this is the final post in this series of 2 sentence book reviews. part 1 was fiction, part 2 was general non-fiction, part 3 was a combo of young adult fiction and graphic novels. this time around i’m covering christian non-fiction and youth ministry.

i allow myself (with a few exceptions this time) one sentence for summary, and one sentence for opinion.

Christian Non-Fiction

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir… of Sorts, by Ian Morgan Cron
5 stars
Autobiographical stories of a unique childhood with a tyrant father, with spiritual commentary. Cron’s writing is about as good as it gets in Christian publishing, and his storytelling and reflections make this a “c’mon, you’ve gotta read it” book.

Liberate Eden, by Greg Fromholz
App: 5 stars
Book: 3 stars
Book-as-app about our connection to creation, I think. The app is the most creative thing I’ve seen in publishing in a long time, but the actual book is wordy and wanders (it actually annoyed me).

The Day Metallica Came to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything, by John Van Sloten
5 stars
Adventures at the intersection of Bible and culture. Fantastic insights, particularly the author’s concepts of bible and culture as both co-illuminating and counter-balancing.

Youth Ministry

Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids, by Kara E. Powell and Chap Clark
4.5 stars
Researched-based and practical help for parents who desire for their children’s faith to last beyond the teenage years. some amazing chapters and some ok-to-good chapters, but overall highly recommended (i’m recommending it to parents constantly).

Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults: Life-Giving Rhythms for Spiritual Transformation, by Richard R. Dunn and Jana L. Sundene (releases march 3, 2012)
4.5 stars
i’m departing from my 2 sentence approach for this one, because i wrote an official endorsement for it:
When it comes to young adults, the American church seems to be stuck between hand-wringing (“Why are there no 20somethings in our church?”) and finger pointing (“Why don’t those people grow up?”). Neither of these responses are particularly helpful. Thankfully, Sundene and Dunn sidestep this lose-lose response and suggest a relational approach, not a program. Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults is praxis at its best: research and theologically informed, yet real-world practical.

As For Me and My (Crazy) House: Protecting Your Heart, Marriage, and Family from the Demands of Ministry, by Brian Berry (release march, 2012)
5 stars
slight variation on my 2 sentence approach, here are the last two sentences of the foreword i wrote for this helpful book:
In this fantastic book you’re about to read, Brian doesn’t position himself as a model or an expert, but a fellow traveler. However, you could do a lot worse than to learn from the imbalanced-yet-sustainable, full life of this author, my friend.

a bonus review!!

Awkward Family Photos, by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack
4 stars
just what it says. hilarious.

recently, three women in the developing world were awarded the nobel peace prize for their work. read this article on cnn.com to learn more about these three amazing women and why they were chosen.

but this quote from one of them — liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — really caught my eye (and mind, and heart):

“I urge my sisters, and my brothers, not to be afraid. Be not afraid to denounce injustice, though you may be outnumbered. Be not afraid to seek peace, even if your voice may be small. Be not afraid to demand peace.”

ooh — sounds biblical. i want my life to be a part of that.

i have to admit, even though i mocked all those nativities on my blog, i’ve slowly grown fond of many of them. i still get a scratchy feeling in my throat when i look at the cat nativity. and the hummel-like little kids freak me out a bit. but some of the latter additions just make me smile. yes, some of it is laughter. but it’s more than that.

anyhow, the other day i was thinking about this, and realized that for all my snarkiness, we have a fairly high number of wide-ranging nativities in our own home every christmas. time to come out of the closet and show them all to you:

this quilted nativity advent calendar has been a favorite of my kids (now 14 and 17) for years. every morning, they take turns moving the character of the day up to the scene.

technically not a nativity, this is the only one of the bunch that stays out year ’round. i’m qualifying it as a nativity, since, while it’s a group of saints, it includes mary with jesus, and joseph. it’s also the most expensive of our nativities. i bought these hand-painted stacking dolls in prague.

this one requires a little explanation. for years, my sisters’ kids and my kids put on a nativity story play as a part of our family christmas at my parents house. the roles changed from year to year, as did the dialogue (sometimes straight out of scripture; other times scripted in other ways). as a christmas gift to my parents one year, we took photos of the kids in their costumes, and took them to one of those places that makes die-cut stands out of photos. we bought an empty creche, and gave my parents the set. as you can imagine, it’s a fairly treasured family thing. we loved it so much, my sisters and i each got one for our own homes also.

little liesl was the sheep that year…

and max, who was only one month old, expertly played the part of baby jesus…

this one qualifies as our oddest (well, until the gift from adam, below). it was a gift from my parents years ago. i call it the siamese holy family. if you look close, you’ll see that joe and mary have one body from the waist down, but split into two above the waist. i bet that made childbirth extremely awkward.

anyone who has been to bethlehem has seen version of this nativity at every roadside tourist stand. but i love this one, mostly because i bought it there.

my kids each have this set, given by my parents years ago. this one sits on the back of the toilet in their bathroom (christmas invades every room in our house)!

adorning a wall in our living room each year are copies of two christmas cards we made years ago, each with a nativity drawn by one of my kids. the first was liesl’s creation, and the second was drawn by max.

and, finally, our newest addition… my partner in the youth cartel, adam mclane, gave me this zombie nativity set as an early christmas gift a few days ago, in honor of the blitzkrieg we both experienced trying to keep my blog alive during the onslaught of almost 400,000 visitors. he bought it from the etsy craftswoman whose zombie nativity i’d highlighted in that memorable blog post.

yup. emmanuel. god with us. maybe the single most amazing and creative reality in all of history.

since people are coming to my blog looking for nativity related stuff, i thought i’d repost a couple of things visitors enjoyed last year.

this is completely awesome. my favorite part: clicking the “avoid romans” box on google maps.

(thanks, bob)

i’m re-posting a couple favorites from last year, for all my nativity visitors.

my friend, youth worker derek tang, made a very creative version of the advent story unfolding on facebook. he actually made it for his youth group (which i love!); but gave me permission to use it here.

serious props to the makers of this video. what a kick!

(ht to Amy L, who linked to this in a comment on my last post)

the other day i posted a desperate cry for help. an orphanage i’d visited in haiti, and that teams from my church have visited and helped many times over the past year, was discovered to be trafficking children. i asked you to click through and sign a petition to apply some pressure to those who had the power to shut the orphanage down (the 6 churches and ministries involved — my church being one of them — had already prepared placement for all the kids in the orphanage). many of you clicked through, and many of you passed along the need on facebook and other social networking sites. we met our goal of 10,000 signature (passed it, in fact).

and…

i just got this facebook message from a woman in my church who’s there right now!

It’s done!! You guys, we won! After a morning full of police, guns, and arrests the kids were loaded up and they are now on their way to safety! Praise you Jesus!!

thank you, jesus, indeed.

and thank you, whyismarko readers.

update: abcnews.com coverage

last year, when i visited haiti two times, i mentioned the son of god orphanage over and over again. i posted photos, told stories, and rallied people. i brought my church’s senior pastor to haiti, and we established a church to church partnership that has, over the last 15 months, flourished in beautiful ways, including hundreds people from our church visiting the son of god orphanage, and a wide variety of help being provided.

i connected with a boy named jean-michelle there on one of my trips (this photo is of me and him), and keep his little signature taped to the wall in front of my desk. he gave it to me and asked, “please remember me.” it makes me ill to wonder whether jean-michelle is still there or has been sold off (or killed off, or abused) in the year since i’ve seen him.

so, i’ve been so sad over the last few months to have suspicions raised about mistreatment and trafficking. now, the proof has been documented. and six organizations — my church among them — are lobbying various haitian and american governmental agencies, as well as cnn and some other organizations, to shut this orphanage down quickly, before the remaining children are sold or abused in some other way. as the press release below states, there is strong reason to suspect that the haitian governmental department responsible for oversight in this area is complicit in the problem, which great complicates it.

here’s the press release that was issued yesterday:

After continued visits to the Son of God Orphanage in Carrefour, Haiti, six charitable organizations (Adventures in Missions, Bridgeway Church, Timberline Church, Children’s HopeChest, Journey Community Church, and Respire Haiti) have challenged the global community to force the hands of international leaders in the closure and investigation of the facility.

According to eye-witness accounts, the children at SOG have suffered some of the most heinous human rights abuses at the hands of the director of the orphanage, Maccene (Max) Hyppolite and his family.

Despite consistent delivery of relief for each child, including food, clothes, and medicine, the children have continued to suffer from malnourishment, curable diseases and parasites, as well as complete neglect of acute medical conditions.

A recent account included a one-year old baby who was severely burned and not treated until almost two weeks later.

Police conducted a successful sting operation after numerous individuals had been solicited by Hyppolite to purchase children. In July of 2011, Max Hyppolite was arrested while attempting to sell one of the orphans and he is currently in prison for child trafficking in Port au Prince.

Continued accounts from as recent as October 13th, 2011 indicate that the situation has only become worse, and to date there are 53 children who have disappeared and are unaccounted for.

The orphanage is currently being run by Hyppolite’s wife, Mary, who not only continues to say she does not know the whereabouts of the children, but has also threatened the lives of the relief workers who have sought assistance in from the Haitian government organization, IBESR (Institut du Bien Etre et de Recherches).

Given the sharing of information from IBESR to the Hyppolite family, cause for speculation has arisen regarding the government’s involvement in the trafficking of the children.

The six aforementioned organizations have worked together with Change.org to bring this issue to light. They have asked the global community to give these children the voice that has been stolen from them in hopes of world leaders recognizing the human rights violations occurring and the immediate call for the closure and investigation of the Son of God Orphanage in Haiti.

would you please help in this tiny, simple, but powerful way? would you please click though on these two petitions, and sign them both? please: close to 2000 people read this blog every day. if each of you would take 2 minutes (literally) to do this, you could play a role in saving the lives of these precious children in haiti.

Sign the original petition urging CNN to expose abuse & trafficking at Son of God Orphanage in Carrefour, Haiti
Sign the follow-up petition calling on Haitian President Michel Martelly and global leaders to close Son of God Orphanage and order an immediate investigation of the IBESR

once again, thanks to kevin winningham for sending me this beauty. oh, so many possibilities here!

a free copy of my new book for parents (which releases in december), understanding your young teen, goes to the winner!

CONTENDERS

laughed out loud at some of these.

Jeff Simpson
It was a rough start to the What Would Jesus Drive? campaign.

Justin Roberts
…Jesus wrecked…shortest verse in the Bible

Shane Mullin
This is my van, broken for you…

landon
the most awkward part is the tow truck driver is an atheist.

Gman
Looking back: The David Crowder Band – the Early Years.

Taylor
Tow truck driver: Wow, this is totally metaphorical.
Jesus Rodriguez: Que?

Brock
For some reason Jesus van would always lose power when he entered his hometown!

Othy
The Christian version of “Scooby Doo” just didn’t do as well as the makers of “Fireproof” expected.

Jason
And lo on the third day, the garage door was rolled away like a stone, and two mechanics in white greeted the women. “Your van is not here. It has risen! Come, see the place where it lay!”

Jeremy
Dangit Jim, Im a carpenter, not a mechanic.

Matt
Sadly, Judas, who was a lover of money, spent all that the disciples had on some SICK rims, leaving no money for gas.

Tim Falk
If you REALLY are the Van of God…tow yourself!

AND THE WINNER IS…
this was tough this time! i’m here at the middle school ministry campference, doing some final prep with kurt johnston and scott rubin, and we all voted. we came up with a top three:

third place honorable mention:
Othy
The Christian version of “Scooby Doo” just didn’t do as well as the makers of “Fireproof” expected.

runner-up (so dang funny!):
Taylor
Tow truck driver: Wow, this is totally metaphorical.
Jesus Rodriguez: Que?

taking the prize (brilliant):
Shane Mullin
This is my van, broken for you…

shoot me an email, shane, so i can keep it in my inbox and remember to send you the prize when it comes out in december!

david hayward, a.k.a. naked pastor, is pure. one of those deeply good people with no guile in them. a very rare breed.

and once in a while, david’s cartoons speak more in one panel than an entire sermon could ever hope. like, this one he posted today:

seriously. more to think about, more to feel convicted about, than the sum total of ten average sermons.

buy david’s book of comics, btw.