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Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Barbara Harper

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

In this busy season, I love the opportunity to pause and reflect over the best parts of the previous week.

1. Sleep. A couple of nights in a row, I woke up during the night and then couldn’t get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Sometimes when that happens I pray, most often I turn on some soft music. I want to keep everything conducive to going back to sleep, so I don’t get up except to use the bathroom. I was particularly frustrated when this happened on a Saturday night (as it too often does), afraid I’d be sleepy, draggy, or irritable all through church, but thankfully that didn’t happen. I took a long nap Sunday afternoon, but when the same wakefulness happened that night, I set my timer for a short nap Monday. And Monday night and following I went right to sleep and didn’t wake up til morning.

2. Rest. It’s a busy season, and I pushed myself more than normal a couple of days. I always look forward to evenings – I try not to be on the computer or working on a project at night when my husband’s home. Even if we’re not doing anything directly together, I enjoy being in the same room while we read our tablets. But those couple of days, I especially looked forward to getting the day’s work done and sitting with my feet up for a while.

3. Getting Christmasy things done: packages mailed and Christmas cards sent this week.

4. New Christmas decorations. I’m not sure why I’ve felt inclined to add to our Christmas decor this year – a combination of half-price sales and Hobby Lobby gift cards, I guess. 🙂 I decided to look for a very small tree for what I call the spare or front bathroom, and found this:

Though this bathroom is a lot smaller (we don’t have much more counter space than that), it’s also less messy and cluttered, so this fits well there whereas in the others it would be just one more item. And this is the bathroom guests usually use.

Then, I saw this neat idea on a friend’s Facebook page: using oversized balls outside on plant hangers. I put one where we usually have the hummingbird feeder, outside my kitchen window:

And this one is by the front door (amidst my sadly overgrown rose bushes that need cutting back):

The flowers are a circlet that I usually put around the globe of the sconces in the family room, but just hadn’t done it yet this year. But the hole in the middle fit the ornaments perfectly. I think I’ll take them off, though, and replace them with a bow lest the sunlight fade the flowers. I don’t usually do much red – we have some red in the Christmas decorations, but no red in the house otherwise. I got silver at first, but returned them. The red shows up outside so much better. I have a few plant hangers outside the window by my computer and I am thinking of adding some there…:) But then, I don’t know if these are meant for outside, so I might wait a bit and see how they hold up in the weather.

5. A sweet exchange between Timothy (my grandson, 3 1/2) and Mittu (my daughter-in-law). Mittu has been recovering from an infection and not feeling well. She was drinking some tea, which Timothy thought was coffee.

Timothy: Coffee make you feel better?
Mittu: Coffee makes everything better. But you know what always makes me feel better?
Timothy: Me! Me! Me!

Happy Friday!

Book Review: French Women Don’t Get Fat

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Barbara Harper

French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano is certainly an eye-catching title, even acknowledging that it’s more likely a generalization than an absolute statement.

Mireille Guiliano was born and raised in France. When she came to America as an exchange student in college, she put on weight, and even when she went back to France, the bad habits she had picked up led to more weight gain. Her concerned mother took to to a doctor.

His prescription was first to write down everything she ate for three weeks. Then he sat down with her to evaluate her eating habits.

Like an addict’s, my body came to expect too much of what had once been blissfully intoxicating in small doses. It was time to enter rehab, but fortunately Dr. Miracle had never heard of cold turkey. (The French don’t much care for dinde at any temperature) (p. 22).

For the next three months I was to pare back, finding less rich alternatives, reserving the real thing for a special treat–as it is intended. This was less deprivation than contemplation and reprogramming, because, as I would discover, achieving a balance has more to do with the mind than with the stomach…(p. 24).

After cutting back for three months, she could gradually start adding items back in, in moderation. But she was to begin with 48 hours of nothing but water and “Magical Leek Soup” (which she says is delicious. I’ll take her word for it.)

Obviously, if one is overweight, there’s no getting around the need for cutting back somewhere. But the emphasis in this book is in the subtitle: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure. Rather than dieting, guilt, and deprivation, she advocates balance, eating foods fresh and in season, and truly enjoying one’s food, concentrating on the food and taking pleasure in it rather than eating mindlessly while doing something else. The most pleasure we get from food is in the first few bites, so savor those bites. Aim not for a certain size or number, but rather “‘well-being’ weight, the one at which a particular individual feels bien dans sa peau (comfortable in his or her own skin)…the weight at which you can say, ‘I feel good and I look good'” (p. 23).

She says that for the most part, French women don’t go to the gym, preferring to incorporate more movement into everyday life. “It always astounds me to see people who live no higher than the fourth floor taking the elevator” (p. 211).

A few other principles that stood out to me:

Do not eat on autopilot (p. 31).

On the whole, “offenders” are foods we tend to eat compulsively, with less actual pleasure than you might think. Often they are poor versions of something better (p. 32).

French women never let themselves be hungry.
French women never let themselves feel stuffed (p. 254).

French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat.

Learn to say no, with an eye to saying yes to something else.

Seasonality (eating the best at its peak) and seasoning (the art of choosing and combining flavors to complement food) are vital for fighting off the food lover’s worst enemy: not calories, but boredom. Eat the same thing in the same way time and again, and you’ll need more just to achieve the same pleasure. (Think of it as “taste tolerance.”) Have just one taste experience as your dinner (the big bowl of pasta, a big piece of meat), and you are bound to eat too much, as you seek satisfaction from volume instead of the interplay of flavor and texture that comes from a well thought out meal (p. 118).

She shares recipes, seasoning information, different tips for different stages of life. This being a secular book, some of its philosophies and principles I would not ascribe to, like the information on alcohol and meditative breathing.

As an adult, she divides her time between France and America, so she’s well familiar with both mindsets. She has shared these principles and practices with others through the years who have asked how she can “get away with” seeming to eat so much yet staying slim, and they have found them successful as well.

While I wouldn’t minutely follow everything she says (I don’t think I could ever get “hooked on the sensation of that tender grayish glob of seagoing goodness sliding down your throat” [p. 100] – oysters), I’ve marked some recipes to try and gleaned quite a lot of good thoughts and especially attitudes.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carole’s Books You Loved)

Book Review: Keeping Christmas

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Barbara Harper

In Keeping Christmas by Dan Walsh, Stan and Judith Winters are empty nesters. Stan enjoys having a little more freedom of schedule and quietness, but Judith’s life has always been wrapped up in her children, and she misses them. She’s sad that they can’t come for Thanksgiving, but when she learns that none of them can come for Christmas, she falls into a deeper depression than Stan has ever seen. She doesn’t even have the heart to decorate the Christmas tree. That was something they had always done together, and most of their ornaments are what Stan calls “ugly ornaments,” ones Judith made with the kids.

Judith’s best friend does her best to distract her, with minimal success at first. Judith doesn’t think her friend understands, since all of her children and grandchildren live in town. But her friend conveys that just because they’re all there doesn’t mean everything is idyllic and shares some of the family conflicts and quandaries.

Judith and Stan had developed different and separate traditions for their after-Thanksgiving activities, and not only had they hardly talked over their meal, but Stan had even left the TV on. But as he tries to help lift Judith’s spirits, he becomes more attentive. Finally he has an idea, one involving the box of “ugly ornaments” and some sacrifice, but it’s his last option.

My thoughts:

Though predictable, this was a sweet story, not just about helping an empty nester mom’s depression, but about a husband and wife learning to reconnect after all their kids are gone. I’d be a little concerned that moms in the same situation reading this might be even more down since the Hallmark-type happy ending in the book is not likely to happen in real life. But perhaps there’s enough in everything else the characters go through and learn to be beneficial even without that ideal ending. Overall a nice, heartwarming Christmas novel.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Literary Musing Monday, and Carole’s Books You Loved)

Literary Christmas Reading Challenge

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Barbara Harper

Tarissa at In the Bookcase is hosting a Literary Christmas Reading Challenge, and, since I like to read Christmasy books in December, I decided to join in! More information on the challenge is here.

I have read or am planning to read the following (the ones I have already read and reviewed are linked back to my reviews):

Sarah’s Song by Karen Kingsbury
Silver Bells by Deborah Raney
Keeping Christmas by Dan Walsh
I’ll Be Home For Christmas, four novellas in one.
The Great Christmas Bowl by Susan May Warren
Gospel Meditations for Christmas by Chris Anderson, Joe Tyrpak, and Michael Barrett

That will probably be more than enough, but I have a few others on hand or in my Kindle app if needed. 🙂

Book Review: Silver Bells

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Barbara Harper

Silver Bells by Deborah Raney opens in small-town Bristol, Kansas in August 1971. Michelle Penn has had to leave college after two years because her parents can’t afford to send both her and her brother, and they hope that having her brother in college will keep him out of Viet Nam. Michelle has found a job as the city reporter in Bristol’s small newspaper. She meets the sports reporter at the desk next to hers, and after she makes a comment about the boss’s son, she’s chagrined to learn that’s him. “First day on the job and she was toast. Burned-to-a-crisp toast.” Thankfully, the boss’s son, Rob, thinks the whole thing is funny.

He shows her the ropes and takes her along for a breaking case, which involves a domestic disturbance. While he’s snapping pictures, she’s supposed to be getting details, but compassion for the battered wife and daughter stop her in her tracks. She talks Rob into using the least graphic of the photos and goes back later to see if she can help the woman.

Later she humanizes the paper a bit by putting a fun, good-feeling photo on the front cover. At first the editor is not pleased that the cover photo did not involve politics or sports, but the response is so positive that he grudgingly assigns her the cover photo from now on. But he does warn her that he has a policy against employees dating.

Unfortunately, Michelle has already taken a liking to Rob, and he is attracted to her as well. They’re thrown together often to cover stories, but Rob’s father once again warns Michelle away from Rob and threatens her with losing her job. Rob wonders if it’s time to get out from under his father’s thumb so he can live his own life the way he wants to.

My thoughts:

This was a sweet, funny, touching, clean romance. I loved the banter between Rob and Michelle. The faith element was woven in naturally as the characters learned to seek and then to trust God with their situation. The 1970s were the era of my teens, and I enjoyed the touches particular to the times that Deborah incorporated. This era is not often written about, so it was refreshing from that aspect as well. The plot ends at Christmastime, making it a perfect Christmas read.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Literary Musing Monday, and Carole’s Books You Loved)

“Managing” Christmas

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Barbara Harper

We look forward to many enjoyable Christmas activities and traditions. But when we add them to an already-packed schedule, stress rises. We can feel frantic and pressured rather than enjoying the season. Who has time for a quiet moment to ponder the meaning of it all?

Though I am not an organizational expert, here are a few tips I’ve found helpful:

Start early. Some people shop all year for Christmas. That doesn’t work for everyone – they might not have the storage space, or desires might change over the year. It’s been a big help to me to buy Christmas cards fairly soon after they first come out, usually in November before Thanksgiving. I can find a good selection at a discount store then, whereas later they’ll be picked-over. The last few years, we’ve asked for everyone’s “wish lists” by Thanksgiving week, and by taking advantage of online sales that week, we’ve gotten the bulk of our Christmas shopping done then.

Evaluate traditions. Composer Gustav Mahler said, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” Traditions are lovely ways to enhance a season and create family memories, but sometimes they become a burden rather than a blessing. I recently read of a family whose mom/grandmother had passed away. The first Christmas afterward, someone made the special dish that she had always made for Christmas dinner. But then they realized that none of them really liked it, and there were other, better ways to remember their loved one.

Involve the whole family. We always decorate the house for Christmas together as a family. My husband and I divide up the shopping. The kids help clean the house.

You don’t have to go to everything. School programs and recitals, special things going on in town, get-togethers with various groups all add to the fun but also the time constraints. Unless you like being out a lot, choose the most meaningful things for your family and forget the rest. Or rotate what you attend from year to year.

Some activities can be scheduled outside of December. Some people do their annual Christmas family newsletter around Thanksgiving or just after New Year’s rather than at Christmastime. We had one Sunday School class that scheduled its class party in January rather than December, both to relieve everyone’s December calendars and the church facility usage, and give us something to look forward to in January.

Put off what can be put off. In addition to what was mentioned in the last point, December is not usually the time for massive organizational or home projects. I also try not to schedule doctor’s or dentist’s appointments in December unless it can’t be helped. By the way, you might be thinking of getting appointments or procedures in before the end of the year if you’ve already met your deductible so that you’ll pay less. Check with your insurance about when their year starts and ends. We just found out a few months ago that our insurance company counts our year not from January to December, but from December through the following November, so December expenses count for the new year, not the current one.

Take shortcuts. It’s ok to buy pre-made cookie dough or even bakery or restaurant items rather than making everything from scratch for every activity or gathering. I store my mini Christmas trees (some maybe 10 inches tall, some about 2 feet) with the decorations on in their own containers, so when I put them up, all I have to do is fluff them out a little and put back on any decorations that fell off rather than decorating each from scratch each year. (If you have extremely fragile ornaments, that might not work).

Acknowledge changes in circumstances and seasons. A friend grieved one year because she was in the hospital with a kidney infection Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. She felt she was “ruining” Christmas for her family. Since nothing could be done about the circumstances, it would have been a good time to teach her kids to adapt. Maybe families could turn such times into something fun for the kids in some way (maybe Dad bringing doughnuts for Christmas breakfast in the hospital room, opening stockings there and saving the big presents for later, etc.). Another friend’s husband was in prison over several Christmases, another was homeless one Christmas. Some people get stranded in airports or can’t make planned trips due to bad weather. Though these things are sad and frustrating, they can’t be helped. It’s best to make the best of it in some way. And it’s funny how those “different” Christmases are the ones that we sometimes remember the most. On the other hand, some Christmases are filled with grief, and it’s ok not to be into the ‘frothy” aspects of the season. Also, as the family grows, or decreases when kids move out, the different things you do as a family might change. We used to get Christmas presents for all the siblings, then their spouses. But our giving decreased as families grew. Empty nesters might not do all the decorating they did when kids and grandkids were home for the holidays.

Find ways to focus on the meaning of the season. There are Advent Bible reading plans online that incorporate OT passages prophesying the Messiah’s birth as well the familiar NT passages about Christ’s birth and other applicable NT passages. I’ve been blessed by focusing on one Christmas devotional book in December. Some I’ve read are (linked to my reviews):

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas compiled by Nancy Guthrie, containing sermon excerpts or essays from as far back as Augustine and as current as Tim Keller.

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: Daily Family Devotions for Advent by Nancy Guthrie is geared for family usage, but I enjoyed reading it by myself as well.

The Women of Christmas: Experience the Season Afresh with Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna by Liz Curtis Higgs.

From Heaven: A 28-Day Advent Devotional by A. W. Tozer

I’m currently reading a new one, Gospel Meditations for Christmas by Chris Anderson, Joe Tyrpak, and Michael Barrett. I’m only a third of the way into it, but it’s good so far. I have enjoyed others in the Gospel Meditations series that I’ve read.

Don’t expect perfection. I wrote about our idea of a “perfect Christmas” a few years ago and compared it to the first Christmas. Traveling while heavily pregnant and giving birth in a stable would not rate as a perfect Christmas to most of us. But that’s the Christmas setting of our nostalgic carols. More importantly, that Christmas the resulted in the Savior of the world being born. The point of Christmas celebrations is to remember and celebrate that birth, so if every bow isn’t straight or every cookie isn’t baked and decorated just right, it’s not the end of the world.

How about you? What ways have you found to get the extras done at Christmas and still have time for reflection?

“Christmas is so much more than a holiday. So much more than buying and wrapping and cooking and eating and trimming with tinsel and mailing out cards. It’s a season for reflection, for preparation, for renewal.” ~Liz Curtis Higgs, The Women of Christmas

(Sharing with Inspire Me Monday, Literary Musing Monday, Glimpses, Tell His Story, Coffee for Your Heart, Porch Stories, Faith on Fire)

Book Review: The Bronze Bow

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Barbara Harper

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare takes place during the time Christ lived in Israel. Daniel bar Jamin is a young Jewish man fueled by one passion: vengeance against the hated Romans. They had crucified his father and uncle when Daniel was eight, his mother died of grief, and his sister, who saw the bodies on the crosses when she was three, was so traumatized that she became excessively fearful and has never left the house since. Daniel’s grandmother took the children in, but she was so poor that she had to sell Daniel to a blacksmith as an apprentice. Daniel’s master was so cruel that Daniel escaped to the hills, where he was taken in by a band of outlaw freedom fighters.

One day Daniel, now a young man, spies another young man and his sister exploring the hills and realizes he uses to know the other young man, Joel. Though it’s not wise or safe, Daniel feels compelled to speak to them. They get reacquainted and wonder whether the freedom fighter’s leader, Rosh, could possibly be the deliverer, the Messiah they wait for. Joel wants to join Rosh’s band, so Rosh tells him to go back to town and wait, and he’ll send him word when it’s time.

Eventually Daniel’s friend, Simon the Zealot, sends word to Daniel that his grandmother is dying. As his sister, Leah’s, only living relative, Daniel feels compelled to go back and care for her, though Rosh calls him “soft.” Simon offers Daniel his blacksmith’s shop since Simon is following Jesus and not using it. Daniel finds that most people in the village, though they don’t like Roman rule, aren’t willing to fight against it. Though homesick for the free air and space of the hills, Daniel recruits Joel and other boys to a band to train to help Rosh when the time comes.

As Daniel hears of Jesus from Simon and Joel, goes to listen to his teaching, and witnesses healings, he can’t help but wonder about him and ponder his words. He wishes Jesus would team up with Rosh. But eventually he realizes Jesus’s deliverance is not so much from Roman oppression, his message is not about revenge, hatred, and war: in fact, he tells people to love their enemies. That Daniel cannot acquiesce to, so he goes his own way, which eventually leads to disaster and despair. Will Daniels’s hate destroy everything dear to him, or will his hitting rock bottom finally allow him to look up?

“Daniel,” he said. “I would have you follow me.”

“Master!….I will fight for you to the end!.”

“My loyal friend,” he said, “I would ask something much harder than that. Would you love for me to the end?”
___

It is the hate that is the enemy. Not men. Hate does not die with killing. It only springs up a hundredfold. The only thing stronger than hate is love.

My thoughts:

I came across this book while searching for an award-winning classic for the Back to the Classics challenge, and this won the Newberry medal. I was resistant to reading it, both because I figured it would be predictable and I am wary of fictionalized Bible-related stories. I chose another classic but had to lay it aside due to bad language and couldn’t find anything else, so I came back to The Bronze Bow. And I was pleasantly surprised! Though one event happened like I thought it might, the rest of the story didn’t pan out like I thought it would at all, and I was drawn in to Daniel’s story and angst. I listened to the audiobook nicely narrated by Peter Bradbury, but also checked out the hard copy from the library to go over certain passages more in depth.

I wouldn’t take my theology from this book. There are conversations and incidents involving Jesus that may not represent Him or His message entirely accurately, and the redemption described seems more about overcoming hate than personal salvation from sin (though of course overcoming hate with love is certainly a part of salvation). But it does give an excellent feel to the times, especially to what being under a Jew under Roman occupation was like, and shows the cultural customs naturally without being didactic. The characters were well-drawn and the story drew me right in.

One thing that stood out was the sense of anticipation of waiting for the Messiah, the Deliverer, even though some people missed the point of what He was coming to deliver them from. It was interesting reading this during the Christmas season, when we commemorate the anticipation of His coming the first time, and renews in me that sense of anticipation of His coming again.

(Sharing with Literary Musing Monday and Carole’s Books You Loved)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on December 9, 2017 by Barbara Harper

Here’s my latest round-up of thought-provoking, noteworthy reads discovered in the last few weeks.

Bibles are not talismans. It’s all about the words.

The Importance of Margins.

What Would Jesus Do About Transgender? HT to Challies.

13 Things a Pastor Should Never Say to a Congregation, HT to Challies. Yes.

7 Hard Truths About Retirement, HT to Challies.

Ban the bike! How cities made a huge mistake in promoting cycling, HT to Challies.

If you like writing about imagination, children’s literature, and families, you might be interested in writing for Story Warren: they’re looking for new contributors.

Finally, I was looking for this yesterday in talking about my young grandson’s imagination. I couldn’t find it then but found it later in the afternoon.

Happy Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Barbara Harper

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

We’re really feeling the winter cold this week, but thankfully no snow yet! Here are some highlights from the last week:

1. A new Christmas tree. I saw a mini white Christmas tree with pink and blue ornaments at a store and just loved it. Unfortunately that store didn’t have any more of that tree or ornaments, but after looking around I found what I wanted. I decided to put it in my bedroom – I have never had anything Christmasy in my bedroom, and I have gotten a ridiculous amount of pleasure from this. Ironically, I have been asking myself if there are ways we should simplify or cut back on our decorating, and here I go adding more. 🙂 One tip for others with mini trees: I have some in other rooms, too, and I store them individually in a container with the decorations still on. When we get them out again, all I have to do is fluff them up a little and put back on a few ornaments that might have fallen off rather than decorating the whole thing again. So that helps.

2. Alexa. I wasn’t a big fan at first, but my husband enjoys having it, and he doesn’t buy any gadget without searching for deals on it. But what I especially love is that he programmed it to turn the Christmas lights on and off on our tree and outside just by speaking to it. 🙂 The one switch for the tree was in a hard-to-reach place, and the one for the outside lights is outside, and I always hated having to go out in the cold and dark night to turn them off. So having those switches programmed in is nice!

3. Surprise help with the dishes. I usually clean up the kitchen after dinner while my husband feeds his mom. One night I had gotten the dishwasher loaded but still had to hand wash the pots and pans and the blending equipment to puree his mom’s food. I had to step away for a bit, and when I came back, he had returned from feeding his mom and cleaned up her dishes plus everything else I hadn’t finished. A nice surprise! And I think I’ve mentioned before that he always does the Sunday morning breakfast dishes. I just don’t have time to tend to them – unless I want to get up even earlier – and it’s so nice not to have them still sitting in the sink when we get home.

4. Being almost finished with Christmas shopping and wrapping.

5. Timothy’s imagination. He was playing a fishing game with his dad on the couch, and the carpet was transformed into “freezing cold” water which he occasionally jumped into and even swam in. He had us all laughing without trying in the least to be funny.

Happy Friday!

Book Review: What Is a Healthy Church?

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Barbara Harper

Mark Dever opens What Is a Healthy Church? by pointing out that much of what we look for in a church is determined by our own particular culture: the type of music, pastor, preaching, etc., that we’re used to. He encourages readers to consider Biblical marks of a healthy church. Why does he address a book like this to Christians in general rather than church leaders? Because, he points out, most of the NT epistles, which contain much instruction about church as well as personal life, were written to congregations, not just pastors.

Then he explains briefly what a Christian is, what the church is and isn’t, what the church is for, and why Christians need a church. Ultimately the church “is called to display the character and glory of God to all the universe, testifying in word and action to his great wisdom and work of salvation” (p. 48).

The church finds its life as it listens to the Word of God. It finds its purpose as it lives out and displays the Word of God. The church’s job is to listen and then to echo…The primary challenge churches face today is not figuring out how to be “relevant” or “strategic” or “sensitive” or even “deliberate.” It’s figuring out how to be faithful–how to listen, to trust and obey (pp. 55-56).

He then discusses one by one what he considers nine marks of a healthy church, dividing them into three essential marks (expositional preaching, Biblical theology, Biblical understanding of the Good News) and six important ones (Biblical understanding of conversion, evangelism, membership, church discipline, discipleship and growth, and church leadership).

You and I cannot demonstrate love or joy or peace or patience or kindness sitting all by ourselves on an island. No, we demonstrate it when the people we have committed to loving give us good reasons not to love them, but we do anyway (p. 29).

If a healthy church is a congregation that increasingly displays the character of God as his character has been revealed in his Word, the most obvious place to begin building a healthy church is to call Christians to listen to God’s Word. God’s Word is the source of all life and health. It’s what feeds, develops, and preserves a church’s understanding of the gospel itself (p. 63).

Martin Luther found that carefully attending to God’s Word began a Reformation. We, too, must commit to seeing that our churches are always being reformed by the Word of God (p. 67).

Sometimes, it’s tempting to present some of the very real benefits of the gospel as the gospel itself. And these benefits tend to be things that non-Christians naturally want, like joy, peace, happiness, fulfillment, self-esteem, or love. Yet presenting them as the gospel is presenting a partial truth. And, as J. I. Packer says, “A half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.”

Fundamentally, we don’t need just joy or peace or purpose. We need God, himself. Since we are condemned sinners, then, we need his forgiveness above all else. We need spiritual life. When we present the gospel less radically, we simply ask for false conversions and increasingly meaningless church membership lists, both of which make the evangelization of the world around us more difficult (p. 77).

My thoughts:

I don’t think I have ever read anything by Dever before and was only vaguely aware of his organization, 9Marks. This book seems to be a compact version of what he has written more extensively elsewhere. We received it in a gift bag from a church we visited. Generally I agree with what’s here with a couple of exceptions, one relatively minor.

1) In the chapter on preaching he makes the statement “Has not every step of growth in grace occurred when we heard from God in ways we hadn’t heard from him before?” (p. 66). For me, significant growth in grace has occurred sometimes from being reminded of something I already knew from God’s Word that I needed to return to or refocus on.

2) I think he’s too dismissive of differences in preference of music styles in churches. He seems to consider it almost a non-issue.

Remembering that the church is a people should help us recognize what’s important and what’s not important. I know I need the help. For example, I have a temptation to let something like the style of music dictate how I feel about a church. After all, the style of music a church uses is one of the first things we will notice about any church, and we tend to respond to music at a very emotional level. Music makes us feel a certain way. Yet what does it say about my love for Christ and for Christ’s people if I decide to leave a church because of the style of its music? Or if, when pastoring a church, I marginalize a majority of my congregation because I think the style of music needs to be updated? At the very least, we could say that I’ve forgotten that the church, fundamentally, is a people and not a place (p. 35).

If it were just a matter of preferences, that would be true. What I think he might not understand is that some people consider certain types of music not just not preferable, but wrong. We’ve heard teaching for years about what’s wrong with certain types of music. On the other hand, the Bible doesn’t say anything about particular music styles, and I think some of that specific teaching went far beyond what the Bible has to say about music. But I don’t think that means “anything goes.” So we’re trying to sort out what’s coming from conscience or conditioning, but I don’t think we can ignore conscience or conditioning, either. Music makes up a significant part of a church service, so, while it’s not “the” main issue, or even part of the “nine marks,” it is still an issue.

Aside from those, I thought this was a good overview of what a healthy church should be. I also appreciated his encouragement to both pastor and people to be patient if a church isn’t “there” yet and his reminder that growth takes time. Once when we were getting ready to move to another state, our dear pastor at the time advised us to look not just at where a church is, but where it’s heading, and I think that dovetails nicely with the instruction in this book. No church will be perfect, but we should look for one with a good foundation and growth in these ways.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Literary Musing Monday)