Renewal

If any book better documents the increasingly halachic turn of the liberal Jewish movements in Norht America, I would be hard pressed to find one. The editors, who also have written articles in the text, do an excellant job of providing, perhaps for the first time in a few decades, a guide to daily Jewish religious practice from a liberal, or more accurately, Reconstructionist, point of view. They include solid use of classical Jewish sources and a good basic bibliography with each section.

They discuss all the most important basic subjects, such as daily prayer, the rituals of laying on tallis, kippah and tefillin, daily Torah study, the Jewish dietary laws, use of the Ritual bath and the celebration of Shabbat. Equally critically, they talk about the psychology involved in these ritual observances, and their benefits from a spiritual point of view.
For anyone new to Jewish religious practice, this book is the place to start.

However, as with many books of this type, there is no effort made to show how the various practices so effectively described, fit into a more complete whole. While the authors and editors make repeated references to Jewish mysticism here and there, there is no even brief description of what it is, or how Jewish ritual serves as the foundation for Jewish mysticism. In addition, the authors stress psycological/spiritual benefits to Jewish practice, when there are those among us who have experienced many practical gains as well.

In order to find the connection between these practices and Judaism and its mysticism as a totality, the reader should combine reading the above work, with this writer's own critical description of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, entitled "Jewish History and Divine Providence: Theodicy and the Oddyssey," available for purchase here on Amazon. This work, the only progressive, critical discussion of Jewish mysticism in English, unifies "The Rituals and Practices of a Jewish Life" with their most potent rationale, and in history as well.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Rabbis Kerry Olitzky and Daniel Judson, The Rituals & Practices Of Jewish Life: A Handbook For Personal Spiritual Renewal is a straightforward and practical instructional guide to the origin, manner, and modern-day practice of ten areas of Jewish ritual: Upon Rising and Going to Bed; Covering the Head; Blessings throughout the Day; Daily Prayer; Tefillin; Tallit and Tallit Katan; Talmud Torah; The Continuum of Kashrut; Mikvah; and Entering Shabbot. Enhanced with an informative foreword by Vanessa L. Ochs, and illustrations by Joel Moskowitz, The Rituals & Practices Of Jewish Life is a useful and "user friendly", easy-to-follow, step-by-step, guidebook which is most especially recommended for readers who may have little to no understanding of the proper ritual performance and what it means, yet who want to incorporate more of the Jewish traditions into their daily lives.

Getz successfully attempts to set forth a biblical model for the church. He does so by looking at the church through the lens of Scripture, of history and finally, of culture. Throughout the book he emphasizes his dictum: People leads to function which in turn leads to form. That is, wherever people are they will be doing something together, which necessitates form. He points out that whereas the Bible gives us considerable information on function (i.e., preaching), it is relatively silent on form (how we put together a sermon).

The strength of this book is Getz's solid exegesis of Scripture. Although it is impossible to set aside all the presuppositions we have when we come to the Bible, Getz succeeds better than most. I was especially appreciative of his analysis of the first century culture and how difficult it would be for us to mimic first century forms.

Although Getz deliberately chooses to concentrate on exegesis, I would have like to see him look at church and culture in more depth. He was also somewhat ambiguous as to the plurality of elders in the local church. On one hand he argues the plurality of elders is due to the numerous house churches located in a city, on the other hand he also seems to argue that individual congregations should have a plurality of elders.

Coming from a Christian Church/church of Christ background, I really appreciated his in-depth look at the church. Traditional Christian Church theology argues that not only does the New Testament give us the functions of the church, but the forms as well. This book certainly "sharpened" my focus of the church by helping be discern between culture and biblical absolutes.

Getz' book is sorely needed in a day when human opinion and experience as to "what works" has supplanted the Biblical directives as to what the church should be according to the Word of God.

Getz presents a balanced and thorough study of what church is about, the evangelism of the lost (in the world) and the edification of believers (in our gatherings).

He presents principles drawn directly from inductive study, and even presents appendices filled with verse after verse to document his conclusions.

This books serves as a blueprint (since it is anchored to Scripture) for churches bent on pleasing God. If you can dig up a copy of this one, dig it up!

This is a selection of reactions to the encounter of self and wilderness by contemporary (living) writers, poets, educators, philosophers, theologians, boatmen, healers, and a hunter (Ted Kerasote). As a hunter I review it. There's no dearth of intelligence here, of reflection, of solid writing and even the occasional glint of humor, as in Doug Elliot's "Night of the Living Skunk" or Heilig's "A Walk with the King." The book stands at the beginning of an axiological recovery effort. If you look at Daniel Quinn's "The Story of B," you are presented with the philosophical underpinnings of an ecologically-based discontent, an alienation, a dissatisfaction with the place we've reached after 15Ky of totalitarian agriculture, property rights, scientific nature-penetration, and human-centered, gods-replacing decisions. Quinn sees the birth of a paradigm, a world-order, but he sees few details, he offers very little prescience about what's going to have to arise. I see most of the selections in this book as first efforts toward roughing out that new order. The writers are joining a conversation, debate, or exploration of the shape of what must come if we are to be here to see it. Thus a lot of this book is centrifugal. Strength/weakness: you don't get a lot of unmediated experience here: Judith Minty's dense and disturbing short-story "Killing the Bear" with its foiled-rape suggestions, Ted Kerasote's tale of killing a female elk from Bloodties, a couple of anecdotes from Rod Nash. What you do get is intellection, a kind of centrifugal direction of the prose. Time and again, writers in this anthology start with an incident, and mediate it through quotations from Thoreau, Muir, van der Post, Abbey, Lopez or Roszak. When these writers experience, they describe first, but then almost gratefully retreat into opening the intellect, the collective intellect of 19-20th century nature writers; they enter the great conversation about wilderness as soon as they want to understand. So a lot of these writings start in immersion, and abstract themselves a little nervously into thought. It's a lion, but somehow not really a lion until van der Post and Barry Lopez get cited about lions and the reverence-fear for lions. Or maybe it's too real as a lion until we raise the wordscreen. Again, weakness/strength, mine as well as some of the writers: even when pleased or delighted by a selection, I found myself muttering "Thus I refute Berkeley" and thinking about gutting a moose.

I love this book. It's all about the link between ourselves and nature. I find its well-crafted essays deeply inspiring and eye-opening. Read this book and go on a wilderness trip in your armchair.

Excellent service. Book arrived quickly and in excellent condtion.

Perfect for pastors

An excellent presentation of how one minister's church responded to the search for God's will for a church and its people. It is sure to be helpful in at least some ways for all churches. Seeking God's will is always a first step. He has some excellnt ideas that have been proven in his church and I am certain they will work in most churches today. Revival of the "dead" in our churches is at a critical point. Too many people merely warm the pew. Rev. Wills gives some excellent and detailed steps to church renewal. Well written and easy to put into practice, with God's blessing, of course.

I was moved by this book and immediately gave it to my pastor, just as I did Purpose Driven Church. This book is much more spiritually oriented than Warren's approach, although I think highly of Warren's approach. To think a church the size and denomination background such as the author's would turn to spritual discernment in its council meetings is great. I went to a council meeting in our church the day I finished the book and had a whole different perspective on how much time we spent dicussing the cost of the pastor's car insurance. Not once did we discuss the areas of our church where God was calling us to action. Wills' story is a powerful statement on seeking God's will as a church body.

Tariq Ramadan offers some practical advice for Muslims living in the West. He begins his discussion by explaining Islamic principles, shariah, and the desire for social justice and the common good. He explains how the old paradigms such as Darul-Islam (the abode of Islam) are no longer workable and states the need for contemporary Muslims to return to the authentic sources (the Qur'an and Hadeeth) in order to build practical models to meet today's environment, rather than to try to patch old, broken models developed by medieval scholars. He addresses many facets of daily life such as education, politics, and economics.

Ramadan's presentation offers Muslims some useful tools in order to begin this effort, but ultimately leaves concrete solutions for individuals and community leaders, leaving the door open to take into account the circumstances unique to each situation.

This is a worth-while read for the contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

I believe this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It was the first time a scholar elaborates on what it really means to be both Western and Muslim. He tackles just about every issue facing Muslims in the West - and while obvously not everyone will agree with him - he is the first one to really discuss these issues as far as I know.

Like most works by Schaeffer A Christian Manifesto contains Schaeffer's standard rundown of Western Civilization after the Reformation. If you've read any of his books you probably know his take on things. However, the reason I would recommend this book is his emphasis on how Christian truth is not just for Sunday mornings. It affects every facet of our lives, including politics; which, prior to the 80's was a field that most Evangelicals had previously been reluctant to enter. His insight into the acceptance of abortion in Western culture is unique and must be read by anyone who wants to understand the issue.

With these good points, I must point out that some of his historical analysis, with regard to the Reformation, is definitely faulty. He tries to point out how political activism of the Reformers insured the success of the Reformation in Northern European nations. Then he tries to tie it to peaceful (to an extent) anti-abortion activism. His historical analysis is so scant because he probably wouldn't want to point out that the reason the Reformation was successful in those countries because the reformers themselves promised a select group of nobles absolute power and free reign to loot Catholic lands. Once the rulers were in the hands of the reformers they could enforce whatever they wanted to.

Despite flaws like this felt that overall it was a good, thought provoking read.

Francis Schaeffer had amazing insight into the world around him. He looked around and made predictions that others thought were impossible to ever come true. He tied together causes that others considered minor. He described a coming world view that others comsidered extreme and alarmist.

Now . . . it has come to pass. Many today will read this book and have trouble believing that Schaeffer's world ever existed. Some will probably call him immoral. He is certainly politically incorrect.

And all of this change happened in the span of about 20 years. This book was penned in 1981. You owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of this book and look around at the change that has happened to society. It is sobering.

Seldom do I read many things that peak my attention such as the works of Francis Schaeffer. "A Christian Manifesto" reads as though it were written today. One can imagine it was a book before its time as the idea of "post-modern" Christianity has now become a forward-moving trend. Above all, I believe what this book succeeds in doing is calling Christians to serious reform in worldview; linking the problems of our society today to a humanistic view of total reality that has lost its morality and spiritual roots. He renounces dualism and admonishes us to look at issues in their totaliy as symptoms of a greater problem. In this book, Schaeffer sites some of the top legal decisions that will affect the people of faith in the coming decade. The issues still stand even today. He challenges the censorship of the open marketplace where people should be able to decide for themselves whose "god" is God. This is perhaps one of the most profound reads in quite awhile. You will be challenged, if not changed.

In his new book, Erwin McManus shows why he is considered to be a visionary for the church. He has a unique way of getting to the heart of the matter regarding our relationship with Christ and how we do church. This book is a visionary one because it is founded on the principles of God's Word which is the ultimate visionary book. That is why it makes such an impact. McManus clarifies and points out aspects of what God's church has the potential to be through Christ. His gift is that he has a great way of demonstrating the obvious; principles that we ocassionally may miss. This book will make you a better pastor, youth leader, Sunday School teacher, and Christian. Highly recommended.

Finally Erwin has written! Honestly, few have the ministry location (don't read "geography") that enable this kind of breadth in one volume. Here is a guy with a sweep of cultural insight, passion for God's church, creative genius and the ability to put it in print as well. This volume is essentially about the church getting in the game. Erwin's challenge?.... the church needs to wake up, wise up and gear up to this new world into which we have been invited by God to speak fresh good news. In my ministry I have bought 100 copies of 2 different books in my life for my leadership team. This will be the third. It is the best thing written in this arena in a long time, maybe ever. Get it, buy it, read it and then go buy 100 copies and give them to every church leader you know.

I am not a pastor but this book still managed to change my life. It challenged me to rethink the way we do church and now I am striving to follow what I feel is God's will for his church. When we rely on outdated traditions, everyone suffers. Erwin offers a fresh look at how church is done and I feel he is right on the mark. Read it!

The Second Coming is a well worth read for anyone interested in church change. "While poverty is growing and welfare is declining,the average church spends $6 on facilities for every $1 it spends on its ministry to the poor." states Barna. Such facts bring home the truth that the 21st Century Church will sink or swim depending on whether or not it's willing to change. Overall, Barna sails us through the state of the Church with a myriad of facts and figures combined with his intense yet interesting commentary. His early comments on leadership are very insightful but one can't help feeling a little lost with barna's "four types of leadership" comments that look more like a business plan than an early church model for the 21st century which incorporated the priesthood of all believers.

Barna lays out a multi-faceted vision of where the church will need to go in order to remain relevant in our ever-shfiting culture. He never questions the staying power of the "unsinkable true Church" but strongly implicates the inability of the church to reproject the timeless message in new and relevant modes. He lays the responsibility upon the leadership of the church. Pastors are overworked and wearing too many hats, some of which they aren't gifted or trained for.

Much of the book is reminiscent of the 1990's vision-shaping management movement with its emphasis on mission statements and dynamic leader identification and training. There is certainly truth to be found in this, but the business world has learned through hard knocks that crisp execution can make up for second rate vision since business is graded on a Bell curve - the lesson may not be useful to the church, it certainly is murky in a theological sense.

In 2003, Barna is talking about Strategic Sources of Influence (SSI) like the Internet and TV, etc. as the place needing emphasis. He feels this book is still his most important, but it wasn't well received/implemented (though I think some of the church growth movement has taken it to heart).

One of the problems the book has, and this is somewhat unfair to judge in hindsight, is that from the beginning it describes how our culture re-invents itself every 3-5 years. The book then builds around that premise as if it is deeply true and significant for minsitry on all fronts. That may be true at the superficial pop culture level and media/technology outlets, but I don't think individuals literally revamp their deeply held worldview assumptions that often. Modernism and post modern relativism/pluralism are the patterns we will have for decades to come; they will just be in different clothing from time to time. I was disappointed Barna didn't stress pure apologetics more as this seemed to be a key, unstated assumption in many of his ministry strategies.

It's still a very good book, even today, and has influenced my thinking quite a bit. The book is more about when and why we should change the church than what and how although there is some detail on growing leadership.

This book will astound you about the irrelevancy of the church in the current age. The church to be able to even maintain some success will need to reinvent all that it is doing to meet the needs of the common people in the streets. Barna is definitely hard hitting, and accurate. This book is a must read for the church to maintain any semblance of reality for our society. Barna points out that the church must turn the corner away from the culture impacting the church, but to the contrary the church must impact the culture. You will not want to miss this book, especially those of you who are Christians and wanting to see the world changed by the church.

I wanted to like this book. Really. It had all the components that would ordinarily add up to a good read -- a lonely guy, a quasi-happy guy married to the perfect women, evil business empires, corrupt government, art, what-have-you.

Unfortunately, it doesn't gell. The writing is fine -- Tom Barbash writes very well -- but the perspective is far too detached and consciously ironic to ever allow the characterization to take root. It's obvious early on that frenzied attempts to revive a moribund upstate New York lakeshore town are doomed ot fail, and yet none of the characters ever even seems to notice. Relationships come together and fall apart, infidelities and betrayals occur, and no one raises their voice. People are threatened and beaten by mysterious bad guys implicitly in the pay of mysterious corporate bad guys, and nothing happens -- the beaten character doesn't do the rational thing and report it; he hides.

It's a book in search of a story, just like the newspaper reporter around whom the story circles at first.

The end of the novel is a sort of macabre postmodern American Gothic, where the unhappily-married couple stands shoulder to shoulder figuring out whether or not they should cut their losses and start over -- again -- somewhere else, and leave the problems they've caused behind.

With a more coherent plot, some fleshing out, and some explicit conflicts, this could have been a great book. Instead, it is a book where I kept turning pages waiting for something to happen....

A very true-to-life work of fiction -- Barbash's characters really came alive for me. I was thoroughly engrossed in this somewhat bleak tale of a dying upstate NY town (Lakeland) and the lives of the people who inhabit it. This was a romance and a tale of small town America with a little bit of mystery thrown in.

At the heart of the story is a love triangle between old friends Steven Turner, Jack Lambeau, and Jack's wife, Anne. Jack becomes singularly focused on becoming Lakeland's redeemer through revitalizing the town's lakefront district, so focused that he neglects Anne. She seeks solace in the arms of Turner. A good love triangle can take up an entire novel, but Barbash throws in some other drama as well -- illegal toxic waste dumping. Taking part in the dumping is Jack's brother, Harris, who has some drama of his own going on -- his wife Marla just had their baby, and since he hasn't been much of a husband, Marla doesn't want him around.

Barbash has created some really complex, likeable characters. You'll find yourself rooting for all of them (except Anne, maybe -- I thought she was really stringing these two guys along). The really satisfying thing about this book is, unlike so much modern fiction, that the ending doesn't leave you in complete despair. Not to say that things work out perfectly, but you're left with some hope at the end, and that's always a good feeling to have when you turn the last page.

Tom Barbash's novel "The Last Good Chance" is a wonderful book that draws you in from the very first page. It is a story about urban developer Jack Lambeau who has big dreams for his small provincial home town, his friend Steven Turner who uncovers a scandal that threatens Jack's hopes and plans, and Jack's aspiring artist wife, Anne, who is caught between the two. It is in part an illustration of the ease with which good people can find themselves in bad situations, the fascinating need people have to justify the choices they make, and the creative lengths they will go to in self-deception.

I found the character development in this book to be extraordinary. It is written from several perspectives, and casts both main and supporting characters in different lights that come together seamlessly in vibrant portraits. Without description, Barbash achieves characters that live and breathe. We are privy to their eloquent contemplation and reflection, and we feel our own greed, pride, betrayal, love and longing. What more can you ask of a book?

I highly recommend this book, and I will be dropping The Last Good Chance into many stockings this Christmas!