Nadia Bolz-Weber is as close to a celebrity pastor as the ELCA has. I've gotten to hear her speak on two different occasions, first at the Extravaganza (a training event for youth workers in the ELCA) and later at the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering.
...
In February, I found out I was pregnant. Like so many other newly pregnant moms, I expected to be welcoming a baby into our house 9 months later - a few short weeks from now, actually.
Instead, I miscarried a few weeks later.
Since then, I've...
Most people in the youth ministry world are at least vaguely aware of recent research from both the National Study of Youth and Religion and the College Transition Project that suggests the faith we're cultivating in teens is not consequential and...
Everyone faces “giants” in their lives: Fears, issues, and struggles that must be overcome. In their book, Five Stones: Conquering Your Giants, authors Shane Stanford and Brad Martin attempt to use the story of David and Goliath to “arm” us to “...
I love to read. Among the books I love, there are a select few that have had a profound impact on my life and faith. Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel is one of them.
More than anything else, The Ragamuffin Gospel is a treatise on grace...
Ever since it's release, Heather Kopp's Sober Mercies: How Love Caught Up with a Christian Drunk has been getting great reviews.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that I love spiritual memoirs, I found myself avoiding this book. Upon further...
Over the past several years, I've had the privilege of compiling many of Youth Worker Journal's Roundtables. In order to compile these Roundtables, I must first solicit interviews from Christian “celebrities” - authors, pastors, and academics.
...
Shortly after my miscarriage, I made my most depressing Amazon purchase ever: A collection of books about miscarriage, loss, and grief. Among them was Mike Stavlund's A Force of Will: The Reshaping of Faith in a Year of Grief.
Despite having...
As a lover of memoir and an advocate for refugee ministry, Sarah Thebarge's The Invisible Girls quickly stole my heart.
In this book, Sarah weaves together her battle with breast cancer (which she was diagnosed with at the age of 27) with a...
As you know, my very favorite kinds of books are those that leave me in tears one moment and cause me to laugh aloud the next. Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed by Glennon Doyle Melton is definitely one of those books.
In this...
Next to fiction, memoir is my favorite kind of book. My love for memoir attracted me to Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, a book she calls the “happiest story in the world with the saddest ending”.
Indeed, it...
As a child in the 80's and a teenager in the 90's, I somehow missed all the boy band fads. I was never an NKOTB or Backstreet Boys groupie or really, even a fan. To be honest, I don't feel as though my life is lacking because I wasn't.
It's only...
The idea of Rachel Held Evans' book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, is simple. For a year, Rachel took the Bible literally, focusing on one specific command (targeted at women) each month. It's not an entirely new idea. A.J. Jacobs did it in The...
In our culture, everyone wants to be great.
Students do. Their parents do. And if we're honest, we do too.
For this reason alone, Steven Furtick's new book, Greater, will gain an audience. After all, how awesome would it be if our faith in Jesus...
As the election approaches, I continue to wrestle with what it means to follow Jesus politically. Walk into an evangelical church and many people will suggest this means voting republican. Walk into a mainline church and you'll hear the opposite:...