Books to Chew On

I wanted to give you a list of books that have been helpful, influential, and encouraging to me in my growth as a more mature, thinking, and responsible Christian. I own most of these books and would be happy to loan them out if you are interested.


Messy Spirituality, by Mike Yaconelli

This book is a great read! It re-enforces the fact that we are not going to be perfect and that we are going to make mistakes. The point is not perfection, it is in attempting to become more Christ-like. This may be a hard concept to digest, but the fact is that even if we try harder than any one else to be perfect, we will never succeed. But we can try everyday to be more Christ-like than the previous day. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been oppressed by spiritual abuse and legalism.


A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren

This book is for anyone who ever thought, "There has to be a different way to do this." The book is in a narrative form (story-telling), but the concepts that McLaren explains is very relevant. A lot of conservative Christians might take offense to some of McLaren's ideas (I don't pretend to agree with all of his thoughts), but this is a good book to challenge you to find out why you believe what you believe.


Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell

I admit that I am a big fan of Rob Bell. The one thing that I truly appreciate is his ability to connect the Jewish culture of Jesus' time to the applications in our own life. I greatly respect the Jewish theologians and writers. What I believe today owe's so much to what they taught so many years ago. One thought that many Christians unfortunately subscribe to is "We are under the New Covenant, we don't follow the teachings of Moses and Abraham." This is so unfortunate, especially since Jesus affirms these teaching so many times. We have to remember that Jesus was an Israelite and try to figure out how that influenced his teachings, interactions, and beliefs.


I will add more books later.