Home Run - A Leadership Book That Hits It Out Of The Park

Being a Christian is supposed to be all about abundant life – a life overflowing with joy and peace, right? 

So why is it so many Christians find themselves banging their heads off the wall wondering when things are going to turn around.  Wondering when that life of abundance is going to kick in.   Are they not sincere enough, dedicated enough?

Pastor Kevin Myers was both dedicated to God and sincere in his faith, but yet he found himself knee deep in self-doubt and frustrated faith after trying to plant a church in Georgia.  He was ready throw in the towel. He was burned out and low on hope.

But according to Myers, during this time of trial, God was revealing to him a pattern of living that would turn his life and ministry around.

Home Run: Learn God’s Game Plan For Life and Leadership, co-written by Kevin Myers and John C. Maxwell, shares that revelation in a way most Americans can relate to – through the game of baseball.

Does a trot around the bases seem a little simplistic for a life-changing epiphany?  Not being a fan of the National Pastime, I was skeptical of the import of this metaphor.  But a couple pages into Home Run and I was ordering peanuts and Cracker Jack….metaphorically, of course.

As Myers struggled to plant a viable church in the suburbs of Atlanta, he had the opportunity to be mentored by John Maxwell, the preeminent authority on Leadership, highly respected in both the secular and Christian spheres. Throughout Home Run, Maxwell offers his insights on Myers offerings, relating stories from his own experiences, which give credence to Myers’ observations.

Myers offers his readers a realistic game plan for life involving running the bases.  Starting with Connection With God at home base, Myers presents a succession of life commitments (Character, Community, and Competence) represented by first, second, and third bases.  His contention? We mess up our lives by running the bases in the wrong order.

Home Run has the potential of helping many overcome slumps in whatever inning of life they find themselves.  Myers has a winner here.

Home Run is an enjoyable read packed with scripturally founded advice.  Myers’ theory of base running is simple – without being simplistic.  And with sidebar contributions from heavy hitter Maxwell, Home Run puts it over the wall.

Home Run was received courtesy of FaithWords in exchange for an honest review.

His Promise True - Predictable Story, Characters You Care About

Maggie Boon’s got a tough life.  In 1823, a poor, mountain girl doesn’t have a lot of options, especially if her pa is determined to marry her off to an abusive widower with a passel of kids.

So when Maggie laments her fate to the handsome son of a farmer at a barn raising party, his sympathy is not unwelcome until her pa spies them and gets the wrong idea.  Pulling the magistrate from the festivities, Maggie and John David get hitched on the spot, John David befuddled by whiskey and a White Knight complex, Maggie seeing this marriage as a way of escape.

It takes just a few hours of sobering up for John David and Maggie to realize they made a mistake, but John David insists on rescuing Maggie from her predicament, and Maggie is eager to get off the mountain.   With a promise of an annulment and a better life, she sets off with her new groom.

Greta Marlow’s novel, His Promise True, follows the relationship of young Maggie and John David.  The storyline is not untypical of the genre.   Love kindles gradually over a period of time.  Several conflicts arise threatening their fragile relationship.  However, the historical setting gives the reader a taste of pioneering spirit as the couple set off to settle in Texas, overcoming many obstacles in the less than accommodating frontier wilderness.

Their journey is overflowing with peril as they make their way down the river navigating the shoals and snags of the waterways - and their relationship.

His Promise True follows the path of most romance novels, but the characters draw you in – especially John David, young, brash and flawed.   He’s not the heroic perfection populating the genre.  He’s trying to do the best he can – often falling short. And I liked him better for it.  Noble one minute, rash the next, John David was believable.  And Maggie’s scrappy attitude added definite spice to the mix. He and Maggie make mistakes, make the best of it, and move forward.  Like real human beings.

If you like frontier romances, His Promise True is an enjoyable read.  If you like characters who grow as they go, Marlow’s book shows true promise. 

   

Emotions: Confront the Lies, Conquer With Truth - Hopeful and Healing

Fear, rejection, bitterness, guilt, despair- what do you do when they come knocking on the door of your soul?

If you are in any way human, emotions can trip you up.  They are such unruly things – causing you to be up one minute, down the next. They can control our perception of the world, others, ourselves.  So how do we handle the seemingly constant barrage of feelings that at times can threaten to unhinge our ability to live abundantly.

Pastor Charles Stanley’s latest book, Emotions: Confront the Lies, Conquer with Truth, delves into the world of negative emotions with Stanley’s well-known mix of Biblical advice and wisdom achieved through personal experience.

It’s typical Stanley – solid, spiritual, and hopeful.  Each chapter tackles a debilitating emotion with an understanding of what the emotion does to us and how God wants us to overcome the effects of the emotion and live a life that honors Him.

Each chapter ends with a series of questions intended for personal reflection or group study – if you are so inclined to unearth your emotions in a small group.

Emotions Confront the Lies, Conquer with Truth can, indeed, be helpful in wrestling those inner-demons into submission.  It’s tried and true Stanley – level-headed and calming, like advice from a trusted friend. 

If you have been a follower of Christ for any length of time, there probably won’t be any major revelations.  But for a new-believer trying to sort through baggage, Emotions could have the answers for healing.

The Last Perfect Summer - A Poignant, Nostalgic Trip

The Last Perfect Summer was absolute magic. 

Please understand a novel that centers itself around any sport as The Last Perfect Summer does, is like dose of Benadryl with a chamomile tea chaser to me.  As a rule, no form of fiction loses my attention quicker than a story laced with athletics.

So when I say The Last Perfect Summer is magic, I am saying that it transcends mere “sports genre” fiction.  It is much more than a story about Little League baseball.  It is a story of the Boomer generation growing up during those hazy summer days.  It’s about small towns, close-knit neighborhoods, and families that worked hard and sacrificed – and taught their kids to do the same.

At the center of it all is Teddy Tresh, a successful 40 something that decides to visit a childhood friend who is living in a mental institution.  Harry has been hospitalized for years after contracting encephalitis, which caused brain damage that left him feeble-minded and hopeless.  When Teddy first sees him after decades, he is determined to connect with his childhood friend in the only way that seems feasible – reminiscing with Harry about their days growing up in the small, Western Pennsylvania town of Rockland.

The Last Perfect Summer shifts back and forth between the present day conversation with Teddy and Harry and their days as pre-adolescent boys during the 60s.

Teddy’s visit with Harry is moving.  Harry progresses from an aged, confused psychiatric inmate to a man connecting to whom he was and is through the stories Teddy tells of their summer in 1964 when their all-star team made it to the championship.

As touching as those chapters are, it is the chapters centering on the boy’s life in small-town America in the 1960s that capture the heart – especially the hearts of those of us in the Baby Boomer generation.

Prence brings it all back.  Those early summer mornings where the day stretches ahead with limitless possibilities - spontaneous games of backyard baseball, crushes on the cute little girls next door, catching frogs and catching heck from any mom who caught careless boys stomping through their flower gardens.

Prence’s prose transported me back to my old neighborhood, the days before Amber Alerts and fears of letting your kid out of your sight.  A time where every kid in the neighborhood jumped on his bike first thing in the morning, checked in at dinner time, and made sure he was home when the streetlights came on - a time when one of the highlights of the afternoon was chugging down a chocolate Coke at the local drugstore with your buddies.

For a Boomer like me, this book was a welcome vacation to the halcyon days of my childhood.  For a baseball fan, it would be pure heaven.

Because Little League is the core of Teddy’s childhood summer - the championship, that golden grail that beckoned.  Even for someone uninterested in baseball, like myself, Prence wove those baseball practices and games into intense heart pounding spectacles of victories and defeats as seen through the eyes of a 10 year old boy.  Prence’s writing puts you in the middle of that dusty ball field waiting, with stomach churning, for that ball to come straight toward you, hands sweaty and heart racing. 

The Last Perfect Summer is poignant and charming.  For Boomers, it’s nostalgic and will make you smile in recognition of those childhood summer days.

But even if you aren’t a boomer, it’s just a darn good read. 

Courtesy copy of The Last Perfect Summer obtained from Windy City Publishers in exchange for an honest review

Prayers and Promises For Worried Parents - An Encouraging Devotional for Parents of Prodigals

There is nothing in the world as painful to a parent like a child walking away from the faith.  It’s heartbreaking and devastating.  Praying and wondering if that child will ever come back, it’s a nightmare that can seem endless.

Author Robert J. Morgan knows that feeling all too well as a parent of a prodigal. Through his own personal dark journey as a father praying for a wayward child comes this devotional, Prayers and Promises for Worried Parents.

Morgan’s 108 devotional entries encourage parents with scriptures and prayers designed to keep their focus on God and his faithfulness.

Originally, Prayers and Promises was meant as a personal journal for Morgan as he struggled with depression and anxiety over losing a child to the world.  It wasn’t until later that Morgan realized that his journal would be beneficial to parents going through the same struggles.

Although filled with scriptures and prayers that uplift, many of the illustrations Morgan used are so dated as to be a distraction.  As a contemporary parent, I found the frequent stories of prodigals and their parents living in the 1700s/1800s a bit of a disconnect from the modern life.  To be fair, Morgan does include personal stories, and testimonies from friends but the centuries old illustrations, even though they conveyed God’s faithfulness, still left me feeling distant from what God must be doing today.

But the use of bygone illustrations aside, Prayers and Promises for Worried Parents is just that – an affirming devotional for any grieving parent of a prodigal.

A complementary copy of Prayers and Promises for Worried Parents was obtain through Howard Books in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Raising Respectful Children in a Disrespectful World - Time to Overthrow the "Self-Esteem" Regime

Several years ago when my kids were but little tots, my husband and I were browsing a toy store with them.  The next row over we heard a female voice dropping the f-bomb with profusion.  Concerned that our offspring would pick up a new vocabulary word, my husband decided to ask the woman to shift her conversation to a G-rating.   We were in a toy store, after all.  Imagine his surprise when he discovered the perpetrator of the profanity was a teenaged girl.

Now my husband is a big muscular guy, kinda scary looking if you don’t know him.  He walked up to her and asked her politely to watch her language.  She sneered and proceeded to light and lob an f-bomb directly at my husband – then walked away. 

We all have similar stories to tell.  Bratty kids pitching a fit in the grocery store,  surly teens mumbling under their breath.  Maybe, even, truth be told, our own kids are turning into despots in our very homes.  It just seems kids are becoming more and more out of control and disrespectful.  But don’t throw up your hands quite yet. 

Obviously, Little Miss Kiss-My-Tuckus’s parents never read Jill Rigby’s book Raising Respectful Children in a Disrespectful World.

Raising Respectful Children in a Disrespectful World gives hope to parents whose kids may not be turning out to be those upstanding citizens mom and dad envisioned them to be when they first brought their blanket-swaddled bundles home from the hospital.

Rigby unveils the fallacy that all our kids need is a healthy dose of self-esteem.  According to Rigby, the self-esteem movement that swept the nation in the 70s becoming one of the foundational tenets in parenting, has decimated the character of countless children.  Concern about a child’s self esteem has created self-absorbed, selfish and disrespectful children and adults.

Through Raising Respectful Children, Rigby calls for this madness to stop and asks parents to take a hard look at their parenting techniques – are we raising confident, caring, and courteous human beings, or self-centered, ill-equipped men and women who can’t take care of themselves and couldn’t care less for others?

Honestly, Rigby is on the mark with this book.  Parents need to be concerned about their children’s character and not their social status or – gasp – shall I say it – “happiness”.  Rigby contends that we need to be parents, not best friends.  We need to correct and rebuke without worrying about whether or not our kids will be happy about it. 

But Raising Respectful Children is not a book written to make parents hang their heads. Including a small group study guide, Rigby’s book is overflowing with encouragement and practical advice on how to build Godly character in our kids. 

From media choices to how to create memorable family bonding times, this book will equip every parent wanting to raise kids who will be respectful and successful in the things that truly matter.

Ghost - Rambo Meets "This Present Darkness"

There is nothing in the literary world quite like an edgy thriller, a story with a kick-butt protagonist and a manic, twisted killer - and if it comes with a strong spiritual backbone – bonus!

Wayne Thomas Batson’s foray into adult fiction, Ghost, has all of the above and then some.

Batson, better known for his young adult fiction (The Door Within Trilogy), has penned a page-turner (or screen-tapper for you Kindle users) that definitely isn’t for the kiddies. It’s an adult novel that delivers an intriguing, action-driven plot with a Christian worldview that isn’t the least bit preachy.

“Ghost” is John Spector, a mysterious investigator who shows up in the middle of desperate situations and administers a kind of justice that could be considered on the divine side.

In Ghost, Spector finds himself assigned to check out a string of grisly murders involving young women.  The killer, known as Smiling Jack, finds delight in photographing the girls getting their throats cut and downloading the murders on the Internet.  The FBI, several years earlier, claimed the photos a hoax.  But Spector and FBI Special Agent Deanna Rezvani believe otherwise.

In the land of corpse-strewn detective novels, Ghost follows protocol.  Bad Guy does really bad things and Good Guy chases bad guy down and is beaten up a couple times along the way.  But what makes Ghost such a great read is the supernatural theme.  Without giving too much away, let me say that John Spector isn’t your average Joe – for him, delving into the otherworldly is commonplace. There is a strong Christian motif here with no apologies.  Think of Ghost as “Rambo meets This Present Darkness.”

Ghost is an adrenaline-generating read, teasing us with clues to Spector’s identity until the final pages.

Tightly written and populated with intense characters, Batson’s latest delivers earthly action with unearthly thrills.  

This is one Ghost you’ll want haunting your bookshelf.