Book Reviews 2022

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

KEEP CHRISTIANITY WEIRD – by Michael Frost

Frost is encouraging the church to return to its counter-cultural beginnings. Instead of trying to blend in under the guise of being relevant, he encourages believers to be different. This is not about being strange to be noticed, but to do things differently than people expect. This is about actually caring for the needy, and being okay with doing things that the average person thinks is strange, if it means being more like Jesus. Frost writes, “Just as business and education is fostering greater creativity and innovation, the church is in a phase of rewarding compliance and conservatism and suppressing eccentricity.” (p. 16) We need to reward creativity, not “toeing the line”. We need out of the box thinkers and leaders.

Frost wants believers to come back to being different in a way that points people to Jesus and a proper understanding of God. “In a world of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, keeping Christianity weird involves recovering our strange belief in a scary God who can’t ever be fully known, who doesn’t need us, whose face we can’t look upon, and whose name we can’t utter.” (p. 158)

This is a great book for anyone who wants their mediocre Christianity challenged!

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

AQUACHURCH 2.0 – by Leonard Sweet

AQUACHURCH 2.0: Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture uses the metaphor of water to teach on the church and it’s role in today’s culture. He addresses many aspects of church ministry, even chapters on “Risk Taking” and “Intuition” which most other church leadership books do not include. He is encouraging churches to be more aware of the culture we live in and minister in so we can understand how best to differentiate between places we join in and times we act counter-culturally. He makes a point of saying, “For leaders, not having a Web ministry is more than being without a calling card, not using a Web site as a communications and community-building tool is to have fumbled the future.” That is an appropriate message to the many churches who went to online service through Covid but have not chosen to have a meaningful online presence going forward. This book is a great resource for any church leader.

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

ALOOF: Figuring Out Life With A God Who Hides – by Tony Kriz

If you are looking for an easy read that packs a punch, this is for you! Tony Kriz walks through his life experience of pursuing a relationship with a God who is often in the shadows. He shares some great stories where God did something miraculous but also makes it clear that these are few and far in between. He does a great job of showing how God is continually there, even when we do not see Him or feel near to Him. Tony is very honest about his personally journey while asking great questions that make the reader think. And there is nothing wrong with thinking deeply about God! A great book for anyone who wants to go deeper with God!

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

LEADING IN A CULTURE OF CHANGE – by Michael Fullan

This book is an older book but the principles are still helpful today, and maybe even more needed than back in 2001. Change is happening quickly around us, and many are suggesting they have answers. Often those requiring change to happen, look for a charismatic strong leader or a program that has worked somewhere else. Michael Fullan suggests, I believe correctly, that we need to realize that no one program is the answer to every situation. He also says that the change a charismatic leader brings may only last as long as he is leader. So Fullan suggests that change needs to be worked at slowly, with many of the people impacted participating in the transformation. As well, instead of using a cookie cutter approach, look for what might be appropriate to use at certain locations and at certain time periods of the change. He concludes the book like this: “Ultimately, your leadership in a culture of change will be judged effective or ineffective not by who you are as a leader but by what leadership you produce in others.”

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

DEFINED: Who God Says You Are – by Stephen Kendrick & Alex Kendrick

Many in our culture are struggling with their identity. They are confused about who they really are. The Kendrick brothers present a great answer by walking through “who God says you are.” They draw on the book of Ephesians as they say “His Word teaches that you can discover, believe, and set your heart on your true identity – your identity in heaven.” The book is laid out in a daily reading style with extra scriptures and a prayer at the end of each day’s reading. Want to know who God says you are? Then this book is for you.

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP – by Stan Toler

There are many books on leadership, and this little book is among the best. Every short chapter is chockfull of ideas and definitions and quotes and generally good leadership advice. Stan Toler shares great advice drawing on many other good leaders. In Part 1: Leadership that Motivates, he shares how to develop and share a good vision. Part 2: Leadership that Relates lays out the value of communication and how to best communicate so that you can transform individuals and organizations. A great little book.

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

HOPE IN THE DARK – by Craig Groeschel

Hope in the Dark: Believing God is Good When Life is Not addresses those questions we have when life is not going as well as we think it should. Craig Groeschel asks many of the questions that we have all asked from time to time, questions like: “Where are you God?” and “Why aren’t you doing something?” He draws on the book of Habakkuk where the prophet asks some of the same questions. Let me give you one quote that I thought was very helpful. He writes, “Habakkuk urges us to draw on our long-term memories of God rather than being so shortsighted that we choose to keep replaying only our immediate, distressing circumstances.” That is so good! As we take our eyes off of our present situation we can remind ourselves of God’s goodness in the past and know that that same God is still walking with us in the difficulties we face. This is a very encouraging book for anyone asking the questions about where God is in our pain.

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2022 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

STRUCTURED FOR MISSION – By Alan J. Roxburgh

The thesis of Structured for Mission is that the present way denominations are structured must change to be effective in today’s culture. He believes that the time for experts in a denominational office is up. The real experts today are the ones at the local level. Local churches need to be given more freedom and take more ownership of their local ministry. Roxburgh doesn’t really give answers on how the local church or the denomination need to change. Instead, he suggests a new format for working through decisions in each local ministry. He suggests experimenting is necessary to see what new ideas work. The question he believes need addressing is this: “What are the challenges we currently face for which we presently have no answer but must address if we’re to live into God’s future for us?”
If you are struggling with how denominations and local churches presently work, this book will help you think further on that subject.

Book Reviews: Andy’s Reading Experience 2022

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

DEEP FAITH – by Dr. Rob Reimer

Rob Reimer has written another great book regarding personal renewal and spiritual growth. In Deep Faith, he helps the reader see how they may deepen or grow their faith. Reimer does a good job of showing how this has worked in his own life and his experience with others. He says on page, “Faith is not static; it is dynamic. We can and must take an intentional path toward growing and developing our faith if we want to see the works of the Kingdom in greater measure, for the glory of the King, and for the sake of his mission to the world.” He wants to help people grow in their faith for the glory of God and for the continuing growth of the kingdom. A great read if you want to deepen your faith.

Book Reviews: Andy’s Reading Experience 2022

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

NO LIMITS – by John Maxwell

John Maxwell has written many books on Leadership. This one is on helping leaders expand their potential. He begins by helping the reader become aware of how they are and what they are presently capable of. He wants people to know they are probably capable of doing or becoming more than what they realize. He addresses seventeen different areas of capacity with the desire to help you maximize your capacity in each of those areas in your life. He concludes the book with this equation: AWARENESS + ABILITY + CHOICES = CAPACITY. If you wish you could do more, then this book will help you do that.