Guest Blogger Book Review: "Churched: One Kid's Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess"

"Churched: One Kid's Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess"

A memoir, with a dose (or twelve) of cynicism, that doesn’t live up to it's subtitle.

I picked up "Churched" from the Blogging for Books program with WaterBrook Multonomah, just out of curiosity. It looked like an interesting read, which I will note here, it was.


I started reading the book as soon as I got it. It was very interesting, telling Matthew Turner’s childhood experiences growing up in a conservative church. It’s pretty much his autobiography… with about a tablespoon (or two) of cynicism added to it. 

It starts with the author in a sauna, where he meets a guy with a tattoo of Jesus spitting fire out of his mouth. A conversation ensues, which leads you to believe that in the end of the book our author is different than he is in the beginning . Wanting to see the change between the beginning and the end, I read through this book quickly. 

It was very interesting with a lot of funny and witty stories. Although these stories are written in a cynical light, there is a very good point in the end, in which he admits that no church is perfect. However, he still hasn’t really recovered from his ‘holy mess’. 

I expect this book will be rewritten in a few years with an actual ending that makes a point, because hopefully by then he will be past this, and will have become a more mature follower of Christ. This book almost makes a really good point at the end…but ends up a bit short of a bulls eye.

Disclaimer: I received Churched for free through the WaterBrook Multonomah blogging for books company in exchange for doing a review.

(Today's book review was by guest blogger/avid reader/book reviewer par excellence, Erika Fletcher, my 15 year old daughter.)

Book Review: 5 Cities that Ruled the World

5 Cities that Ruled the World
by Douglas Wilson

Belief, thought, self-rule, imagination and commerce; these are key elements that have lasting effect on human culture. Douglas Wilson has taken a unique perspective on the development of these themes and their ongoing effect on modern culture. In “5 Cities that Ruled the World”, Douglas Wilson views these significant elements through the lens of five individual cities.

While there are a multitude of cities that could be seen to have significant effect on modern culture and belief, Douglas Wilson has chosen five specific cities very specific reasons. This is an interesting book comparing and contrasting some of the most important cities in human history. By the time you’ve read through each city, you understand why he chose the cities that he did.

Jerusalem gave us the spirit. Athens gave us reason. Rome gave us love. London gave us literature. New York gave us industry and commerce.

Throughout the book, Wilson points out that these different places have given us the freedom to believe, to think, to rule ourselves, to imagine, and to make money. Along with these freedoms come bad, evil, and undesirable things, but in the long run the truth, the beautiful, and the good will be remembered.

The book was well-written and free from “insider” jargon. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in world history, or anyone interested in cultural trends and their roots. I found the book a pleasure to read and look forward to sharing it with my friends.

“5 Cities that Ruled the World”; each of these cities has good and bad points. Years later, we remember the good, and continue to learn from that good that emanates from these “Cities that Ruled the World”.

Book Review: "What difference do it make?"

Book Review: What Difference Do It Make?
By Ron Hall, Denver More, and Lynn Vincent

Contrary to popular opinion, one life does make a difference. The choices you make will make a difference in your world. That is the core message of "What difference do it make?", the new book by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

Ron is a white elite Art Dealer and Denver is a black man who was homeless until Ron's wife Deborah decided to make a difference. Their first book "Same Kid of Different as Me" is about the choice that Deborah made to make a difference in the sphere of homelessness in her city. Deborah later died of cancer. This, their second book, is about the difference that Deborah's life made and is continuing to make in the lives of people all across the United States.

The chapters of the book each trace a thread of change that came about as a result of Deborah's life, and - perhaps more importantly - the book that chronicled her choices. While the book is about the effect of one life on the homelessness surrounding her, the more important lesson to be learned is that you CAN make a difference in your world. Each chapter follows the story of someone who was touched by "Same Kind of Different as Me" and how they were changed. It further goes on to tell how that individual chose to make a difference in their world as a result of reading the book.

While there are a few elements of the book that cause me to question individual choices of the people being chronicled, I found the book to be very motivational. Most people I know are moved by the plight of the homeless, but are paralyzed by ignorance. They are plagued by questions about what to do and what not to do in order to bless people and help them.

Denver give a new definition to "blessing" and helping". He says that you "bless" someone by giving them a gift that tells them they still matter in the world. He says that you help someone by stepping down into the pit with them and staying long enough to give them a boost so they can climb out. He would approve of either action as a Godly response to homelessness.

One of the things that struck me as among the most remarkable comments in the book was about "blessing". Denver says that you cannot bless someone and judge them at the same time. He says that you must give your gift to God as you hand it to a homeless person. You can't focus on blessing them if you insist on judging how they might use your gift.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "What difference do it make?" and would recommend it to just about everyone. I wouldn't say that it will answer all your questions about homelessness and how you should respond. However, it will give you some simple pointers on some things to NOT do, and some ideas on how to begin. Get a copy and read it. I don't think you'll regret it! You definitely won't look at homelessness the same way afterward.

Book Review: The Gifts of the Jews

Book Review
"The Gifts of the Jews"
How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels
by: Thomas Cahill
ISBN 0-385-48249-3
Paperback, $14.95
Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books


I bought a copy of "The Gifts of the Jews" because a professor highly recommended it as a moving tribute to the Jewish people. Based on who recommended the book, I expected the book to be respectful of the Biblical record, but I soon found that it wasn't what I expected.

Cahill opens the book with a graphic verbal depiction of the nature of worship and the attitude towards gods in the people and culture in the Fertile Crescent prior to Abram's arrival on the scene. He does a good job of comparing various early literature to discern the difference between various forms of belief, and attitudes toward local deities at the time. He spends more time than I thought was warranted giving a graphic description of the sensual worship rituals of the ziggurats with their priestesses - making his book seem more like a paperback romance than a respectable work of historical research.

As you can tell by now, I was not overly ecstatic about Cahill's presentation of the roots of the Hebrew people. However, what I did appreciate was the credence he gave to the idea of Abraham's belief in his personal covenant God. The "evolution" of the belief in a god that Cahill outlines is a decent perspective to read, in order to understand how Abraham's neighbors would have viewed his insistence on belief in a personal Creator God.

At times, you would almost believe that Cahill was a believer. He seems at times, to have great respect for God. However, he shows no great appreciation for the Biblical record, and thereby blows his "cover" in my mind. This man is no believer. He honors his own intellect above any idea of God.

Cahill lost all credibility with me when he said:

It is no longer possible to believe that every word of the Bible was inspired by God. Fundamentalists still do, but they keep usp such self-delusion only by scrupulously avoiding all forms of scientific inquiry. They must also maintain a tight reign on their own senses, for, even without access to modern biblical criticism, any reader might wonder at the patchwork nature of the scriptures, their conflicting norms and judgements, outright contradictions, and bald errors. But even without resorting to modern scientific methodology or noticing what an inconsistent palimpsest the Hebrew Bible can be, we must reject certain parts of the Bible as unworthy of a God we would be willing to believe in.

When you strip away the camoflague, you see that Thomas Cahill, not God, is the final arbiter. God must be judged by the almight Thomas Cahill. The phrase "a God we would be willing to believe in" implies that we are the final judge of all that is right or wrong.

If God is God, then I do not have the right to set standards for Him. I cannot set a certain standard for God and only believe in Him if He performs to a level that meets my satisfaction! If I am the final judge...then I am God. If I am God, then I can cease my search for Him. I have already found him in the mirror!

While Mr. Cahill is a masterful writer, I cannot recommend this book for anyone who truly desires to honor God, or the Biblical record of His work among His people. I can only recommend it to anyone who seeks to have more fuel to fire their belief in "the almighty in the mirror."

All others....move along...there's noting to see here.

Book Review: DEATH by Meeting

I have decided to try to do a review of the books I read, so you can get a preview of some of the things I read. I hope you find this useful. I will start with a book I just finished, and in a couple of days, I will do a review of a book I finished about a week ago. "DEATH by Meeting", I really enjoyed and think it will be a very useful book to anyone who has to run meetings in their work. The next book I review will be one I loved to hate for most of my reading of it. :-)

"DEATH by Meeting" is by Patrick Lencioni, and is written in the form of a "fable" to teach a new concept. For that reason, it is actually a pretty light read. If you are one who skips to the end to decide if they will like the book or not, you will get a complete misconception, since Lencioni recaps some of the key concepts taught by the fable in a couple of chapters at the end.

I won't steal any thunder from the book by telling any more details that to say that Lencioni advocates through the story, the idea of doing your meeting "on purpose". Don't expect one kind of meeting to be a "one-size-fits-all" affair. Conflict, drama and context are your friends in getting vital information onto the table in your meetings.

Lencioni's protagonist in the fable gets the executives to understand that the first 10 minutes of any meeting, like in a movie, will set the stage for the rest of the movie, and will probably determine whether people are engaged or bored by the rest of the piece. Meetings are no different.

The idea of doing meetings in varied ways to match the topic and purpose should NOT be news to any of us, but the fact is that in MOST organizations, a meeting is a meeting is a meeting. They are all the same and most of the participants would give their left arm to have an acceptable excuse to miss the meeting. Lencioni crafts a wonderful story to help executives grapple with some concepts that will help protect their organization from "DEATH by Meeting". I would encourage anyone who needs to run meetings in their role in their organization to read this book and implement as much as possible. It is a good read and makes some excellent points!

As a final point, I would say that my wife commented on the speed with which I finished this book... I usually plod carefully through non-fiction to make sure I get the point. Since Lencioni wrote this like a well-lubed work of fiction, I flew through it and couldn't get enough! :-)