Chris's Musings

I picked up this book early this year as I was getting involved in Student Ministry at my church in Atlanta - and a lot of conversations among us leaders revolved around the impact of cell phone usage with our students... and quite honestly with us.  I expected to be a little convicted, because I am engaged on social media, but not to the extent that I was.  Tony Reinke (look him up - this is a smart dude) is a writer at Desiring God and John Piper put together the forward.  Uniqely - Reinke combines a theological rigor with the normal statistical "phones are screwing us up" research out there, and uniquely in my mind delivers the "so what" when it comes to the most important thing in our lives, namely our connection with Jesus Christ. He doesn't approach this topic as one outside of social media, but as one who is a digital native that understands the benefits of technology and the dangers that our "glowing rectangles" that demand our attention ha...

The Fourth of July has come and gone.  The election is starting to gain momentum with the first Democratic debate, and hold the memes... the food fight is beginning.   Actually, it has been going on since 2016.  The vitriol and name-calling coming from the Left and the Right alike in America, even among church people, has been crazy.  I picked up this book in the past year because I was intrigued by the title and because if I wanted to see real change (especially in the way we as Christians in America view politics), then the change starts at home and with me.  How the Nations Rage, Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age is a challenging book to read, regardless of your political affiliation.  If you are the typical conservative evangelical, it is extremely challenging because it challenges us to think about how we engage and challenges our blind loyalty to the GOP (let's be honest, it's there), and some assumptions that we get from C...

As a preface, at the beginning of this year I had set a goal to read more, and read a more variety (I tend to read primarily for quiet times and devotionals).  This means that I step out of my box a little, and included with my goal was to write my thoughts on the book and the takeaways I got from reading it. In a busy first half of 2019 which included three international business trips, a move from Atlanta to Colorado, and all of the craziness of establishing life in a new place, I hadn't gotten to the second half of this goal until now.  I hope that if you find this blog, that it helps you and enhances your life in some way.   So here we go...  What is a Healthy Church?  By Mark Dever  This was one of the first books on my list for the year.  Amanda and I had learned that we would be relocating to Denver at the end of 2018, and one of our first priorities when we arrive would be to find a good church.  Spoiler alert:...