Peppermint Filled Pinatas

I’m currently listening to the audio book version of “Peppermint Filled Pinatas.”

Some really good stuff in there!

The author just told a story (in chapter 3) about a 16-year-old girl who invited him and his wife to her birthday party at a skating rink. They reluctantly decided to come and brought a few teenagers along with them. Turns out other than a few members of the girls family, they were the only ones to come to the party and stay.

A couple weeks later, the mother of the girl, who had been against her daughter being a part of a church showed up at the church and wanted to become a follower of Christ.

Her reason, she said she changed her mind after the author and his wife showed up at the birthday party.

“Now if we get an invitation and it happens to be the night of our small group not only do we miss the small group, but we invite our small group to join us. We need to say ‘No’ more often to our business so that we can create room for spontaneous adventures with others.”

That’s hard for me to swallow. I tend to see my small group as “my ministry” or “my calling.” I tend to get really frustrated when people who know I have small group on a particular night of the week make plans during that time and expect me to forgo our small group in favor of their event.

Perhaps there’s still a whole lot more that I need to surrender!

Let go and let God!

Thoughts? Anyone else struggle with this?

Books I’ve read in 2008

My goal in 2007 was to read 30 books. Didn’t quite make it – so I lowered my goal to 15 this year. I think I made it.

Here’s my list of completed reads in 2008 ::

Sex God – Rob Bell
Everything Must Change – Brian McLaren
The Ragamuffin Gospel – Brennan Manning
Jesus for President – Shane Claiborne/Chris Haw
Communicating for a Change – Andy Stanley
The Screwtape Letters – CS Lewis
A Generous Orthodoxy – Brian McLaren
A Christianity Worth Believing – Doug Paggitt
Pagan Christianity – Frank Viola
A Wild Goose Chase – Mark Batterson
Reimagining Church – Frank Viola
Stories From the Edge: A Theology of Grief – Greg Garrett
Through the Storm – Lynne Spears
For Young Men Only: A Guy’s Guide to the Alien Gender – Jeff Feldhahn
The New Christians – Tony Jones
Not the Religious Type – Dave Schmelzer
If God Disappears – David Sanford
On the Side of Angels – Dr. Joseph D’souza/Benedict Rogers

What did you read this year?

New books to read!


New books to read!
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

new books to read, chew on, enjoy and review…

A New Kind Of Conversation
&
On the Side of the Angels: Justice, Human Rights and Kingdom Mission

Woot!

Top emergent books

Tall Skinny Kiwi shared his top 5 emergent books for American readers back in June on his blog (just saw the post :-().

Here’s his top 5 (plus a few others) ::
1. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, by Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs.
2. The New Conspirators, Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time, by Tom Sine.
3. The Emerging Church, by Dan Kimball.
4. The Church on the Other Side, by Brian McLaren.

Runners-up for 5th:
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, by Tony Jones.

Revolution, by George Barna.
The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claibourne.
The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle.
The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community.
Also: Rising From the Ashes: Rethinking Church, by Becky Garrison.

Worth a mention: It might be almost 40 years old but “The Emerging Church” by Bruce Larson and Ralph Osborne (1970).

To be honest, as someone who was called an “emergent sympathizer” today I haven’t read any of these books — yet. I actually ordered two of them earlier today and hope to read them soon – that is if a couple others I’m expecting don’t reach my mail box first.

The books I’ve read and recommend as part of the “emergent movement” and or just faith in general are (in no particular order):

Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren. Probably one of the first “real emergent” books I read and one that had a great impact on my thinking and understanding.
Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. Another great book that talks more about the history of kings, empires and the role of God-followers along the way.
A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt. This book has left me asking a lot of questions. It’s not one I’ve recommended to a lot of people just for that reason but I thoroughly enjoyed the read.
A Peculiar People by Rodney Clapp. I don’t know that Rodney Clapp considers himself emergent by any means but his ideas really came to life after reading many of these other books before hand.

btw – if Mr. Tall Skinny Kiwi happens upon this blog post – we’d love to have you join us for an episode of the something beautiful podcast. tell us when and we’ll take care of the rest. 🙂

related ::
tall skinny kiwi ::emerging church: top 5 books for american reporters
something beautiful podcast

Online libraries

Looking for a new read without going through your local library? Or want to avoid “the man” and/or your local bookstores? Try Swaptree.

Pretty cool site from the looks of things. Share the books you want to trade, mark the books you want and let the system find a match. You can trade books, music and DVDs.

I added 16 books to my “have list” and it matched me up with 266 possible trades. Didn’t see anything particular I wanted, but I didn’t offer up any of my “better” books either.

Could turn into something really cool though. I’m wondering if there are similar sites for clothes, furniture, toys etc. I’ll be on the lookout.

My life canon

Chad and Tripp both pointed back to The River Merchant’s (Aaron Stoller) idea of a life canon.

You can click here for the rules.

Here is mine (as of 4-29-08):