Back in session...

School has started again - we're about four weeks in - and so my reading has changed. No more Jane Austen for me until May. But I do get to read some pretty awesome books for my classes.

Holding Hands, Holding Hearts - Richard and Sharon Phillips
This is a book about reclaiming Christian dating. That is, it is not so much about the courtship thing that is pretty popular in some circles, but it is about what happens when you acctually start spending time with a member of the opposite sex intentionally (whatever you might call that time). I felt it was pretty good... I would probably have resonated more with it were I reading for an existing relationship, but as it was, I was edified. I didn't agree with some of their smaller conclusions (is true humanity entered only when you are married?) but the book is worth reading if you are in a dating relationship or would like to be in the future.

God Our Teacher - Richard Pazmino
This book could have been written in fewer pages and clearer vocabulary and made a great deal more sense. As it was, I was introduced to a great number of terms that the author had written about it other books - but I knew nothing about them. He likes to place things into trinities and I am not sure if that is meant to be a memory aid or if he is really trying to make that kind of connection between educaiton and the Godhead. There were a lot of concepts that were helpful and the chapter on Jesus the Master Teacher was probably the best of the book.

The Emotionally Healthy Church - Peter Scazzero with Warren Bird
This another one of those books where I wonder what they paid their copy editor, or if the person possibly had some significant issues going on in their life, because every few pages I have to stop and think, "That shouldn't look that way!" Admittedly, some of those moments are due more to some of the conclusions of the author. I liked the main premise of this book - you cannot be a fully mature person when you have separated spiritual and emotional maturity and have focused on only one. In the church setting, it is usually the former. We think that if you can teach adequately and know your Bible verses, then you are a mature person. But in reality, leadership takes both kinds of maturity. But there are moments when I want to scream, "Get over yourself!" because in some ways the book is not about how you begin to build healthy and whole leaders (and thereby, a healthy and whole church) but about how Scazzero journied from being an emotional infant to emotional maturity. That's good... but there really isn't a lot of process involved in this book (which is precisely what I look for - I'm very task oriented) and sometimes I think we can take a good idea and then make it our idol. If we aren't all growing in the same way, well then you aren't growing in the way you are supposed to (This is not Scazzero's conclusion - but it does feel as if the book could led itself to that conclusion at moments.)
It might be a good book alongside of an acctual discipleship program you want to implement in your church; the six principles in part three and the diagnostic in part two are probably the most helpful parts of the book.