Category: Book Recommendations

Recent Reads I Recommend

On February 11, 2014

Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick makes me want to throw away all the other parenting books and blogs and articles I’ve ever read. I thought it was a bit repetitive and I found her sample parenting “speeches” she would give to kids to be long-winded and not very realistic (for me), but the heart of this book is amazing, refreshing, and life-altering. I need to review it every year. In an age where everyone seems to have a “system” for churning out “good” kids, Elyse gets down to the biblical basics of parenting–and probably most of us have it wrong. This book went deep to my heart….with conviction but also blessed relief. It is a must-read for every Christian parent or teacher.

“At the deepest level of what we do as parents, we should hear the heartbeat of a loving, grace-giving Father who freely adopts rebels and transforms them into loving sons and daughters.”

“We have far too high of a view of our ability to shape our children and far too low a view of God’s love and trustworthiness.”

I read The Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge because it was written by a girl I knew in college. It is beautiful and haunting and I would recommend to anyone. Sarah tells the story of how at age 27, as a graduate student at an Ivy League school and a very bright future ahead of her, she lost everything to breast cancer. Intertwined in this memoir is the story of how God brought redemption to her suffering through her chance connection to a Somalian refugee family. You will be blessed by this book.

Teaching Redemptivelyby Donovan Graham takes the subject that is near and dear to my heart–Biblical worldview–and demonstrates clearly and concisely how it should form Christian teaching. As someone who has been involved in education for my entire adulthood, I found it incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. Highly recommended for anyone involved in Christian education.

“[G]race cannot be comprehended, let alone lived, in an environment so permeated with a philosophy of life that says, ‘Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work harder next time and you’ll get it, nobody gets something they don’t deserve.’ If we want our students to live the gospel after they leave school, then we must help them experience it in school.”

The Rage Against God is written by Peter Hitchens–brother to atheist Christopher Hitchens–which is what makes this book so interesting. Part memoir, part history lesson, part apologetics book for the existence of God–I found it fascinating.

“Only one reliable force stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak. Only one reliable force forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law. Only one reliable force restrains the hand of the man of power. And, in an age of power-worship, the Christian religion has become the principal obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power.”

If Son of Hamas had been written as a book of fiction, I would have dismissed it as far too far-fetched to be realistic. I mean…seriously? A son of one of the founding members of Hamas, who becomes an Israeli spy, who becomes a Christian? How ridiculous is that? That’s what’s so crazy….it’s true! It reads like a spy novel, but the entire story is true…a biography, in fact. Totally captivating.

Chocolate and Milk

By Amy Medina

On June 7, 2012

In Adoption, Book Recommendations, Race and Diversity

“We were not made to make much of blackness. We were not made to make much of whiteness. We were not made to make much of self or humanity in general. We were made to make much of God.”

I grew up pretty much oblivious to race.

My childhood neighborhood in California was multi-ethnic. My best friend was Indian. Then I spent six years in three African countries.

Back in California in high school and college, I spent 8 years doing ministry in multi-ethnic neighborhoods. Camp counselor for two summers for kids who were mostly black and hispanic. Worked four years for a black employer.

As an adult I spent seven years teaching kids from all kinds of ethnicities. Spent nine of the last eleven years in Tanzania.

As I was growing up, white people were kinda boring to me. Travel and cultures, that’s what fascinated me. The fact that Gil is half-hispanic? Dream come true.

So adopting African children was just sort of obvious. I mean, we wanted to adopt, we were living in Tanzania, and there are two million orphans here. So should we adopt from Africa? Duh. The fact that my kids have dark skin was just….beautiful. And though I always loved the idea of raising a family that mirrored what heaven will look like, I never set out to be a billboard for race reconciliation.

But I’ve been thinking.

Grace and I have been making our way through the American Girl books. And Addy is a little girl living during the time of the Civil War. She’s a slave; she escapes to Philadelphia, but continues to live with segregation even in freedom.

I want Grace to know these things. She is African but has an American passport. One day it is likely she will live in the States. She needs to know.

But did I ever realize how difficult it would be to read her stories about white oppression of black people? Sitting there on the couch, my arm around her, her Mommy in every way, with nothing but the color of our skin separating us. Teaching her how people who looked like me made people who looked like her into slaves. And then even when that was over, wouldn’t even let them use the same bathroom.

I never knew how hard it would be.

And then I read this book (not to Grace!). And I know it’s controversial and not everyone likes it, but I personally was deeply moved. Because I am white, and my daughter is black. Because I have “help.” Because even though I knew the history, there’s nothing like seeing it through the eyes of someone else through a story.

Since I’ve always thought multi-ethnicities were so cool, I think I unintentionally ignored the pain that so many have experienced (are experiencing) because of their race. Even, often, at the hands of those who call themselves followers of Christ. And since we live in Africa, I never fully, truly contemplated the discrimination my own kids could face in America.

John Piper, one of my favorite-ever authors, and who also has an African-American daughter, recently published this book: Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian.

It’s not my favorite Piper book. But as a theological treatise on why Christians should intentionally pursue racial reconciliation? It’s excellent.

“That I am chosen for salvation in spite of my ugly and deadening sinfulness…that my rebellious and resistant heart was conquered by sovereign grace….if these truths do not make me a humble servant of racial diversity and harmony, then I have not seen them or loved them as I ought.”

“When we feel or think or act with disdain or disrespect or avoidance or exclusion or malice toward a person simply because he or she is of another race or another ethnic group, we are, in effect, saying that Jesus acted in a foolish way toward us. You don’t want to say that.”

My favorite section was on inter-racial marriage. Really, really good stuff. Especially because inter-racial adoption is so similar.

“As long as we disapprove of [inter-racial marriage], we will be pushing our children, and therefore ourselves, away from each other. The effect of that is not harmony, not respect and not equality of opportunity. Separation has never produced mutual understanding and respect. It has produced ignorance, suspicion, impersonal stereotyping, demeaning innuendo, and corporate self-exaltation.”

I humbly recognize that, growing up in my privileged, white life, I will never understand the oppression that minority groups have experienced in America. But yet, God has entrusted me with these beautiful children. So it is therefore my job to do everything I can to try to understand.

Somehow, our family must become a picture of racial reconciliation. Somehow, I must teach my kids how to love, forgive, and reach out beyond racial lines. Somehow, I must teach them how to understand the challenges and history and sorrows of their race, even though I haven’t experienced it myself.

I am inadequate for this task. The weight of the burden is heavy. But yet, it is important and necessary. And worth it.

My kids are sitting on the kitchen floor drinking chocolate milk as I write this. I think chocolate and milk make an excellent combination, don’t you?

Change How You Think About the Poor!

By Amy Medina

On January 9, 2011

In Book Recommendations, Poverty

This is really, really important. Please listen:

“[Consider the story of] Creekside Community Church, a predominantly Caucasian congregation made up of young urban professionals in the downtown area of an American city. Being in the Christmas spirit, Creekside Community Church decided to reach out to the African-American residents of a nearby housing project…

But what could they do to help? Believing that poverty is primarily a lack of material resources, the members of Creekside Community Church decided to address this poverty by buying Christmas presents for the children in the housing projects. Church members went door to door, singing Christmas carols and delivering wrapped toys to the children in each apartment….The members of Creekside were moved by the big smiles on the children’s faces and were encouraged by the warm reception of the mothers…

After several years, the pastor noticed….enthusiasm was waning… Finally one member spoke up, “Pastor, we are tired of trying to help these people out…their situation never improves. Have you ever noticed that there are no men in the apartments when we deliver the toys? The residents are all unwed mothers who just keep having babies in order to collect bigger and bigger welfare checks. They don’t deserve our help.”

In reality, there was a different reason that there were few men in the apartments when the toys were delivered….When the fathers heard the Christmas carols and saw the presents for their kids…they were embarrassed and ran out of the back doors of their apartments….In trying to alleviate material poverty through the giving of these presents, Creekside Community Church increased these fathers’ poverty of being. Ironically, this likely made the fathers even less able to apply for a job, thereby exacerbating the very material poverty that Creekside was trying to solve! (When Helping Hurts)

If you donate money to charities, you need to readthis book.

If you have been on a short-term missions trip, you need to read this book.

If you work at Farm Drive with Hillside or the Spanish Ministry with FCC, you need to read this book.

If you have a passion for helping the poor, you must read this book.

This is an extremely important book. I can’t emphasize that enough!

I can’t tell you how much this book excites me. It has empowered me. It has given me answers where I thought there weren’t any.

I have written about poverty before. It is a subject near and dear to my heart. I grew up in Africa. I spent nine years volunteering with Friends at Farm Drive and Faithblast Kids’ Club in Santa Clarita. I spent two summers working at Camp May-Mac, for inner-city kids. Now I live again in Africa, and I am literally surrounded by poverty, right on the other side of my fence. I have struggled and wrestled and felt guilty when I didn’t give and felt guilty when I did give because I didn’t want to create dependence. And I never really knew how really to help.

Then I read this book over the Christmas break. And I am in awe.

The authors asked poor people and not-poor people to define poverty. Listen to this:

“Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness. North American audiences tend to emphasize a lack of material things such as food, money, clean water, medicine, housing, etc….This mismatch between many outsiders’ perceptions of poverty and the perceptions of poor people themselves can have devastating consequences for poverty-alleviation efforts.”

Do you get it? Do you see what they are saying? When we simply give material things to poor people, it actually makes things worse! Why? Because material things are not the answer to their problems (except in emergency situations)! As illustrated in the story above, material things don’t give poor people confidence, security, hope, community, and a voice…which is actually what they need! All it does is perpetuate their idea that they can’t do things themselves, they have to rely on rich white people to do it for them.

I’ve only cracked the surface of the richness of this book in this post. It is powerful; it is life-transforming; it needs to be read by every American Christian. It takes a biblical worldview and lays it over the problem of poverty, helping us to see it in a completely different light. It challenges us to think entirely differently about how we go about helping people. It’s not saying we shouldn’t give; it just tells us the right way to give.

“One of the very biggest problems in many poverty-alleviation efforts is that their design and implementation exacerbates the poverty of being of the economically rich–their god-complexes–and the poverty of being of the economically poor–their feelings of inferiority and shame.”

Please read this book. Then let me know how it changed your life too.