The Return

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: Growing God’s Church: How People Are Actually Coming to Faith Today Gary L. McIntosh Baker Books 2016 After so many church growth books have been written, marketed, read, and whatever becomes of such material afterward, this book contains some information that reveals some of the results of a research project that measured what might be considered as the outcome of all the advice presented in the church growth books.   That’s the way I read it.   What really is working with whom is the gist of McIntosh’s results.   Fear not, this does not read like a statistical report or a doctoral thesis.   He insured the results remained accessible to most readers.   Part 1 explores the biblical version of what church is and does along with some discussion of the current versions found in today’s culture, mostly Western culture.   I found it thorough and hard to argue against even if I didn’t agree with some of what he had to say.    ...

Review: Into the Fray:How Jesus's Followers Turn the World Upside Down   Matt Mikalatos Baker Books 2015 Story.   The long letter/story we generally know as Acts has been updated—a little bit.   The author doesn’t fiddle with the underlying narrative, but he does create more modern versions of several key characters found in Acts.   The Ethiopian’s ride is a limo, Stephen becomes Esteban, Luke is Dr. Lucas, but Paul stays Paul.   Mikalatos tells his stories in a modern version and then discusses the Biblical text behind the new telling.   This works pretty well, too.   The names aren’t so distant past, the events more current.   Mikalatos likes stories.   As do many others these days.   As did the people of Biblical times.    The Bible is story in many places throughout its text.   How many times have we heard, “We know how things turn out and we win.”?   Or something similar and more eloquent. ...