These are the top ten books I'm glad I listened to! I'm sure they would have nice to read too, but the narrators all these all added a little something to them. 

 

Check out the rest of the Broke and Bookish's TTT Audio Freebie!

 

Bolz-Weber is just genius. She finds things in parts of the word that I never would have interpreted that way but then make so much sense. My favorite was the Advent list. There are so many things I would love for Jesus to steal like a thief in the night. I feel like part of my daily work is trying my best discard them. 

There are many more examples of ways that she strives to live the word. That's the best way that I can describe that lifestyle and it's something I need to work on. I have to admit, too, that I feel like this message was made easier for me than some, courtesy of Brene Brown because it requires us to be vulnerable.

Everything here, this is what I want at my church. It's not just her genius way of looking at scripture but the way scripture makes her look at people. The vulnerability. The healing. That perfect is neither required nor is a perfect image desired but that we will take all of each person, no matter how awful you feel you are or how much you don't think you deserve it. I've had it before but I had to move. I'm looking for it again. I hope her ideas and her look at what scripture means in our lives continue to flourish. I hope it finds everyone that needs it and I hope that we can revitalize Christianity with this vision of religion and what it means to follow Christ. 

 

This is one of those books that I wish I could just recommend to everyone but fear that not everyone is ready for it at the same time. Also, not everyone is Christian. But if you are or even if you were raised that way and rejected it or if you aren't sure what Christianity is all about, than read this one. Not everyone will agree with me, but I firmly believe that this is what Christianity is supposed to be about and not necessarily things like tithing and guilt.

From the back cover:  

Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious leader material - until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a comedy club.  Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people.  Maybe she was meant to be their pastor.

 

 

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, a Lutheran mission church in Denver, Colorado.

 

I've seen this book around for awhile but to be honest, the cover scared me.  The portrait of a sitting woman with tats covering her arms, face half in shadow and light wasn't what I thought a "Christian" memoir should be.  Once started though I could hardly put it down.  So much wisdom and truth.  Not gentle epiphanies in the middle of the night, but gut-wrenching realizations that come from looking at the worst within ourselves.  Realizing that although there is darkness and despair all around us God is always by our side and we are never alone.

 

My favorite quotes:

 

"This is the resurrected Got to whom we sing.  A God who didn't say we would never be afraid but that we would never be alone." pg.200

 

Thoughts on welcoming new parishioners to her church: 

 

"This community will disappoint them.  It's a matter of when, not if.  We will let them down or I'll say something stupid and hurt their feelings.  I then invite them on this side of their inevitable disappointment to decide if they'll stick around after it happens.  If they choose to leave when we don't meet their expectations, they won't get to see how the grace of God can come in and fill the holes left by our community's failure, and that's just too beautiful and too real to miss." pg. 54-55

 

"Join me in picturing evil and darkness not as powerful and unstoppable but as desperate and vulnerable."  pg.142

 

"When what seems to be depression, or compulsive eating or narcissism or despair or discouragement or resentment or isolation takes over, try picturing it as a vulnerable and desperate force seeking to defy God's grace and mercy in your life."  pg. 142

 

"In the end, if we're not careful, we can actually absorb the worst of our enemy and on some level even become them.  It would seem that when we are sinned against, when someone else does us harm, we are in some way linked to that sin, connected to that mistreatment like a chain.  And our anger, fear, or resentment doesn't free us at all.  It just keeps us chained."  pg. 150

 

"...Evil is simply not more powerful then good, and that there really is a light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness can not, will not, shall not overcome it." pg. 150

 

"Lack of connection is death" " The opposite of it is being able to hug a perfect stranger." On the passing of the peace by a 50 year old man who had try to kill himself, had no friends but found he had friends and more at the House for all Sinners and Saints.

I doubt you'll find this book at your local Christian bookstore. And it might not be the book for you if you take offense to some of the more colorful four letter words. (The first line of the book is: “’$h!t,’ I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to be late to New Testament class.’”)

But if you have struggled with heavy doubts about this whole God thing at some point in your life, perhaps due to suffering a major loss of some kind, death of a loved one, or physical/mental/ or emotional pain, addiction, etc... If you were given a false view of God as the opposite of love, if you've been hurt by the church, this book is for you. (It's kind of like "The Ragamuffin Gospel" on steroids, with profanity, written by a female Lutheran pastor instead of a male Franciscan priest.)

I've seen Pastrix described as a theological memoir of grace. And that it is. She talks a lot about the God who meets us in our suffering. She is adamant that God doesn't cause suffering, but that he bears it on the cross. He doesn't initiate it, but He redeems & transforms it.

I genuinely loved this book from start to finish and was deeply moved by it. I just finished it and I already want to re-read it (and make all my friends read it!)