Book Review: “The God of the Mundane"

“The God of the Mundane: Reflections on Ordinary Life for Ordinary People”

By Matthew B. Redmond

Re-Published by Cruciform Press, 2021.

Equally convicting and encouraging.

I will be honest, I did not go into this book expecting too much. I am generally drawn to titles like “Radical,” “Crazy Love,” “Don’t Waste Your Life,” etc. Books that I expect are going to call me to some new and gnarly heights. Not ones that sound like they are aimed at comforting me in my normality. Well, 1) the aim of this book was definitely not to comfort me in my normality, and 2) this was truly the most radical book I have read in a long time.

I can’t remember the last time I finished a book and felt so laid bare, and yet so stoked at the same time. “The God of the Mundane” exposed so much of the unhealthy and ungodly ambition that has lived in me for so long. It also stirred up in me a new excitement for all that God has done and can do through the ordinary activities of my life and through all of the mundanity of my days.

The book is quite perfectly titled. Redmond’s mission in this book is, as the title suggests, is to talk about the God of the Mundane; to talk about how God is concerned with, involved with, and working in the things that take up most of our time on earth. He is not only involved with extraordinary accomplishments, as our ambitions often suggest, but He is also the God of the the diaper changes, the lawn mowings, the friend hangouts, the meal preps and the long drives. He is present and active in the big stuff, and He is right there in the little stuff.

This simple truth was so unbelievably reassuring to me. My sights are most often set on the crazy and the radical. So much so, that at times I forget that God even cares of about the quieter parts of my life, much less is active in them!

All this to say, I loved this book. I will repeatedly read this book. And I highly recommend this book.

My guess is that most of us get to focused at times on the radical and forget how much God cares about the mundane. Because of that, I think this this book will resonate will almost every Christian. And since its only 130 pages, it is accessible to almost every Christian too.

I seem to keep recommending every book I review lately, but I just keep reading books that are worth recommending. This is another one.

Halloween and Christians: What Matters Most?

Everytime October rolls around, the church’s age-old dispute over Halloween begins all over again. Christians everywhere step up to the microphone and take to arguing back and forth about whether or not they should be participating in the activities. One group reminds everyone of the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, and the evil origins of carvings, costumes and candy. The other group tries to point to Halloween’s more Christian roots and the transformation of Samhain to All Saints Day and All Souls Day, to All Hallows Eve and eventually to Hallowe'en.

Every year October 31st passes and November 1st arrives and nothing really changes, except that one group has a little more sugar in their blood and both groups are a little more annoyed and even angry at the other.

Now here’s the thing. At the end of the day I think that there is validity to both arguments. Both groups are right. Halloween probably does have pagan roots and ties to Samhain, and it also probably can be traced back to All Hallows Eve. That being said, I think the issue of participating in it or not is a little more complex than either of these arguments make it. I don’t think it is as simple as calling Halloween an evil holiday and throwing it all out, or calling it a Christian or even neutral holiday and taking it all in.

Forget about the pagan and/or Christians roots for a second and think about Halloween from some other angles. What about the commercial aspect of Halloween and the fact that its revenue in America is second only to Christmas? What about the imaginative part of it that reeks of people wanting to escape the weariness and boringness of life and find some sense of adventure? What about Halloween’s obvious emergence out of an anxiety that people felt or feel between summer and winter, between life and death? Or what about the focus of many communities to make Halloween “a safe day for our children” in response to the vandalism that has so often overtaken it?

There is so much more to this single October evening than we often realize, both good and bad. There are evil roots and beautiful roots. There is violence and vandalism. There are smiles and laughter. There are opportunities to be salt and light and opportunities to be consumed by the darkness. It is a complex day, and the decision to participate or not is a complex one. So complex that I do not believe the church will ever be totally agreed on it. And frankly I think that is OK. God has allowed us the freedom to think biblically about complex cultural issues and to not always completely agree on them.

In fact, I would say that agreeing about Halloween is not what matters most. Here is what I think matters most when it comes to using discernment on complicated and divisive matters like this one: Having grace for your fellow believer.

No matter how we interpret and engage with Halloween, are we willing to have grace for other Christians? To not judge, but to have the humility to say, “This is what I have discerned. This how I am going to respond. But I know that I could be wrong.” Wouldn’t it be something if instead of unbelievers recognizing how much Christians fight about Halloween, they saw how much grace we had for another and how much we loved one another even when we disagree?

All cards on the table. I am going trick or treating in a few hours with a lion, a cow and a little fireman. I cannot wait. I know others in my congregation have come to different conclusions, and they will be at home enjoying the evening doing something completely different. And that is OK! What matters most tonight is that that my participation is based on me trying to think biblically about Halloween, and my engagement with and my speaking about other Christians who disagree me is saturated in the kind of grace that reflects the Savior that we will together gather to worship this coming Sunday, side by side.

Book Review: “Weakness Our Strength"

BOOK REVIEW

“Weakness Our Strength: Learning from Christ Crucified”

By John Hindley

Published by Union Press, 2024

I started this book during a six-week sabbatical from my role as Pastor. I went into both the sabbatical and the book a little tired, a little worn out, and longing for some rejuvenation. As I sit today in my office typing, I am three days away from the end of my sabbatical, and honestly, I don’t feel too different than I did six weeks ago. Still tired, still worn out. And yet, I am excited to return to the pulpit. I am ready to go, like a horse in the starting gate. Not because my weakness has been suddenly turned into strength, but because I have been reminded through these six weeks that my weakness is a chance to witness and experience HIS strength.

That may seem like an obvious truth, especially for a pastor, but somewhere along the way I forgot it. Thankfully God is in the business of reminding us of the important things that we too often forget, and thankfully there are people like John Hindley writing honest and Christ-centred books that become tools in God’s hands.

All that to say, I have found “Weakness Our Strength” to be a tremendous book for several reasons. Right from the beginning John writes in such a transparent and relatable way that every paragraph feels like a coffee with a friend, and with a friend who is going through what I am going through. He also writes about biblical truths in such a simple, straightforward and Gospel saturated way that every chapter feels like its own devotional experience. It is not a long book, but it took a six-week sabbatical for me to read, having to keep setting it down in order to pray and open up the Scriptures.

I came away from “Weakness Our Strength” with one simple revelation. One that is all over the pages of the Scripture, and yet one that I forget so quickly. One that has made my sabbatical everything I prayed it would be. Simply this, that God is my strength.

Weakness proves to be a beautiful thing when it brings us to, “rely not on ourselves but on God” (2 Corinthians 1.9). Because then and only then can we know true strength. God’s strength. As the apostle Paul so perfectly wrote, “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12.10).

Book Review: “The Unhurried Pastor"

BOOK REVIEW

“The Unhurried Pastor: Redefining Productivity for a More Sustainable Ministry”

By Brian Croft and Ronnie Martin

Published by The Good Book Company, 2024

I started and finished this book over the course of two evenings. I am not a fast reader by any metric, but I just couldn’t put this one down. It probably didn’t hurt that I also had just began a six-week sabbatical, the purpose of which is for me and my family to find some much-needed rest from ministry and sweet refreshment in the Lord. Since my sabbatical started I have been actively focused on trying to get “unhurried” (is that a real word?), so finding a book entitled The Unhurried Pastor was like a thirsty man finding a sign for water.

The real question though was whether this book would be more than just a great title. Does the sign actually point people to real, thirst-quenching water? Do Brian Croft and Ronnie Martin actually, in The Unhurried Pastor, lead readers/pastors deeper into the unhurried ministry?

Before they dive in to the deep stuff, Croft and Martin lay out their thesis for the book, and it goes like this: to redefine how the work of a pastor is done so that it will lead to joy and longevity for the pastor.[1] In the pages that follow, in an attempt to fulfill that statement, they work through eleven different subjects, most of which are spiritual practices, and a few that one might call spiritual traits or attitudes (i.e. hopefulness, humility, etc.). These eleven are the keys. Croft and Martin believe sincerely, as comes through in their writing, that wholeheartedly engaging with and living out these eleven practices and traits are what will inevitably lead pastors to that joy and longevity that so often seems to be missing from pastoral work.

As far as I can tell, all that Croft and Martin are doing in these eleven chapters is reminding pastors of what matters. They are helping re-prioritize. Through personal pastoral stories (which are powerfully told), together with the Scriptures, they lead readers into seeing what the pastoral life (if not simply the Christian life) should be consumed with, and what it has unfortunately become consumed with in the name of productivity. The chapters are so simple. That’s what makes for a quick read. And yet they are deeply convicting and hope-giving, which is why it should probably be a slow read.

I have got to say, it is a bold move to put the word redefine in the thesis of your book. After so many centuries of pastoral work being done and so many books having been written about it, are Croft and Martin really the ones who are going to redefine it or even a piece of it? It sounds crazy, but according to their own words, that is what they set out to do. Now here is the even crazier thing: I think they did it. At the very least, for me, they contributed something significant, probably much to the chagrin of some in my congregation, to the redefining of my pastoral work. I say contributed because some of that redefining in my life and ministry began with the writings of Eugene Peterson, and has now been taking further by The Unhurried Pastor.

My only grievance with the book, I wish that they had included more Eugene Peterson in it! Perhaps because Peterson has been so impactful in my own understanding of pastoral work, I do wish he had come up more. Of course it is noted in the introduction what an inspiration he was to the project, and that inspiration and influence is obvious throughout all of the pages. But I went in expecting his writings to pop up on more pages. Obviously though, I realize that this is an unfair criticism. If I wanted to read Eugene Peterson, then I should go and read Eugene Peterson.

All in all, this was a great read. For pastors, for anyone in vocational ministry, and even for Christians outside of it, I cannot recommend this book enough. When my sabbatical began, I was aware of the need for re-prioritizing. My pastoral life has not always (and especially lately) been sustainable and honestly not always too joyful either. What I was unaware of was has how exactly to re-prioritize it. The Unhurried Pastor has been a gift to my soul in this way, and it came right at my time of greatest need. Croft and Martin have blessed me beyond on measure, or rather, the Lord through them.

[1] Brian Croft and Ronnie Martin, The Unhurried Pastor: Redefining Productivity for a More Sustainable Ministry (The Good Book Company: Charlotte, 2024), 13.

Book Review: “The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity"

“The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity" by Michael J. Kruger

There is something so wonderful about a book small enough to start and finish in one sitting and dense enough to leave you mulling over the ideas for days, weeks and months. Michael Kruger’s latest book out of Cruciform Press, The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity, is exactly that.

In fifty short pages Kruger sums and responds to the major premises of modern liberal Christianity, as they are laid out in Philip Gulley’s book If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus. Relying heavily on J. Gresham Maschen’s classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Kruger masterfully breaks down Gulley’s ten main principles, recognizing both the slivers of truth in them and the many reasons why they fail to give life and succeed at distorting the Gospel.

In an increasingly liberal/progressive Christian culture, this is a much needed book. The church needs people like Kruger who are willing to be a voice in the wilderness; willing to stand up to liberal claims and to intelligently explain to the church why they just don’t work.

A lot of the tenets of liberal Christianity initially seem very appealing. The gentle, clever and seemingly unconfrontational language they are often cloaked in makes them appear to be the very things Jesus would be about. It is not until you slow down and begin to examine each one through a biblical lens that you start to realize how unbiblical, unloving, and ultimately destructive the tenets are. That slowing down and examining is what Kruger has done here. He has done the hard work for us, and then has packaged it into the simplest and most accessible form possible: a fifty-page book that requires no prior expertise to grasp what is being written

This is a brilliant book. An informing book. A transforming book.

The size, the price and the content makes this one a must-read for every Christian living in the midst of an increasingly liberal Christianity.

Do yourself a favour.