The Mrs. & the Minister

Patton Dodd, Jana Riess, and David van Biema's The Prayer Wheel:  A Daily Guide to Renewing Your Faith a Rediscovered Spiritual Practice brings a long-lost diagram that can be used to structure a 28-day discipline of prayer back into the practice of modern Christian spirituality.  The diagram was found in a 12th-century German book of gospels that emerged at a rare book dealer in Manhattan in 2015.  They begin with a cursory explanation of the wheel's origins but are primarily interested in reviving the use of the wheel to guide and enrich prayer by tying each day to a different thematic element of scripture. In concentric rings representing sections of the Bible and through seven "contemplative paths toward God" arranged like spokes through the rings he wheel uses Christianity's "big ideas" about the Lord's Prayer, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, events in the life of Christ, and the beatitudes to form a progression of prayer. The Praye...

At first I was a little uncertain about The Babylon Bee's new book, How To Be a Perfect Christian:  Your Comprehensive Guide to Flawless Spiritual Living .  Even the title betrays so much of what makes the website so popular:  Sarcasm and humor.  But once I started this book, I simply couldn't put it down!  There are some amazing tidbits about doctrine -- which, in an interesting way, makes you start wondering what it is that authentic Christians believe, not the cultural Christians who are the punch-line of nearly every joke in this book.  But there's a coloring page to boot! You simply cannot miss this book. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review here.

Katie Davis Majors' Daring to Hope: Find God's Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful tells beautiful stories about the triumphs and tragedies Majors faced as an adoptive mom and missionary in Uganda. After her adopted daughter's biological mother took the child back, Majors questioned God as she pleaded for him to bring her daughter home.  God did not give her the answer she desired, and for the first time in her life, she wondered whether God was good. From there, Majors embarked on a journey of doubt and loss that brought her to a place of hope and understanding.  While serving a disease- and poverty-stricken community in Uganda by volunteering at a hospital and eventually starting Amazima Ministries, Majors felt helpless watching many of the people she cared for -- including friends and their children -- suffer and sometimes die in her home. Pondering these events, she comes to the realization that God is good, gracious, near, faithful, and strong...

Louie Giglio's The Air I Breathe:  Worship as a Way of Life is a deceptively small book packed with insights.  Perhaps his most important, though, will also seem his simplest:  Everyone worships something or someone, because God has designed us all with the drive to worship.  We only have to study how we spend our time, energy, affection and money to discover the current object of our worship.  Thinking about worship in light of the book's simplest definition -- "our response to what we value most" -- is both eye-opening and thought-provoking. The Air I Breathe then proceeds to urge readers to devote their worship to God (the only One who's worthy of it) and to make worship a way of life rather than just something they do in church.  Giglio's beautiful writing -- which is full of simple, yet profound statements and fresh energy -- successfully motivates readers to ponder his points.  But as persuasive as his narrative is, it lacks su...

Kim Vogel Sawyer's Beneath the Prairie Moon is a novel about expecting the unexpected, and about being pleasantly surprised by how good the unexpected can be. Having experience setbacks in life, our main heroine, Miss Abigail Grant (Brantley) have some hard lessons to learn.  Yet as readers, we learn with her.  I love the premise of this not your typical "mail order bride" scenario.  This time, the rugged men of the frontier will learn what it means to "court" and to take on a wife.  Throughout the story, there's a certain way to the author's visualization and words that feels authentic and distinct at the same time.  I enjoyed how many different personalities we've encountered, and also show the internal strength of women.  I'm quite surprised by how much the author is able to put into this story.  Romance, friendship, adventure and a message of God's unique plan for each of us, including matters of the heart. It's a gre...

First, a confession:  My husband and I love The Crown on Netflix!  We sit in bed and watch episodes together, and I'm in withdrawal until the next season is released! So imagine my excitement when I saw The Crown:  The Official Companion , Volume 1.  This book adds rich detail to Queen Elizabeth's story and is a great way for fans like us to tide themselves over until season 2 of the Netflix series premieres in December. Written by the show's historical consultant, royal biographer Robert Lacey, and filled with beautifully reproduced archival photos and show stills, The Crown:  The Official Companion:  Volume 1 adds expert and in-depth detail to the events of the series, painting an intimate portrait of life inside Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street.  Here is Elizabeth II as we've never seen her before. Fans of the series and of the Queen and Royal Family need this book! I received a free copy of this book from publisher in exch...

Come as You Aren't: A Role-Playing Game for Adventurous Couples is a simple role-playing kit for couples who want to explore and experiment in ways to seduce one another that they simply wouldn't have imagined otherwise.  The set is meant to offer one partner who draws a Who, a What, and a Where card at random and places them in an envelope for the other partner.  From there, it's up to them to enact the scenarios as they see fit. The instructions are printed on the back cover of the box and the deck comes with a few blank cards for couples to customize. This is a fun little gift for couples -- and just in time for the holidays. I received a free copy of this game from the Blogging for Books review program in exchange for my honest review here.

Alan Jacobs' How to Think:  A Survival Guide for a World at Odds is the right book for the right time.  Jacobs is a good thinker, as any with knowledge of his previous books, many essays, and invaluable blog posts will know.  How to Think is vintage Jacobs -- an incisive, consistently thoughtful work that hits a post-truth, "alternative facts", right-side-of-history American culture right between the eyes.  The worst thing that can be said of it is that it doesn't say quite enough.  Fortunately, How to Think is not directed at any one political polemic or a guidebook for navigating Facebook or Twitter.  Jacobs writes that it's a mistake to assume that human beings are ultimately rational beings whose irrationality cannot be understood.  On the contrary, human nature, and therefore human thinking, is inescapably moral.  We often think and live poorly because we want to. How to Think says we fail to think correctly, fairly, and help...

You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living brings together passages from a variety of Henri Nouwen's works to create a 365-day devotional.  Nouwen's later works devoted so much attention to reclaiming the Christian spiritual life of those who are beloved by God.  This collection builds on that notion to bring together some of Nouwen's most important passages from his various works. This is a devotional that should sit next to some other classics. I received a free copy of this game from the Blogging for Books review program in exchange for my honest review here.

Lisa Fain's Queso gives us a collection of recipes for that game day staple.  It brings together some of the most interesting and creative recipes into a fun addition for every kitchen.  Just this last weekend, we hosted another game-day celebration (Go Dawgs!) and I went out on a whim and made one of the recipes from this book.  It was a huge hit!  I love that this cook book breaks down the recipes and ingredients.  It combines flavors that  I never would have thought of combining into Queso before.  Definitely a book to help spice up game day recipes! I received a free copy of this game from the Blogging for Books review program in exchange for my honest review here.

Andrea Raynor's The Alphabet of Grief: Words to Help in Times of Sorrow is an important little book.  And has proven to be an important and timely one in my own personal life.  It's written for those navigating the process of grief.    Written in a warm, pastoral way that combines pastoral excellence with scriptural integrity, Raynor uses each letter of the alphabet to present a systematic way of coping with loss.  The stories are honest, the emotions are raw, and, at the end of it, you will emerge a stronger person because of the hope dispensed by Raynor's writing.     The author does an excellent job of using biblical stories and principles in a way that avoids platitudes, truisms, and other cliches and does not knock them over the reader's head.  I highly recommend this book for pastors and parishioners who are trying to understand mortality in the scope of eternity.    I received a free copy of this game fr...

Deal or Duel is a must-have for all those Hamilton lovers out there! While I ordered it because of the musical, when my husband and I played after dinner one night, I was hooked for the history.  It's beautifully designed and filled with all the trivia you didn't get in your high school American history class.  Players pit their survival skills against one another, trying to do the one thing that really is American -- try to win all the money ... or die trying. We love it and plan to share with all our friends and family. I received a free copy of this game from the Blogging for Books review program in exchange for my honest review here.

The New York Times Footsteps is a fun literary journey a collection of travel essays centered around the homes and haunts of literature "greats."  While the book started out interesting, I enjoyed learning about these literary figures and their places in the world.  After several chapters, though, the stories became more tedious as the writers became more and more obscure. Ironically, it was the story of Mark Twain that was my favorite; a writer I vowed years ago to never read after discovering the horrid things he said about Jane Austen.  I feel there was a striking imbalance between writers who contributed positivity and decency to the world and those who prattled off drink and sex-fueled mumblings.  Overall, I was not super impressed with this collection. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program, in exchange for my honest review here.

The Dream Centered Life: Discovering What Drives You by Luke Barnett helps us to center our lives on God.  It's a beautifully-written and spiritually-sensitive guide that focuses God as the center point of our whole life, how putting our trust and faith in him will help us live a better overall life. God has a specific design for each life he creates, and Barnett outlines the way in which obedience -- though often difficult -- is actually a daring adventure in which we discover what actually drives us.   I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

Samuel Rodriguez and Robert Crosby's When Faith Catches Fire:  Embracing the Spiritual Passion of the Latino Reformation celebrates the so-called "salsafication" of the church and offers a glimpse into the future of the Western church's reformation in the leadership and faith of the growing Latino church.  We're all familiar with the census data that show the growing Latino presence in the US -- but most of us (well, at least me!) might be unfamiliar with the growing faith communities that are a part of that presence.  When Faith Catches Fire is an amazing book that explores those communities in all their depth and richness, and offers was the church might change in the Spirit to offer the passion of that faith to the wider culture. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

Brian Zahnd's Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News is, in a word, breathtaking! Zahnd is working toward a radical (getting-to-the-root) Christ-centered biblical hermeneutic.  I was soaking up every word of this beautifully written, entirely accessible, utterly practical theology book that combines rich faith with practical living.  This really is a book of "Very Good News" and it points toward a sea-change that's happening among Christian evangelical preachers these days.  I won't give away too much, but by the time you get to the second chapter ("Closing the Book on Vengeance"), be prepared to read slowly.  I've dog-eared my copy at page 30 (once you read it, you'll find out why). But Chapter 7 is my favorite.  Honestly, if all you did was buy this book and read that chapter, you'd have your money's worth.  I have honestly never read anything that so clearly and simply explained the ri...

Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood gives us another (this is the 10th edition!) gastro road trip across the US.  Roadfood is like a road map through backroads and interstates for some of the best food in each state and region in the US. Roadfood celebrates venues most travelers would never venture near, let alone enter.  Most of the state-by-state listed restaurants are, however, for dining on the cheap.  Like Litton's in Knoville, TN -- which really does have amazing burgers. While one could hardly map a road trip by the Sterns' restaurant finds -- some cities, like Chicago, are overrepresented, while the rest of Illinois is all but ignored -- this fun and fanciful volume is pure pleasure. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

Chris Durso's The Heist: How Grace Robs Us of Our Shame is an amazing book! Sin, as Durso is right to insist, can only be understood in the light of grace.  We cannot know our sin until we know God's grace.  And that grace is known as it overcome and vanquishes our sin.  For Durso, our shame and our brokenness rob us of the life God, in Christ, makes for us.  And, like the Prodigal Sons, God's grace can only be made known because God has come to us in our own squalor and gifted us with more, so much more, than anything of which sin has robbed us. This is the great "heist" of the Gospel -- that God in Christ takes back what the Enemy has stolen. This is a book that easily change melt even the hardest heart, because it places the emphasis where the Gospel places that emphas is -- on God's love. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

Sam Kalda's Of Cats and Men:  Profiles of History's Great Cat-Loving Artists, Writers, Thinkers and Statesmen is a fun, stylish, illustrated gift book from an award-winning artist that profiles notable cat-loving men throughout history in words and pictures.  This is a beautiful little book with lots of fresh biographies about 30 men profiled -- from writers and artists such as Haruki Murakami, T.S. Eliot, William S. Burroughs, and Ai Weiwei, to historical luminaries such as Sir Winston Churchill, Nikola Tesla, and Sir Issac Newton. In addition to all the fun art of each profile, there are some great quotes for every cat person -- male or female.   I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

Jason Stellman's Misfit Faith:  Confessions of a Drunk Ex-Pastor was not quite the book I had expected it to be.  It was so much better! Jason Stellman was a Presbyterian pastor, but he became a Roman Catholic.  I expected Misfit Faith to be, therefore, a semi-autobiographical work of Catholic apologetics.  I read of Scott Hahn's mentorship of Stellman, and expected Misfit Faith to be a new, milder version of Hahn's scholarship.  But I did not see any defense of Peter being the first pope in Misfit Faith , or any criticism of Sola Scriptura, or an explanation and defense of the Catholic understanding of justification. Instead, I read the story of Stellman's own spiritual journey.  From the opening confession that Stellman had flirted with Christian universalism, I knew this wasn't going to be a Catholic apologetic.  I wouldn't even characterize Misfit Faith as an apologetic at all.  Because if there's one thing Stellman isn't sure on...