I think it's a bit ironic that theooze.com sends these cool books, many of the 'Emergent' flavour, to a bunch of bloggers for review. It's ironic because half of the books I've taken in thus far would do much better and receive a far larger readership if they were blogs instead of books. At some point some of these authors will realise this and stop attacking old paradigm in their books while simultaneously using old paradigm medium (and perhaps the prestige of a published book?) as a primary means to share ideas.

Colors of God was an interesting book for two reasons: format and content. The format was a 'conversation' between three people. I found this confusing at best and it certainly shaped the quality of the book (for better or worse I can't really say). The other was content: the exploration of an emerging Emergent church from a classic Canadian evangelical context. Given this is a Canadian blog I can say the materials about Canadian church plants are scarce so it's a treat to read about one.

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I like books, and sometimes I review them when they're sent to me, in this case from theooze.com. I wanted to do two in one in this review simply because I do'nt have that much to say.

First off, Laughing with Sarah by Gene Jennings, certainly a far cry from the usual theooze offerings. This one seemed to be from a regular pastor from a regular multi-site church in a regular suburb somewhere in the US. The book starts in the forward with, "this is a book of sermons." Uh oh, you've lost me. Continue reading →

Slow start, great finish.

There's a reason why I almost put down 'Jesus Manifesto' by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, the first 1/3 was kind of dull. Not because the information was boring, but it was kind of redundant, and 'obvious'. Mind you, I think that's the point, to me a conversation for three chapters on the centrality of Jesus to the Christian faith isn't necessary.

I can understand why it was crucial to include because their target market need to hear the obvious message because the foundation of Jesus has been lost in American churches.

With that being said, the final 1/3 of the book got me thinking about some important questions. For me personally, it forced me to explore some ideas in a way only an NT Wright publication could.... That's a tall order indeed and part of the reason I would recommend this book to the right person. Continue reading →

I don't routinely review books but this one is part of Pomotheo's theOoze commitment so I though I'd give it a go. "The Naked Gospel. The truth you may never hear in church." Sounds edgy but it wasn't.

Maybe I'm not the target audience. Actually, I know I'm not. This is for a reader squarely planted in the middle of Christendom who takes in a conservative brand of Christianity weekly. To that person this book is certainly to geared to offend, (as most conservatives are quite easily offended it doesn't take much to receive such a response).

Farley began the book with great promise, the questions he posed caught my attention in his mini introductory exam. Continue reading →

Part of our commitment to theOoze is to review books they send us. This time I jumped at the opportunity to review NT Wright's latest installment in his series of 3 called 'After You Believe'. But before I could read this one I made a point to finish the first two (to try to get a perspective of Wright's progression of ideas).

After You Believe is preceded by Surprised by Hope, an exceptional work that challenges the conservative Christian perspective of heaven (that we say a prayer and go to heaven by eternity.) It's not only a challenge but quite simply a return to orthodoxy. I found Surprised by Hope to be an exceptional contemporary work that should hit everyone's must read list. Continue reading →