Category: Book Reviews

In our house, we call them God adventures. If you make following God your top priority, He often gives you big and little adventures to serve Him. It may be the neighbor next door, a ministry in another state or the people of another country. It is often through these adventures God sends your way that you can experience the most spiritual growth as you see God working and using you to reach others.

I think it is an important and godly concept to teach our children, so I was interested when offered the opportunity to review the book Outrageous: Awake to the Unexpected Adventures of Everyday Faith by Aaron Tredway.

Tredway played professional soccer. He is also a Christian. The book is about what happens when he combines the two and allows God to lead him to serve others and share his faith. Along the way Tredway has all sorts of adventures – many of them rather humorous.

This book doesn’t claim to be a Bible study or to deliver deep biblical truths. It is an entertaining way to get a glimpse of how God can work in the lives of Christians who are willing to develop and use the gifts God gave them to serve Him. Life for Tredway isn’t perfect, but one can’t deny the craziness of the journey is also part of the joy. It allowed him and now readers to see how God moves and uses people and events to place Christians where He wants them to teach others about Him.

Continue reading Raising Kids To Live An Outrageous Christian Life

Parenting is often learning by trial and error. Sometimes, we get it right the first time. Often, we learn months and even years later we should have done some things differently. The learning curve can be huge and the mistakes can have lasting impact on our kids.

I am always looking for great resources to help parents avoid common mistakes parents often make. Usually, it’s not because they want to make mistakes. They simply don’t have any idea what to do and are bluffing their way through their parenting journey.

I was excited to be offered the opportunity to review the latest book by Gary Chapman (and Shannon Warden) the author of the famous 5 Love Languages books. Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Became Parents is a collection of all of the lessons Chapman learned as he parented his children.

Each chapter addresses one “fact” Chapman wishes he had known. Evidently, he had not studied psychology before having his first child, so he made some of the same parenting mistakes we all may have made at some point. As he learned from his mistakes or began to study human growth and development while getting his degree, he understood these important lessons.

Continue reading Great Resource for Expecting and New Parents

Our daughter is in college now. We have taught her part of ministry is keeping up with current issues in the world. Whether you have a strong opinion on an issue or not, you need to understand how both sides feel. Many of the issues spill over into the views people have of God, Christianity or Christians. It may not be fair, but it’s just a fact of life.

I was interested when offered to review the book Befriend by Scott Sauls. Billed as a book to “create belonging in an age of judgment, isolation and fear”, I think it has a slightly different value for Christian parents of older kids and teens.

Sales uses the book to make the case for “befriending” everyone from ourselves to “prodigals and pharisees” and everyone in between. What he actually does is examine a lot of the people issues creating stumbling blocks to faith for many non-Christians and Christians today. In each chapter, he mixes scriptures and stories – many personal – to both lay out the issue and then make the case for how he believes God would want us to interact with each.

Continue reading Moms, Teens, Friends and God

Have you ever been told you have a strong personality? Or called tenacious? Or overwhelming? Chances are you are a strong willed woman. Many strong willed women are threatened by other women with strong wills as they see them as some sort of competition. I love to surround myself with them, because I have found they are more than capable of getting things done long after others have thrown in the towel.

If you have a strong willed child or are interested in learning styles, you may be familiar with the works of Cynthia Tobias. If not, I highly recommend them. She has a new book out A Woman of Strength and Purpose targeted to Christian women (and of course moms) who are strong willed.

I love her premise. Tobias suggests if you add God to the strong willed woman, you will find someone who is capable of doing the tough things God wants done that others aren’t even willing to consider doing. She also believes adding God to the strong willed woman will help her overcome the natural weaknesses that come with any strength.

Continue reading The Strong Willed Christian Mom