Recent Reads

Taking a page off of Marko's blog, and to break the silence of this blog while I have a moment, I thought I would share with you just a few of the books I've had the time and opportunity to read in the past couple of weeks.

First up, Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger's great book, Emerging Churches. This is by far the best and most unprejudiced read on the subject I've seen. Highlighting nine key elements that seem to be common threads among those in the movement, the authors offer insights and comments from church leaders and practitioners not only from the U.S., but abroad as well. It's nice to see something fairly unbiased about the movement that covers the material so well and really leaves the conclusions up to the reader. Of particular interest for me was the chapter that dealt with the idea of the sacred and secular divide and the desire of emerging churces to work toward redeeming that. This has been on my mind quite a lot lately and the concept of our viewing the handiwork of the Creator in all that we come into contact with, of seeing every avenue of life as sacred, is a powerful one.

After that, it was time for something a little more lighthearted. Enter Christopher Moore's, Practical Demonkeeping. For my more fundie friends, no, this is not a book about calling down the power of Satan. Rather, it's a fanciful tale of a young man and the demon, Catch, that is assigned to him through a bizarre series of events. The plot is not the easiest to describe in three pithy lines but, as usual, Moore offers up his signature brand of quirky storyline, character driven happenings, and great humor. It's good stuff for a nice late summer read.

Lastly, for now, I finally had the chance to read Chuck Palahniuk's seminal work, Fight Club. It was the movie that drew me into Palahniuk's other works but for some reason I had just not read this one yet. If you've seen the film, you know what it's about. And like always, the book is just a bit better. The thing that I appreciate about Palahniuk is that he has much of the same characteristics of Moore in that he has quirky and character driven stories with generally a nice sense of humor but he also has a keen eye on society. Each and every work of his I've read is essentially a fictional treatise on the ills of society but framed in such a great way. Many of us in the Church would do well to read and heed Chuck's insights here.

All for now.