – the book views history through distinctly rose-colored glasses. The mere fact that the only person living in the modern age is a fictional character speaks to this along with repeated assumptions that things facing our world today – divisiveness in government, wars, famine, a decline in values, etc. – didn’t face the world in the whenever-the-heck-they-were good old days. While I am a personally a big fan of history and appreciate some of the historical tidbits and humor contained in the historic figures’ interactions, this slanted view of history make the story add up even less.
This isn’t to say the book doesn’t have value or purpose. When I was able to stop myself from trying to read too much into the theological and biblical ramifications of time-traveling humans putting their brains together to save a human race that from a Christian worldview has always been in the-toilet-doomed-for-destruction awaiting its savior in God’s son Jesus, I was inspired to look at my own life and apply the practical lessons contained.
The lessons are subtle and not overly prescriptive, which I found refreshing. The banter too between the historical figures was quite illuminating and often comical – not stuffy like in some history books – making for an easy and quick read. While I’m speaking favorably of the book, I should also mention that the too seldom told true story of the man credited with helping to defeat the Germans in World War II might be worth at the very least waiting for the book to hit the bargain bin.
Also, to Andrews’ credit, he avoids the formulaic 10 ways to be a better…. approach that typically doom books of this genre. Just remember to suspend your disbelief and shut off the insightful theological part of your brain at the table of contents.
A complimentary copy of this book was provided by its publisher, Thomas Nelson.
Purchase a copy of this book from Christianbook.com using this link and a percentage of the sale will go to Delanco Camp.
Book Review: The Charlatan’s Boy
In The Charlatan’s Boy, author Jonathan Rogers returns to the world of Corenwald he created in his successful Wilderking Trilogy by telling the story of Grady, an odd-looking boy who travels the countryside with a huckster named Floyd concocting various ways to trick townspeople out of their hard-earned money.
His past a complete mystery, Grady assumes he is unlovable because his parents abandoned him to Floyd and not much good for anything besides portraying a legendary swamp creature known as a feechie in one of “Professor” Floyd’s traveling scams.
Unlike Floyd and many of the other hucksters they encounter on their travels (one particularly despicable fella has a machine he says will streamline people’s prayers), Grady isn’t a big fan of the lifestyle but doesn’t know any other life. Given an opportunity to escape his life with the often cruel Floyd by a caring innkeeper, Grady inexplicably chooses to stay with his partner in crime. From there, the two hatch their biggest idea yet involving a roaring machine and the biggest feechie scare Corenwald has ever seen. But once the feechie scare begins, neither Grady or Floyd have any idea where it will lead them.
Classified as young adult/fantasy/fiction, The Charlatan’s Boy is an enjoyable read perfect for fiction readers who enjoy clean family friendly fantasy prose in the tradition of C.S. Lewis. Though nothing in the book would be characterized as explicitly Christian, Grady’s search for identity and purpose in a world telling him his worth to even a huckster like Floyd is limited is one clearly rooted in a Christian worldview. Much the way we struggle to listen for and follow God’s path in our lives, Grady battles his heartbreak, fear and rejection as he wonders whether he will ever have a place among the townspeople he never sticks around long enough to actually get to know. His yearning for purpose and meaning, his misgivings about the way in which Floyd conducts his business hits to the heart of the human condition. And did I mention it’s a really enjoyable story?
A complimentary copy of this book was provided by its publisher, Waterbrook Press.
Purchase this book at Christianbook.com using this link and a percentage of the sale will benefit Delanco Camp.
Book Review: The Band That Played On
Chances are good that you know plenty about the sinking of the Titanic, the “unsinkable” mammoth luxury ocean liner that wrecked after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. Between the movies, television specials and museum exhibits, information about one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters is not hard to find. But what do you know of the band that famously played as the ship went down?
Probably not too much since when Steve Turner set about researching the band for his book The Band that Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic he had to dig to find information about the people behind a story that has been told many times before in only minor detail.
What makes the story particularly interesting to people of faith is that one of the songs eyewitnesses recalled hearing the band playing was the hymn “Nearer, My God To Thee.” Turner unpacks the various theories and controversies related to what songs the band played – they played on the deck of the ship long enough to play more than just a couple songs – but also goes into the biographies of the eight musicians who were selected for the ship’s maiden voyage.
For history and music lovers, the book is an intriguing look at the way musicians made a living in the early part of the 20th century, but it’s also an inspiring tale of how band leader Hartley Wallace’s faith and Christian conviction spurred him to continue leading his bandmates even as the freezing waters of the Atlantic were swirling at their feet. There’s a lot still unknown about their final moments and question marks about whether their playing to calm nerves actually led to more deaths or their playing was by choice or by captain’s orders. But what we do know and learn from published accounts and other historic documents Turner gathers to tell the story of the disaster and its aftermath is both fascinating and inspiring.
A complimentary copy of this book was provided by its publisher, Thomas Nelson.
Buy The Band that Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanicfrom Christianbook.com using this linkand Delanco Camp will receive a percentage of the purchase.
Book Review: Mere Churchianity
If I were to judge a book by the amount of dog ears there are on the bottom right hand corner (where I like to mark pages I especially like) after I finish it then Michael Spencer’s Mere Churchianity might just be one of the more thought-provoking, interesting and challenging books I’ve read in some time. Simply put: it’s hard to tell where the dog ears begin and end.
Though I wasn’t a regular visitor or commenter on the late Michael Spencer’s Internet Monk blog, I was definitely what you would call an admirer of his work who was shocked and saddened when I learned of his untimely death. Like Messy Spirituality was for Michael Yaconelli, Mere Churchianity serves as a parting shot from Spencer, full of the kind of passion and energy that makes for a challenging and enlightening read written especially, as Spencer puts it, for “people on the inside who are about to leave or have already left.”
I wouldn’t characterize myself in either of those categories, but what led me to dog-ear so many pages was that I am on the inside as a staff member at a church and I struggle regularly with what Spencer terms churchianity, a brand of Christianity that is more about the church as an organization than it is about following Christ.
“The evangelical church seeks to serve everybody and their many interests, so it’s not difficult to find Sunday-morning preaching that covers every topic imaginable while making no mention of Jesus at all,” Spencer writes.
Criticisms of the church and the way it has and can go astray aren’t hard to find and Spencer doesn’t hold back on criticism but it’s not just a case of throwing stones. Spencer’s passion for following Christ and following His commandment to go out and make disciples is evident throughout the book and his criticisms are constructive. It doesn’t, to me anyway, come across as shock value finger-pointing or stuffy arrogance.
This isn’t to say that Spencer’s take on things and style isn’t at times jarring or that I’m completely in agreement with his take or approach on things. Re-reading through some of the many dog-eared passages, I find myself being stretched all over again by his words and challenged to take a hard look at myself and my role in building the kingdom of God.
“The disciples had to discard more false notions, incomplete teachings, erroneous assumptions, and long-held absolutes in three years than most of us will in a lifetime,” Spencer writes in a chapter entitled What If We’re Wrong About God? “But if we are followers of Jesus, as they were, then shouldn’t we be forced to reevaluate these same things in our lives and in our thinking?”
Though it’s not destined to be the classic that C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is, Mere Churchianity is certainly a worthwhile read from a man who certainly seems to have made the best of the shortened time he was given with us.
A complimentary copy of this book was provided by its publisher.
Purchase a copy of Mere Churchianity from Christianbook.com using this link and Delanco Camp will receive a percentage of the sale.
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