Christian Living
Chance or the Dance

Chance or the Dance

This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for years, as it’s been recommended by numerous people I respect across the years who have nothing in common (except for being older than me, wiser than me, and not afraid of reading deeply). But it sounds a little dry so I haven’t made myself pick it up—yet.

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Love Does

Love Does

Author:
Genre: Christian Living

From the publisher: "As a college student he spent 16 days in the Pacific Ocean with five guys and a crate of canned meat. As a father he took his kids on a world tour to eat ice cream with heads of state. He made friends in Uganda, and they liked him so much he became the Ugandan consul. He pursued his wife for three years before she agreed to date him. His grades weren't good enough to get into law school, so he sat on a bench outside the Dean’s office for seven days until they finally let him enroll. Bob Goff has become something of a legend, and his friends consider him the world's best-kept secret. Those same friends have long insisted he write a book. What fuels his impact? Bob believes Love Does. Each day turns into a hilarious, whimsical, meaningful chance that makes faith simple and real. Each chapter is a story that forms a book, a life. And this is one life you don't want to miss."

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Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe

Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe

$9.99$3.99Audiobook: 12.99 (Whispersync)

The publisher calls this "the story of one young mother's honest account of the desperate feelings experienced in motherhood and one experienced mentor's realistic and gentle exhortations that were forged in the trenches of raising her own four children." Add Audible narration for $12.99.

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Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

From the publisher: "Common Prayer helps today’s diverse church pray together across traditions and denominations .... The authors have created a tapestry of prayer that celebrates the best of each tradition."

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Renovation of the Heart

Renovation of the Heart

$9.99$3.99

When you're reading a book, do you ever feel like if you could really understand it, it would change everything? That's how I feel about Dallas Willard. (Willard's words are so dense it takes me four times longer than usual to get through one page.) Add Audible narration for $3.99.

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Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

This slim, conversational memoir articulated a lot of my swirling ideas about art and creativity. L'engle combines insights from her own journey with masterful storytelling to make her case for art as something necessary and vital, for Christians, for everyone. This book makes me want to do the work, and that's saying something. Read (and re-read) it slowly.

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Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

I read Parker Palmer in college, but never this one. Now this is his book I can't get away from: everyone I know keeps recommending this book to me. I'm taking the hint.

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Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding The Church

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding The Church

I first heard the author describe this book at a speaking event over a year ago. I think her work is getting better as her voice matures and I'm very interested in this topic.

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A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

When Miller plunged into the world of screenwriting to translate his memoir Blue Like Jazz into a screenplay, he learned what elements are needed to make a story great--and realized that his own day-to-day life wasn’t amounting to much of a story. A Million Miles is Miller’s chronicle of how he started living a better story. He’ll inspire you to do the same.

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Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence
Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

$11.99$1.99Audiobook: 7.49 (Audible)

I'm not sure the concept of this book would have made sense to me in my early twenties, but nearly 15 years later, I understand what it means to be "out of sorts"—it's that disoriented feeling that comes with personal growth and change. In a spiritual sense, it's that time when you're having to figure out everything you thought you once knew "for sure" all over again. Those who feel that they're still sorting through their faith, or sorting through it again, will relate to Bessey's personal journey. My favorite line: "If our faith doesn’t change and evolve as we go through our lives, then we simply aren’t paying attention."

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The Listening Life

The Listening Life

I loved Adam's previous book Introverts in the Church, so I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I very much enjoyed (and at times felt painfully convicted by) this book, which explores: what listening really is (it's probably not what you think), why it's worth doing, and why it's so terribly important in a culture that never stops talking. Relatable and wise.

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Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living

When Shauna announced this book, she said it was "a spiritual journey from exhaustion to love, comparison to connection .... I’m discovering, inch by inch, a new way of spiritual living–less striving, more receiving. More love, less hustle. This is changing everything. Everything. " I've been looking forward to this one for a long time.

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Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture

Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture

Recommended. From the publisher: "Adam McHugh shows how introverts can live and minister in ways consistent with their personalities. He explains how introverts and extroverts process information and approach relationships differently and how introverts can practice Christian spirituality in ways that fit who they are. With practical illustrations from church and parachurch contexts, McHugh offers ways for introverts to serve, lead, worship, and even evangelize effectively. Introverts in the Church is essential reading for any introvert who has ever felt out of place, as well as for church leaders who want to make their churches more welcoming to introverts. This expanded edition has been revised throughout and includes new research on the neuroscience of introversion and material for parenting and encouraging introverted youth. Discover God's call and empowerment to thrive as an introvert, for the sake of the church and kingdom."

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Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint

All the clichés about “a breath of fresh air” apply: this memoir was fresh and unexpected and utterly surprising. I didn’t know that “pastrix” was a word before I sat down to read, but it’s a term used by some Christians to describe female pastors they don’t recognize as such. A wildly irreverent, profanity-filled spiritual memoir, filled with humor, f-bombs, and grace. Not everyone’s cup of tea.

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The Irrational Season (The Crosswicks Journals)

The Irrational Season (The Crosswicks Journals)

$9.99$3.99

This is the second book of L'Engle's Crosswicks Journals. I love the first installment, A Circle of Quiet, so much that I read it three times this year. But every time I turn my eyes towards volume 2 my pace slows to a crawl and I stall out around page 30. Maybe one day I'll summon the resolve to make it through. In the meantime, I'm enjoying Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L'Engle in Many Voices.

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Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World

Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World

I’m excited to read this memoir/travelogue/practical guide from Tsh of The Art of Simple, especially because it’s quite a departure from her previous books. (February 4.)

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7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

$9.88$6.99

Best Christian Book to Make You Really Uncomfortable (in a Good Way): When Hatmaker noticed 7 areas of blatant excess—food, clothes, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress—in her middle-class life, she resolved to spend 7 months fasting from them, one item per month. 7 is the result. Hatmaker's a friendly and funny narrator: she manages to make you like her and make you squirm at the same time.

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When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over

When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over

$10.99$4.99Audiobook: 7.49 (Whispersync)
Author:
Series: 7 underrated memoirs, Book 8
Genre: Christian Living

Addie’s gift is to make you feel the emotional weight of the seemingly no-big-deal yet simultaneously life-altering events common to Christian adolescence and young adulthood. A brilliant debut. (I wrote more about When We Were on Fire here.)

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In, But Not Of

In, But Not Of

Hewitt writes with high school graduates and college entrants in mind, covering topics such as building your resumé with extracurricular activities, finding mentors, and forming your character. I like this book because of its specific, practical advice I've not encountered elsewhere: "When you graduate, move to one of the three major cities; do not obtain your graduate degree from the same university as your B.A.; avoid courses where the reading list is dominated by titles published within the last three decades; do study history." This book is targeted to a Christian audience, and contains chapters on choosing a church. Add Audible narration for $3.99.

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Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life

Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life

This is Emily Freeman's first book, and the title says it all. As a fellow "good girl", I appreciated this message so much.

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Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World
For The Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards

For The Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards

It's been nearly four years since I found Hatmaker (along with the rest of the world) through her book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, and I've been more or less impatiently waiting for her next book. I was delighted to read that the title doesn't just refer to wholehearted, holy living but to that phrases' other meaning: for crying out loud. Wise and funny, full of lots of grace and Jesus, but also high-waisted jeans and Netflix addictions. Now I want to start a supper club—read it and you'll see what I mean.

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