The Puritans by Jack Cavanaugh

During our time in Russia I raided the library at the apartment we stayed in. I came across a book called The Puritans. It looked from the cover like a soppy Mills and Boon novel but it was not.
It is a novel but set within a lot of historically correct events.
It is essentially the story of a young mans life. I am not going to say any more because it will ruin the story.
I will say that it was one of the most riveting reads I have EVER come across. As parents will know there are times you have to stop doing things you want to do to look after your child. When this happened while I was reading this book, it was a real struggle to put it down.
The ending is tragic and beautiful at the same time. What more can someone want in a book.
So five thumbs up from me! Fully recommended. Should be made into a movie!!!

The History of Christianity

Jonathan Hill has been re-writing the Lion Handbook series. These are text books and reference books. In the past they have been extremely boring in their style.

Jonathan however is an absolutely gifted writer. The books are now in modern language and he has a very funny sense of humour in his style.

The History of Christianity provides a readable and interesting overview of the history of the church. I think there is a lot we can learn from studying where our church roots have come from. One thing that strikes me is that some of these big name people of the past had what we consider now, some fairly whacked out ideas. I wonder what people will think of some things we hold to in 300 odd years time.

I guess when we read books like this we are trying understand better what God's will is for our lives. We try to learn from our forefathers successes and mistakes. We also do this from our own experiences and particularly our own engagement with the Bible (and the collective engagement of our wider church family).

Anyway... this is a great book. Even is you find history boring, you will enjoy this book because of all the little funny comments splattered all the way through it.

Oh... and it is cheap for a hard covered 550 page glossy text book.. only $70

Listening to the beliefs of Emerging Churches

I have recently finished a very interesting book. Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches is both interesting for its content and for its approach.

First the approach. The approach is to take five pastors from a broad spectrum of Emerging Churches and ask them to write about theology. Each paper is then critiqued by the remaining four writers. This is a very engaging style in that really allows you to compare the differing approaches and identify the differences.

The content is interesting as the five pastors are very successful in building strong vibrant jesus following communities. But some of them are poles apart in their theology and their method. In fact some don't even agree on what theology is.

Academically it is a fascinating book. Ironically, it is of little use in being and growing as a Jesus follower. It is ironic as this is the most important priority of all these pastors.

Anyway, aside from that, well worth a read if you are interested in the emerging church or church development.

Sex God by Rob Bell

I have just finished this book... the lastest from Rob Bell.

I have to admit that it took me two visits to the book shop before I bought this. The reason for hesitation was that I thought I wasn't really interested in another book about sex (that kind of sounds bad... its not).

However we have a series coming up at church on Marriage, Sex and Parenting. So I thought I better so some reading to be up to speed.

And this book has turned out to be a a very good book for getting me thinking about issues.

It is written in the Rob Bell way. Very conversational. Very questioning. And very enlightening about the Bible and how it fits with the culture within which it was written.

I don't think I have digested it yet. But even given that, I would recommend it.

If you are single... it is highly recommended.

If you are self conscious... it is highly recommended.

A New Kind of Christian - Brian McLaren

I have just finished Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian book. Brian McLaren is one of the key people in the Emergent Church movement. He is like the philosopher or sage of the movement. As such he cops a lot of criticism from those opposed to the Emergent movement.

This book is the first of a series where he explores some ideas through a story about a pastor in an evangalical church working through the issues that face many churches and many Christians. The story is essentially a conversation between Neo (Dan's new friend) and Dan (the pastor).

It is a very interesting and effective technique for looking at these issues.

There are a few key points that come out of the book for me. Whether they are in the book or whether I was just prompted to think about them... ah... I'm not sure. Anyway... here is a list...

1. Brian makes a very good argument for our society and culture being in a time of transition from one paradigm to another. He says we are moving from a modern paradigm to the post-modern paradigm. Regardless of labels, I tend to agree with him.
2. Brian is woolly about hell. While there is some ambiguity in the Bible, there are some key understandings about hell. Primary amongst these is you don't want to be going there.
3. Brian is fully correct that we, as Christians, should stop focusing on obsure theology issues like hell, and focus on living the core of Jesus' teaching. I am personally fully convicted on this account.
4. Likewise, we should shift our focus from getting people into heaven and focus on being a blessing to the nations and let Jesus deal with the admissions policy into heaven. This applies particularly in our relationships with other religions and other denominations, which evangelical Christians have been not so flash in relating to.
5. One of the key aspects of the Christian message is connected to being in community and all that this entails. The more I think about it, groups like the Armish have got it right with thei focus on family and neighbours. That said we still need to connect into our wider communities.
6. There is a degree of wooliness in what Brian says about the Bible and what it states. I agree that there is a lot of the Bible that is best undertood in the form of stories and then into principles. I think that it is easy to swing too far though. Some stuff is just straight out statements.
7. Related to 4, we are far better to get on living as Jesus did/would than sitting around arguing about it. The difficult side of this is for people who teach at church. We don't just need to live it, we need to communicate it in an official "representative of Jesus" like manner and that is hard.
8. I fully agree that we should be finding ways of being one church, without dividing lines between denominations.

This is an interesting book. Brian is a gifted writer. And he is on to something about the shape of being Jesus in a new paradigm being quite different to what has gone on for the last 50 years.

Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World

I recently finished John Foxe's book on Martyrs. This is a very old book more recently updated in its language. John Foxe was a Protestant who died in 1587. He compiled this book from accounts of people who had witnessed the persecution of Protestants, particularly under Queen Mary. The book was very popular with English Puritans.

Unfortunately, after I read this book, I can understand the ill feeling that many Protestants now have towards Catholics. The book records martyr after martyr who simply disagreed that the bread and the wine of communion physically became Jesus' body and blood.

After a religious group slaughters another religious group because of their differing beliefs, it is somewhat understandable that there would be some ill feeling.

The obvious modern day equivalent of this is the current American (viewed as Christian by the Iraqis) campaign in Iraqi. You could also count the Israeli/Palastinian conflict in the same bucket.

There are two lessons to learn. One... slaughtering people based on a theological or philosophical disagreement does not result in people changing. Two... it only ever has negative consequences for the 'offending party' down the track.

So... an interesting book. Worth a read. Please be wary of it shaping your views on the current Catholic church because that would be wrong. A few hundred years of water has gone under the bridge.

A Generous Orthodoxy - Brian McLaren

I have just finished reading this book. It is definitely a recommended read.

Brian McLaren is either seen as one of the most forward thinking Christian writers or a heretic... depending on your orthodoxy (to coin his phrase).

The jist of the book is two fold. Firstly, being a Christian is about being a blessing to ALL people. Secondly, how that plays out changes and therefore our orthodoxy is something that is constantly changing and growing.

If I wanted to be ungenerous, I would critique McLaren's take on things on three fronts.

Firstly, he does not consistently recognise that Jesus is actually God manifest in human form. He seems to have a rather fluid view of the Trinity (that said so do many). I think this causes him some confusion and takes him down some unhelpful paths.

Secondly, McLaren elevates experience, litergy, tradition and particularly creeds to at least the same level as scripture. While I recognise that scripture is subject to interpretation (and hence has pitfalls), it is a lot "safer" (maybe I mean more useful or more right or more trustworthy) than experience, litergy, tradition and creeds.

Thirdly, McLaren focuses a lot on Christians doing stuff. This is all very good stuff like blessing others, helping the poor, redeeming the environment, reaching out to the marginalised... etc... BUT I believe he misses an aspect of just "being'. By this I mean that part of being a follower of Jesus is enjoying creation and 'being' a Jesus follower. McLaren actually talks about this but does not connect it with who we are as believers. SO I think Jesus calls us to "be" Christians and to "do" Christian stuff. (I'm not sure I have explained this clearly... I hope you understand).

These three issues are things that I suspect McLaren is still working through (like the rest of us, he hasn't got everything worked out).


If I wanted to be generous, I would recommend this book for the way it challenges. It is a call to get back to basics of LOVE GOD, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR. It is a call to accept Jesus as our saviour AND our Lord. It is a call not to dismiss our heritage. It is a call to look forward. It is a call to focus on the unity in Jesus rather than hammer other denominations. It is a call to reach out to people who don't think the same as us. And a lot lot more.

I can quite understand why many churches and many Christians have got upset by this book. McLaren is not generous (I don't think this is intentional which makes it all the more damaging) in his critique of Christians who say they have the "right" way of being a Christian (these people where known as Pharisees in the Gospels... but they still exist today in all parts of the Christian community). He systematically (which is funny because McLaren is almost anti-systematic in his approach) destroys any argument that we, as mere humans, can claim to have worked out how to walk the 'right line'. For a Pharisee, who devotes all their time to working out the 'right line', this is deeply offensive (just as it was when Jesus called them on it). This has resulted in McLaren being critiqued either inaccurately (this is generally done by taking a statement out of context or in part) or personally. Both of these approaches are unfair based on what I have read in this book.

So have a read. Come to it with a closed mind, an open mind or a thoughtful mind. It doesn't matter. It will challenge you.

The Deliberate Church: Building your ministry on the gospel

I have finished another on churches. This one by Mark Deer and Paul Alexander was part of the pack we got given at The Impact Bible Conference 2006.

It is like most books of this ilk which present a "biblical" position on how churches should be. Strangely they all seem to come out with something close to what the writer's church is doing (but differs slightly from book to book). I have discussed in previous blog entries how I get quite frustrated by writers claiming "the biblical view" on things and not recognising how their take on this view is impacted significantly by the interpretative glasses they are wearing. So I will leave it at that.

That grizzle aside, the book is a good coverage of many of the issues that face churches in how they operate and are structured. There is some very sound advice and whether you with agree with it, the mere discussion about the issues is good for sorting them out.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at this book. It is a useful contribution to the discussions about how to develop and grow a church.

Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation

I have recently finished this book by Sarah Cunningham.

To be honest, I would not recommend this book. The first half of the book is basically a groan about the church. Most of the second half is a growing realisation that most of the issues are actually due to her perception of the church. And finally she comes to the conclusion that she likes church.

Unfortunately it is not well written. The concept of writing a book as a series of letters sounds pretty exciting but it flops badly in the execution.

This is a real shame as the topic is a very interesting one. Essentially the twenty-something generation (in reality from about 16-40 years old) is quite disillusioned about what the institution of church has become. This is nothing new. This type of thing happens in every generation. The young people feel the old people are out of date. Eventually the young people become the old people, having made some of the changes they desired to the way we do church. At this stage a new generation looks at them with disillusionment in their eyes and vowels to fix things.

One interesting thing that is happening now days is that the younger generation are becoming quite impatient and are starting their own churches. Many of the institutional hurdles (like being executed for heresy) have gone so this is possible. Unfortunately this can create churches of a single generation and this is not healthy.

Young people need middle aged people to guide them. Middle aged people need older people to guide them. And older people need really old people to guide them. We call this discipleship or mentoring or accountability. Without it things go bad.

Anyway, back to the book... don't bother. ANd if you are interested, wait a few months and it will find its way into the cheap bins because the book shops seem to think it will sell but if other people find it as boring and badly written as I did, then it won't.

The History of Christian Thought

This is a fantasic book. It is well written and actually funny. I found it a compelling read.

For me it raised a really interesting question. If we look at what some of our church forefathers thought, we would be tempted to think that they were teaching heresy. For instance it was common for people (as in top theologians) to think that Jesus was created by God. Only later did the idea of begotten and the oneness of the Trinity develop.

We take the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as being one and equal (but different in the way they relate to humanity) as being just commonly accepted doctrine and what anyone reading the Bible would come up with.

Well put simply... THIS IS NOT THE CASE.

Whether we like it or not, we base a lot of what we view as core doctrine on the work of our church forefathers. In fact the Bible itself (our translations) are quite impacted by work of these theologians. Particularly the choice of what words are chosen to represent the original Greek and Hebrew words when the translation is done.

Anyway... this raises some interesting questions about what we defend as core issues of Christian faith. In some ways this prompts us towards a reductionist view of these core issues. But that may be a bit of a copout and maybe we should dive into the complexity but bear in mind that we may be off track.

The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne was recommended by my American friend Kristin. It was a riveting read. I actually finished a little while ago but I have had to take some time to think it through.

The thinkign through process has been very difficult principally because of reading MacArthur's book before hand. The two books are very different.

The Irresistible Revolution seems to be the story of Shane's life. However it is not autobiographical. Rather he uses his life (and others around him) to illustrate the his message. And I should point out that this book is very much a message. It is basically a really long sermon for us, as Christians, to live out our lives in action as he sees Jesus doing.

And this is where it gets difficult.

Shane has a big focus on poverty, the poor and the marginalised. Now do not get me wrong. So did Jesus. This is what is so compelling about the book. This dude is actually living out many aspects of how I can imagine Jesus would live in today's society. And in his own way he is calling all of us to look at ourselves and ask some questions about how we are living.

However he does get a bit "tree huggie - weed smoking - hippie-like" on occassions. And this is where the MacArthur book kicks in. With MacArthur there is all the theology and rules and what's more, for the most part, MacArthur is right. So we get a bit of a conflict. MacArthur goes "this is what God says". God is righteous and just and should be feared (in the trembling sense of the word). Shane goes "this is what Jesus does". We should follow Him because He loves us so much. This is how/why we live with compassion and love for the poor and the oppressed.

Interestingly... both are right!

MacArthur would worry about whether Shane is saved. Shane wouldn't respond because he would be living like Jesus and taking it on the chin. He would however be saddened by some fo the rather American-centric teaching that comes out of MacArthur orientated churches. And he would say so.

This brings me back to my recent thinking about balance in Christian theology and thought. Somehow, I guess in the power of the Holy Spirit, as Christians we have to try to walk this very fine line that Jesus did. This line includes being a pacifist while also being an activist. It involves being compassionate, while also being righteously angry. It involves meeting peoples physical needs while at the smae time dealing with their spiritual needs. The list goes on.

In many ways Christianity is a paradox. In fact almost every aspect, to our human thinking, is a paradox. It is only through the revelation of the Holy Spirit do we see resolution to these paradoxes.

In my own life I am faced with a number of competing issues at the moment that are perplexing and somewhat paradoxical:

...I have a great love and commitment to my local church (OCC) BUT I want to commit my life to the people we love is Siberia

...We are starting a family BUT we need the flexibility to carry out the ministry God has us involved in

...We are involved in many things BUT God seems to be pointing me into full time work

...We are wise to invest some money in renovating our house BUT we are being challenged to give money away

This can go on. Somehow, from experience, I know that God will bring these together in a synthesis that is so much greater than I can imagine. But at the moment they seem almost contradictory.

Hard to Believe: The high cost and infinite value of following Jesus

I have just finished reading John MacArthur's book Hard to Believe. It is one of the books given to us at the Impact Bible Conference 2006 in Hastings.

It has been a challenging book to read. MacArthur is an extremely good expositor of the bible. Therefore he argues with a lot of authority. The book is also written in a style that is like his thoughts being laid out. You can see why he thinks things.

I have to say however that while MacArthur is sound in pretty much everything he asserts, he misses the compassionate side of Jesus. He rightly talks about the wrath, judgement and righteousness of God. We should not (and we do to often) ignore this side of God's character. But ot focus on it at the expense of the compassionate side is just as wrong as focusing entirely on the compassionate side.

Let me explain this a bit more. Christianity seems to be dividing between the:

You got to believe the bible and then get your act together (these are generally termed fundamentalists of which MacArthur is a leading advocate)

and the:

God is in the wind and the trees and He is all love so if we love Jesus then it is all cool, man! [said with a stoned out voice] (these are referred to as the liberals)

Well neither of these are a balanced biblical view of Jesus and what the cross means to humanity. You can proof text (ie find scripture that supports your argument) either position BUT (I repeat BUT) you have to ignore the other sides proof texts.


Jesus Himself walked this amazing line between having unlimited compassion for the lost, the broken and at the same time righteous anger for the hypocritical religious legalists. He somehow was completely seeker-sensitive while at the same time hard-core bible thumper.

Jesus is our example of how we are meant to live out God's plan for us while we remain here on earth. Therefore we need to try to find this same line. I don't think we will be able to nail this line all the time. We sin and part of our sin is not listening to the Holy Spirit who guides us to walk this line. But I think we should try to stay close to the line rather than wandering off to the comfort of what are essentially ideological (NOT biblical) positions.

Back to MacArthur... I really admire his exposition. I can critique some of it but it is some of the most solid interpretation around (that comes out with an answer). It makes me sad how it is used/abused.

Re-Entry

I was given book by Kristin called Re-Entry. It is by Peter Jordon from YWAM.

The book discusses the issues around culture shock and the difficulties around re-entering your culture. It has some lame analogies but some great stories. Its points are relevant and I have to say i learned something.

The biggest point that hit home is that I am still, to a degree, suffering re-entry issues from the two months in Russia. This is even after almost a year. I kind of think that once you have experienced other cultures, you never fully feel comfortable in your own because you can actually see what is there.

Anyway... well worth a read if you are looking to go on a mission or have come back from one. And it only took a few days to read, so not a huge investment.

The Ragamuffin Gospel

About three weeks ago I finished the Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. This is an older book that has been around since 1990 but has more recently been relaunched.

I have not reviewed this book until now as I wanted to think about what I would say. This is because there are some stinging critiques of Manning and this book. Some have called what Manning says heresy, which is a very strong criticism. Others have pointed to his life, with its many faults (Manning is/was an alcoholic, divorcee, etc.). Yet others have critiqued his theology.

If you chose to read this book, I advise you to check out some of what is written. A simple internet search will turn up a lot of entries. In reading these critiques however, I encourage you to expose them to some academic rigour. For instance, many of the critiques take very small sections of his book out of context. Some leave key words out. Just as when you study a verse in the bible, it is strongly advisable to read around the section. As what is his point? What is the chapter about? What does Manning mean by that word or phrase?

So, be discerning!!!

I personally conclude that much of the criticism is unloving, picky, academically unsound rubbish. There are a couple of areas where I believe Manning's theology is wrong. However they are not die in the ditch issues. The one I really have an issue with is on pg168 where he gets into Carl Jung's self acceptance philosophy. I disagree with this.

I have two other issues with the book:

1... It is not easy to read. Many other books of this genre have a much easier flow but are no less challenging.
2... I dislike the term ragamuffin. I know... silly eh!

With all the criticism out of the way, I enjoyed reading this book. While Manning may not be easy to read, he is a powerful writer with an idea that resonates with many in my generation. His story in Chpt 7 about a recovering alcoholic was tear jerking.

You will find this book 'preaches" a similar message to many of the other books I have read recently. A message of sacrificial loving and a desire to flee from self-serving judging.

I see this as the heart of Jesus' teaching. Repent from your sins and love others. You could say this is LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS as sinning is turning your back on God.

I would encourage you to read this book. I would also encourage you to be discerning (sift out the junk - ie. read the Gospel of Luke and see what gets caught). In otherwords, do what you in everyday life... observe, pray, ponder, discern, implement.

Preaching Re-imagined - Pagitt

So this is the latest book I have read. The book is about preaching. The guts of it is simple.

Preaching now days is in general more akin to a lecture. This does not work. Instead the author suggests we should use a technique called Progressional Diologue. This basically means that preaching should be more like a conversation in which all participants can do just that; participate.

This strikes me as what was going on with Jesus as He taught and then people questioned and He explained and then they lived it out.

This book has a couple of sentences which I would like to share...

"Our churches should never be places where the practices of faith are allowed to become stagant and predictable in the name of stability... Every part of our life as a community can and should be open to fresh ideas of the always-active Spirit of God". (Pg 112)

This connects with me.

Interestingly the author provides a whole chapter on the lecture (or speaching as he calls it) approach to preaching. He provides the arguments for this approach. He doesn't try to argue them away in this chapter. He just says that he disagrees. He invites those that sign up to this view point to exercise their right to a refund from the publisher rather than finish the book. He suggests they won't get the point of the book. He says the book is for those who alreaady sense that we need to look at things a bit differently. This is quite an interesting approach.

Well worth a read if you think we can do church better and are open to different ideas.

The Post Evangelical

[I have added and edited this entry because I have had feedback that it may be unclear. I hope the edits add clarity. SG]

This is the latest book I have read. I firstly want to recommend that only people with a questioning mind read it. It will offend and probably anger hard line evangelicals.

Essentially Dave Tomlinson is saying that we have been bought up in a world of science. Science says there is a right answer and a wrong answer. Black and white, if you like. Evangelicals, while they debate science, actually exhibit this black and white, right and wrong approach to Christianity.

Post Evangelicals are like post modernists. Post modernists accept there are answers given by science, but they value these answers along with art, nature, spirituality, etc. They think that what seems apparent, may not actually be true and are not afraid to question it. In fact there may actually be multiple 'correct' ways to the same answer.

So when it comes to Christianity, a Post Evangelical questions the orthodoxy. They question things like the inerrancy of the bible. They question the virgin birth. And many many more things. This is not saying that the orthodox view is wrong. It is saying there is no fear of challenging the orthodox afresh.

Dave argues this can lead to a much stronger and personal faith.

For those people that feel compelled to question everything and figure everything out themselves, this is an affirming book. In many ways it is the academic version of Blue Like Jazz.

But I reiterate... if you are a hardline orthodox evangecial who knows what is "right" already, best you give this a miss. It will save you a lot of stress.

Blue like Jazz

I have been reading this book by Don Millar called Blue like Jazz. It is a really addictive book. Don essentially shares his experiences with the reader. You become part of his world, his thought processes, his memory etc. In some ways he is like a little kid who does not know what not to say. He just blurts it all out.

And it is neat. It is neat to see someone whom God has touched. And it is neat to see how God touches him.

This is not a book for the theologically correct student. It is a book for someone who walks a real life and is trying to have as best as possible swing at finding out what God wants them to be doing.

It is not quite up there with some of the other books I have read recently like Valet Elvis but pretty good. See how many spelling errors and bad edits you can find. It really is rough and raw.

The Coffeehouse Gospel

I have just finished an interesting little book called The Coffeehouse Gospel by Matthew Paul Turner.

Like most things, it is nothing new. It advocates friendship evangelism. The most important point it makes is to emphasis the use of ones ears rather than ones mouth.

Is it worth the $23.95 at Mana? I think you can get a better book for that money.

MORE - Simon Ponsonby

I have finally finished MORE.

MORE is a 180 page book about the desire for a more Spirit filled life.

To start with, I want to be openly critical of this book. Simon Ponsonby needs to get an editor. This book has wonderful content but it is hidden behind amazingly complex and convoluted sentence structures and words that are well outside my vocab. The middle of the book is especially bad. I had to read it with a dictionary and I was only able to read very slowly so as not to miss the point.

SIMON!!!... get someone who knows how to write for normal people to help you.

To end with, I want to openly praise this book. The content, the thought, the challenge of this book is excellent. I feel broken, yet joyfilled after reading it. The scriptural references, the unpacking of the greek and hebrew, the stories, the writings of others... they are all presented. And the logic, the reasoning is just so solid. Yet there is something extra. There is a feel of truth that seems to radiate out from what is said.

The guts of MORE can be summerised by the following two sentences I found on pg134.

"All Christians, by faith in the finished work of Christ, have drunk of that living water and have been baptised in the Spirit, into Christ. But many have no theology, expectancy or desire to know the Spirit's power for service, the deep emotional and existential immediacy with God, or the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit."

The key here is a lack of expectancy. As a church, as individuals we seem to be content with being known by God. We do not expect to be able to know God. We are content that He reached out to us. Yet He wants us to reach out to Him... to seek Him with every facet of our being. In many respects we should be discontent with our relationship with God. We should desire so much more. And God, through His Spirit, offers so much more.

This book challenges me to open the rooms in my "house" that I have kept closed to the Holy Spirit. I know this will be tough. It will hurt. I will be broken. But I do not care! I want, I long for, I desire more of God.

More

Over the last few weeks I have been reading a book called MORE: How you can have more of the Spirit when you already have everything in Christ by Simon Ponsonby.

Over the last week I have been really struggling with this book, hence the lack of updates.

This book is hard. It I really really good but very difficult to read.

Firstly it has a lot to say and it doesn't leave anything out. Most times I get to focus on it I only get through a couple of pages before my mind runs out.

Secondly it uses some very big words (ie not in common knowledge and its sentence structure, while correct, is really really difficult. I mean, I have a big vocab but the other night I got through a page and a half and had to use the dictionary two or three times. In fact my little Oxford dictionary didn't have the word so I had to Google it. Even that struggled.

I guess the problem is this book is 1cm thick but is actually worth an inch.

Anyway... once I have finished it I'll do a write up.

For all you who can't wait...

The book suggests that while we, as Christians, all have received the Holy Spirit, there is so much more He offers. We should be hungry for the Spirit in our lives and look for so much more. The work of the Spirit in our lives is limited by how much we seek His manifestation.

Pretty simple but very challenging!