Book Review

Perhaps I’m sounding like a broken record, but I read a book this week that came at just the right time. 

After finishing Grace for the Good Girl the word “holiness” kept rolling around in my head.  I’m looking back in my journal on my desk as I type and I wrote “holiness Hebrews 12:14” last Monday but never had the chance to do any research beyond that one verse. 

The two seemingly opposing forces that always seem to collide for me is this idea of living the non-perfect, non-good-girl, non-people-pleasing life and yet also fulfilling Jesus’ call to be holy.  How do I do both?

So with that background, I was more than happy to accept a review copy of Tyler Braun’s new book Why Holiness Matters.  Why Holiness Matters was written specifically to reach Millennials, a generation of people that are seemingly hesitant to even talk about holiness, much less live it out.  While I might consider myself just outside the Millennial generation, I found myself challenged and refreshed from this book.

Why Holiness Matters was a great teacher and reminder first of what holiness is and is not. As Tyler says, “Holiness is not new behaviors.  Holiness is new affections.”  He expands a few chapters later, “The model Christian is not the perfectly tidy man or woman. The model Christian is one who continually seeks after God in the midst of mess, wading through the murky and muddy waters of life scouting after the Divine.”

And why is holiness so important?  As Hebrews 12 indicates and Tyler says, “Being around a truly holy person helps us catch a glimpse of Jesus through the window of their lives.”  I think this idea is so lost with the upcoming generation.  If we are not a people set apart, the next generation will never know what Jesus looks like. 

What I love though is he says this is not a call to perfection.  It’s a call to affection.  Holiness is an outcome of our relationship with Christ. 

As a perfect example, in the Values chapter, Tyler talks about traditions that previous generations have held tightly to like modesty.  Millennials would say we have freedom but Tyler circles back and explain that it’s not just a checkbox to mark off.  As he says, “By valuing modesty we are essentially choosing to live humbly so that our lives may reflect our Father instead of pointing to ourselves.”  Being holy is an outcome of a relationship not a standard of perfection.

The chapter “Community” has such an important message for Millennial Christians. More and more are believing that community is not important and Sunday morning church is a thing of the past.  Again, many see it as a checkbox but it’s so much more.  I wish I could just paste in that whole chapter but here is an excerpt:

Throughout the Bible God refers to His people as a holy nation. No doubt the Bible often refers to holiness in individual ways but what is never lost to God is individual holiness being formed in light of the community. God cannot fully exist without the community of persons within His being, just as we cannot fully exist without the relationships that form our community. It is mutual friendships with one another through < pursuing continue to us allows that friendship the is it and us, bind>

The last two chapters on mission and artistry were all a call to holiness that the Millennial will appreciate.  Millennials do missions and art well and Tyler does a great job of reminding the reader that behind those must come a message of the Gospel.

While the book’s core audience is the Millennial generation, I think we all would do well to read and remember our call to holiness.

From a writing perspective alone, Why Holiness Matters was such a pleasure to read.  I love Tyler’s writing voice and his stories were shared with clarity and honesty and yet stayed on point.  Even though our stories are quite different, I still found him relatable on many levels.  The outline and pace were perfect and I found myself running back to my Kindle at every opportunity to finish, something that doesn’t happen often with non-fiction books.  I finished just last night and already have plans to read it again.  I can’t recommend Why Holiness Matters enough.

I received a copy of Why Holiness Matters in exchange for this post but all opinions are my own.  And I mean it—you need to get this book!

I never wrote a review for Ann Voskamp’s One-thousand Gifts.  I regret that a bit because everyone should read that book.  But now, I guess, most of you have.  And I guess that’s a weird way to start out a book review about Bob Goff’s Love Does but for the same reason I didn’t write one about Ann’s book is the same reason I just about didn’t write this post.  And the reason is the message of both of these books touch and move me in places that words simply cannot convey.  It feels like a cheap shot to throw up this post with a pretty picture of the cover and 500 words.  It’s so much more than this. But I really want you to read this book and I just hope that by maybe sharing a few words you might be convinced to pick it up.

Books sometimes come at the right time.  Since starting to read a lot of non-fiction I found this to especially be true.  I usually have a stack of at least 10 books I want to read and at the right time, one finds it’s way to the front of the line.  Bob Goff’s book is one of those.  Except I’d seen the tweets and read the blog posts that all raved about the book.  The minute Love Does popped up on BookSneeze, I knew it needed to go right to the top of the stack.  God’s been rumbling down in my soul lately.  It’s one of those things where everything you see and hear starts singing the same song and you just know it’s a God thing.  Love Does rumbled a lot for me. 

The book reads like a devotional.  But a really, really fun devotional.  A fun devotional that sometimes makes you cry.  I cried more times than I’d like to admit during this book.  I’d be reading and it was like a sentence would somehow reach right down my throat, find my soul, turn it inside out and it’d spill out in tears.  I didn’t have a choice.  Each chapter tells a little snippet from Bob’s whimsical, adventurous life where his love does and then he tells a little more about Jesus.  I usually don’t like devotional books like that.  They read like a Hallmark movie and I’m not too fond of those.  But this was real and interesting and you just never knew where Bob’s adventure would take you next.  And all the while you wonder does someone really live like this?

At the end, I realized Bob’s adventures scare me to death.  I want to live like that in full abandon but I simply don’t know how to do life Bob’s way.  But there’s that rumbling and God doing something and Bob just telling us to take the next right step. I know this book wasn’t an accident. I can’t imagine someone reading this and just being like eh, I don’t get it.  I have no doubts Love Does is going to be loved by all its readers. I hope you’ll be one of them.

I was provided a copy of Love Does by BookSneeze in exchange for this post.  All opinions are my own.

If you ask me, eBooks are becoming the new blogs.  I see them popping up everywhere from blog authors.  Instead of trying to make money off the pennies from advertising, they’re bundling all the info up and making more on one eBook than traditional authors make.  It’s smart.  And it’s good for the readers.  No longer do you have to sift through categories and searches on a blog when you want someone’s expertise in written form. 

eBooks aren’t just pervading the blogging world.  Many non-techie people I know in real life are buying Kindles and iPads and are ditching paper books for the eBook. 

And so.  I’m a blogger.  And a reader.  And yes, I’m tossing around the idea of an eBook.  And when I saw Sarah Mae had made over $20,000 on one eBook on cleaning, my ears perked up.  I couldn’t wait to read her latest eBook on, well, how to sell an eBook.

As a techie, I kept hoping for more technical instructions on how to do the thing but Sarah Mae is quick to let you know she’s definitely not a techie and relies on paid help.  Other than that, I felt like the book was straight to the point and well-written.  I particularly liked:

• Her tip on getting a sponsor to pay for the book
• Details on getting it on Amazon
• Recommendations on who she actually used for help

If you are thinking about writing an eBook I highly recommend this read.  Sarah Mae’s techniques obviously are proven and hope to one day put them to work!

Anne Jackson asked of her blog readers, “What is one thing you feel you can’t say in the church?”  Hundreds of comments and two years later, Permission to Speak Freely was born.

If you read Pete Wilson’s Plan B or read Jon Acuff’s, Stuff Christians Like, you might remember the phrase, “The Gift of Going Second”.  In a nutshell, it is when one person confesses to a struggle and then another feels the freedom to share their same struggle as well.  It’s a gift.  In fact, after I read Plan B, I posted Me Too.   If you take that concept and blow it out into a full book, I think that’s what Permission to Speak Freely is getting at.  Many times we keep our struggles and sin hidden for fear of anything from a disapproving look to a job or marriage loss.  And many times the fear is not unfounded, particularly in Christian circles.  However, the freeing benefits of confession can far outweigh any risks involved.

In the first half of Permission to Speak Freely, Anne covers her personal struggles and finding her way to confession with others and help herself and others to unload their burdens.  The last half covers the confessions of Adam and Eve and the Prodigal Son and then on to the Gift of Going Second.  I read the first half with rapt attention, excited to see where it was going.  While moving into the scriptural tiebacks, I was nodding my head.  She finished with the gift of going second and maybe because it was not a new concept to me, I felt like it dragged on a bit.  I wholeheartedly believe in it, but felt like it was drawn out, possibly a little stuffed for word count.

I also don’t think the book ever tackled the answer of the original question.  Or at least not head on.  I feel that she tackled confession on a personal level, not public, which is what my expectations from her original question were.  Many of her examples were confession between two people but didn’t address church members openly discussing taboo questions or struggles.  I felt like maybe there was just one more chapter that needed to be written.  And maybe that’s what we’re supposed to go off and write on our own.  What does speaking freely look like to us?  Or maybe my expectations were a bit misguided.

The book is absolutely gorgeous. I  love the size, the graphics, the artwork both in and outside the book.  It’s a book you want to pick up and read simply from the aesthetics.  I believe the confessions given in the book are worth the book itself.

All in all, I walked away with a better understanding of Anne, whom I respect so much.  More importantly I’m walking away with another ounce of courage to always be authentic and share my struggles, questions and even hope.

I have two copies of this book and would love to give one away.  If you’d like to receive a copy, please leave a comment below.  For extra entries, you can tweet it.  Please come back here and let me know you did!