The Return

Review: The Prayer Wheel: A Daily Guide to Renewing Your Faith with a Rediscovered Spiritual Practice Patton Dodd, Jana Riess, And David van Biema Convergent 2018 The title intrigued me, and I decided to look at this prayer wheel idea.   At first, I thought it was a gimmicky idea, but as it turns out it’s something more.   The wheel had been used long ago but forgotten until someone looked at the fly leaf of an old ceremonial type bible.   There was a copy of this wheel.   It’s related to an Augustinian guide from the 4 th or 5th century.   Think a remix of the original that a Benedictine order had designed.   Now it’s rediscovered and back in circulation.   The authors of The Prayer Wheel have written a devotional book that uses the prayer wheel.   If a person is willing to work through the devotional, a knowledge of using the prayer wheel would be one of the outcomes.   I found their brief daily offerings ...

Review: Talking About God: Honest Conversations about Spirituality Steve & Cheri Saccone Navpress 2018 Love the back-cover comment.   “Evangelism is intimidating. But talking is natural…A vital part of every meaningful relationship you’ve ever had.”   That’s what this book is about.   Talking with someone and in the process evangelism sort of just happens.   Well, not quite that simple, but it does open the way.    Each chapter of this book illustrates how that can be so.   It’s the art of conversation, and each conversation recorded in this book shows how that can happen.   This is not a set of case studies with discussion questions to follow.   The authors opted for the conversational approach in their story telling with the reader.   The flow is so natural you’ll think your reading a good fiction work.   You aren’t though and there’s lots to be learned here.   When to pursue a particular direction, whe...

Review: WOW! The Good News in Four Words Dandi Daley Mackall Tyndale House Publishers 2017 This is one of several books that attempts to explain the gospel to children.   It’s not as easy as it sounds since us grownups have made it pretty complicated, in some respects.   I had heard someone say that they found it quite difficult to explain things especially around Easter time, so I decided to give this book a look. It is meant to be read to children.   That’s a plus right there.   It isn’t something you place in front of them and walk away.   That meets the first criterium in my opinion.   Parental involvement.   The size of the book works for sharing it with someone.   Nice big pages, colorful illustrations done by Annabel Tempest, and print that fills the space left for it nicely.   The story is told in rhyme and mostly simple terms.   There are some words like grace or Savior that might trip up a young...