Category: book club

Book reviews, thoughts and reflections

Thoughts on love and forgiveness

St Peters Brewery

Originally posted at StPetersBrewery.info

I’ve witnessed a couple great examples of people truly living out love and forgiveness recently in my life — especially through some people very close to me. Their stories inspire me to believe that while St. Peter’s Brewery may be a fictional story — the ideas contained within it can truly be lived out day by day. Here’s a couple excerpts from Chapter 8 of St. Peter’s Brewery that deal with these ideas:
Continue reading Thoughts on love and forgiveness

Searching for paradise with Kevin Hendricks

As promised, I had a good chat with Kevin Hendricks yesterday about his novel, The Least of These, which he wrote as part of NaNoWriMo.

Huge props to Kevin for the great book. It was a fun and entertaining read for sure.

Find out more about Kevin in an interview with him on the podcast (from season 1!). He’s also taken part in Five Questions with… on We Live Simply this week, so be sure to be inspired.

And be sure and follow his blog at kevindhendricks.com or on Twitter @kevinhendricks

Christ-branded consumption

Researchers are not able to differentiate the behaviours and values of self-identified Christians from non-Christians with on exception — what they buy. As total sales of religious products reaches $7 billion annually, it appears that God’s people are constructing and expressing their identity through the consumption of Christ-branded products. As Mark Riddle observes, “Conversion in the U.S. seems to mean we’ve exchanged some of our shopping at Wal-Mart, Blockbuster and Borders for the Christian Bookstore down the street. We’ve taken our lack of purchasing control to God’s store, where we buy or office supplies in Jesus’ name.”

– Skye Jethani The Divine Commodity

What do you think?

Free copy of St. Peter’s Brewery

Still waiting to get a copy of St. Peter’s Brewery? Not sure you want to fork over $15 for a hard copy? Understood!

Since it’s my birthday today — and it’s far better to give than to receive — I’m sending out a PDF copy of the book to all the subscribers of my e-mail newsletter (The Insurgency of Love)!

Of course, once you read the book in PDF format, I’m sure you’ll want to buy your own hard copy, as well as copies for all your friends… 🙂

But until then, simply sign up for my e-mail newsletter and you’ll get a copy of the book e-mailed to you first thing tomorrow morning.

It’s as easy as that!

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy both the book and the newsletter.

What is the Insurgency of Love?

The Insurgency of Love is a monthly (sometimes twice monthly) e-mail newsletter hoping to
A.) Give real examples and ideas of how we can all be Insurgents of Love (i.e. your stories!)
B.) Give some added insight/updates into some of the projects I’m involved in.

Subscribe now.

A New Kind of Christianity


Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith, drops tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb. 9).

I received a free advance copy from the publisher late last week and have been devouring it every chance I get (which with two toddlers at home hasn’t been that often).

In it, McLaren offers the top 10 questions he’s been hearing from people about the Christian faith as well as 10 responses to those questions (as opposed to answers — which are simply statements — which lead to hate and debate… he expounds much more on this in the first couple chapters).

So far I’m loving everything I’ve read. I won’t say I agree with everything yet (especially since I haven’t the full book yet) but what I’ve read is definitely in line with a lot of other things I’m reading and thinking as of late.
Continue reading A New Kind of Christianity

Making your message relevant

Jim Wallis and Jon Stewart are such a great combination…

Wallis was on the Daily Show Wednesday night talking about his new book, “Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street.”
Continue reading Making your message relevant