books

I've been reading a little more lately, which is good, but it also means I haven't spent much time on things like learning Korean or guitar, like I mentioned in an earlier post. I read "A Chance to Die" by Elisabeth Elliot. It's about Amy Carmichael, a missionary who spent all of her life from her 30s on in India as a missionary. It was interesting, but a long read. I also read "The Story We Find Ourselves In" by Brian McLaren. It's a follow up to his book "A New Kind of Christian." It was really interesting, and kept me turning the pages even though it has many ideas I don't agree with as a part of the story. Now I'm reading "More Ready Than You Realize", also by McLaren. It's about how we need to see evangelism more as a conversation and a friendship in our world today. There are lots of good thoughts in this one. I'll share a few.

"Good evangelists...are people who engage others in good conversation about important and profound topics such as faith, values, hope, meaning, purpose, goodness, beauty, truth, life after death, life before death, and God. They do this, not because they like to be experts and impose their views on others, but because they feel they are in fact sent by God to do so."

"Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations; short on answers, long on questions; short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself; short on condemning the irreligious, long on confronting the religious."

"If we would rediscover the substance, the essence, the heart of our good news, we would have to work less on how we say what we say because what we say would in itself be so powerful."