Callapidder Days

Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing recently sent me a review copy of Primal, the latest book from Mark Batterson.

From the Publisher:

Our generation needs a Reformation. But a single person won’t lead it. A single event won’t define it.

Our reformation will be a movement of reformers living compassionately, creatively, courageously for the cause of Christ.

This reformation will not be born of a new discovery. It will be the rediscovery of something old, something ancient.

Something primal.

What would your Christianity look like if it was stripped down to the simplest, rawest, purest faith possible? You would have more, not less.  You would have the beginning of a new reformation — in your generation, your church, your own soul. You would have primal Christianity.

This book is an invitation to become part of a reformation movement. It is an invitation to rediscover the compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy that turned the world upside down two thousand years ago. It is an invitation to be astonished again.

My thoughts:

Well the first thing I would say is:

Warning: Do not read this book if you want to stay happily ensconced in your comfort zone. Don’t read this book if you’d rather not be challenged. Don’t read this book if you prefer your old familiar ruts. Don’t read this book if you don’t want to re-examine what it really means to live out a love for God in your everyday life.

When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, He replied with:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)

In Primal, Mark Batterson encourages readers to take a fresh look at this command. He explores what it looks like when we apply every dimension of our being to loving God.

The book is divided into four sections, appropriately: The Heart of Christianity, The Soul of Christianity, The Mind of Christianity, and The Strength of Christianity.

In The Heart of Christianity, Batterson asserts that loving God with all our hearts means that we will be passionate for the things about which God is passionate — our lives will be characterized by a deep and holy compassion. That compassion will be obvious by the way we spend our time and energy, but also by the way we spend our money.

In The Soul of Christianity, the author reminds us that God is not just a God of logic; He is a God of wonder. And when we love God with all our souls, we’ll be caught up with a holy wonder, an amazement at the mystery and depth and creativity of the God we serve.

In The Mind of Christianity, Batterson discusses the importance of using our minds — yes, our brains — to love God by seeking to learn more and more about Him and about the world He created. God has given us minds and expects us to use them.  We glorify Him when we are life-long learners, when we use our imaginations, our creativity, our humor, and our capacity for knowledge and logic to seek and honor Him.

Finally, in The Strength of Christianity, readers are inspired to expend “tremendous amounts of energy for kingdom causes.” In other words, loving God through the use of “good old-fashioned hard work.” When we love God with all our strength, we’ll invest our energy in things that matter.

Primal is not an overly-long book (it’s under 200 pages), and it reads easily. Each chapter is woven together from Scripture, stories, interesting facts, and Batterson’s personal experiences.

And in my opinion, it packs a punch.

Primal will challenge your thinking and it will challenge your way of life. It will make you take a good hard look at your priorities, your stuff, and the way you fill your days. If you give it a chance, it will shake things up in your heart.

I read through Primal fairly quickly, in order to finish in time to be part of this blog tour. But this is a book I will definitely be re-reading. Even as I read through it the first time, I was underlining concepts and jotting down quotes — ideas and challenges to contemplate further. The next time I read through Primal, I’ll be taking my time, digesting each chapter. There is much to think about — but also much to do.

If you’re looking for a change for the new year, if you want to re-evaluate your walk with God and get to the heart of what it means to love Him through every aspect of your life, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Primal (you can get it at Amazon, of course, or directly from the Waterbrook Multnomah website).

When it comes to novels, my regular readers know I like books that provide plenty of mystery. What they might not know is that I also love when a book weaves together seemingly disparate story lines into a grand story where everything fits together like a puzzle. Characters who don’t know each other, settings placed miles (or years) apart, varying goals and dreams — all coming together to form a cohesive whole. I love it.

And that’s exactly what Athol Dickson’s latest novel, Lost Mission, does.

On the one hand, Lost Mission tells the story of the founding and eventual collapse of an eighteenth century Spanish mission. On the other hand, it explores the stories of several modern-day characters:

Lupe – A Mexican shopkeeper burdened with a desire to share the gospel with Americans
Tucker – A young minister who falls in love with the wrong woman
Delano – A wealthy businessman who claims to love God, but finds himself driven by grief and distrust, and an overwhelming desire for revenge
Ramon – A man seeking to provide for his wife and sons who finds himself caught up in a horrible tragedy

Lost Mission follows each of these stories, fully drawing the reader into the varied situations, and ultimately pulls them all together in a thought-provoking tapestry. Each chapter of the novel begins in the 1700′s, with the story of of the Spanish mission, but before long, transitions to the story of one of the other characters. Dickson handles these transitions with cleverness, and as the book went on, I found myself wondering just how he would create the transition in the next chapter.

By the time I reached the end of the novel, one thought stood out to me — I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed the architecture of the book. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that the author was also an architect! I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at all, but I love that he created such a beautiful and intriguing structure for Lost Mission. (Check out Athol Dickson’s guest post at agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog, for some insight into how he views the connection between Art, Architecture, and Literature.)

Lost Mission starts a little slowly. Admittedly, it took a few chapters before I was completely absorbed. But once I was, I had a hard time putting the book down. I soon wanted to know what happened to cause the collapse of the mission, how the characters would deal with their individual struggles, and how point A and point B were ever going to be connected.

One thing I found interesting about Lost Mission was that the characters were not entirely “good guys” or “bad guys.” I feel that Dickson did a wonderful job showing the fact that humanity is flawed, and that those who claim to be Christians (or have even dedicated their lives to ministry) must still deal honestly with their temptations and sin. So often, in “Christian fiction,” readers encounter a “good guy” who seemingly does no wrong. Not so in Lost Mission. A realistic portrayal of struggle, sin, and humanity added to my appreciation of this book.

If you’re looking for a good book to curl up with as the weather grows colder, I certainly recommend Lost Mission. It would be a perfect fit for a long, quiet afternoon or two!

Disclosure: I received a copy of Lost Mission from LitFuse Publicity Group as part of their blog tour for this novel. Visit LitFuse to find out what other bloggers think about Lost Mission.

What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain?

This is the premise behind Max Lucado’s latest book, Fearless. In Fearless, Lucado walks with readers through an examination of the many forms and flavors of fear that touch our lives — everything from the fear of not mattering to the fear of death to the fear that God is not real.

In typical (and enjoyable) Max Lucado style, each chapter is sprinkled with real-life anecdotes, metaphors and examples that get right to the heart of the matter, and an appropriate dose of reality from Scripture. We see how the life, the words, and the actions of Jesus can calm our fears and bolster our faith.

It’s not hard to relate to the disciples who cried out in the middle of a storm, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” (Matt. 8:25) Any variety of events and circumstances can leave me feeling frightened, anxious, or as if I’m drowning. But in what I feel is the primary strength of Fearless, Lucado reminds us over and over that Jesus has authority over the storms of life — all the things that stir up anxiety or unease within us are under His control.

One chapter that I particularly appreciated was the one on “Fear of Not Protecting My Kids.” While I may give economic downturns and potential natural disasters no more than a passing glance, I’ve been known to worry (a bit too much, I admit) about the health and well-being of my kids. Lucado provides a welcome reminder to me:

“…our kids were [God's] kids first…Before they were ours, they were his. Even as they are ours, they are still his…Wise are the parents who regularly give their children back to God.”

Fearless reads quickly. It’s packed with encouragement and appropriate reminders of God’s sovereignty and love. And since we live in a world that provides plenty of opportunity for doubt, fear, and anxiety, I’m sure this book will be a welcoming comfort to many. The important thing is that Fearless repeatedly points readers back to Jesus, the source of our comfort and the antidote to all our fears.

You can learn more about Fearless at the Thomas Nelson website, and you can pick up a copy at Amazon.com.

Tyndale recently sent me two of their newest novels to kick off my summer reading. The first of those is Valley of the Shadow by Tom Pawlik. A sequel (that still stands alone just fine) to his award-winning first novel, Vanish, Valley of the Shadow left two primary impressions on me:

1. It’s a page-turner
2. It’s kind of freaky

Here’s how the publisher describes it:

Conner Hayden is certain he survived his near-death experience for a reason. He thinks it’s to save the life—and soul—of Mitch Kent. Mitch’s body remains on life support while his spirit is trapped with the old farmer Howard Bristol in the Interworld—a strange and dangerous dimension that Conner narrowly escaped during his brush with death in Pawlik’s award-winning debut novel, Vanish.

Meanwhile, in the Interworld, Mitch receives a warning from a mysterious stranger: Howard is not who he appears to be, and Mitch must flee immediately. Pursued by Howard and a terrifying creature, Mitch soon learns the truth about what happened to him and that his only hope of survival lies at the very edge of the Interworld.

:::::::::::::::::

Okay, so my first hints that it might be a little freaky should have been the words “strange and dangerous dimension,” “Interworld,” and “a terrifying creature.”

But since I hadn’t read Pawlik’s first novel, Vanish, I went into this book essentially clueless.

Let’s start with some basics. What is this “Interworld”? To quote Nathan, one of the book’s characters:

“This place is just like a doorway. When someone dies, they usually pass right through to the other side. But sometimes people get stuck in between. Trapped here. Not dead but not really alive either.”

Okay, so there you have it: one of the primary settings in Valley of the Shadow is a kind of other dimension… a bizarre, rather frightening place, somewhere between life and death.

And the plot revolves around the lives of several men who have been there. Men who were in some kind of accident (here in our world) and found themselves trapped for a time in the Interworld.

One man was resuscitated and is trying to figure out what his purpose is, wondering exactly what God wants him to do with his second chance at life.

Another man came back, but not alone. He’s accompanied by a nasty, demon-like creature who, to be blunt, is not a very good influence on him.

A third man is still in the Interworld…confused, unsure of where he is or what he should be doing, but pretty sure he doesn’t like the incredibly icky creatures that inhabit this peculiar world (where it’s best to be in a safe place when the sun goes down).

I admit that, even with the demon-like creatures and alternate dimensions, I got sucked into Valley of the Shadow pretty quickly. Short chapters, multiple tense plot-lines, and plenty of suspense kept me up late more than one night. I also found myself reminded of books by Ted Dekker, or even Frank Peretti  — other authors who like to take out normal world, turn it upside down, introduce some other-worldly weirdness, and ratchet up the suspense.

Now that I’ve read Valley of the Shadow, I’m curious to go back and read Vanish, to get some back-story on a few of the characters.

If this sounds like an interesting book to you, it’s available on Amazon.com, of course, where you can also read reviews and check out an excerpt fromt he book.