While Plastic Donuts may be a goofy title for a book on worship, it is anything but that. The book delivers a simple, yet profound, look at the subject of how we can worship God with our gifts.

The title comes from an experience the author had when his daughter was a toddler. She brought him a plastic donut from her play kitchen, and he was surprised by the intensity of his reaction and the delight his daughter took from seeing him pleased. That experience led him to study the Scriptures to discover the connection between our gifts and God’s response.

Most books on giving spell out how much we should give. We are generally told to give 10% of our income, or a tithe. Rather than defining a specific amount, the author explains four principles that help us give God “an acceptable gift.”

• The amount matters. When the gift amount matters to us, it matters to God. Our gifts should engage our heart in worship and influence our lifestyle.
• We determine the amount of the gift. Each of us has both the freedom and the responsibility to choose how much we will give.
• Each one of us is to give according to our ability. God is not a celestial bill collector, but rather a loving father.
• The heart makes the gift count. What God wants more than our money is our heart.

The book is a helpful tool pastors can use to help explain the biblical principles of giving to their congregation. It is short, biblical, and filled with personal illustrations.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

For far too long, the local church has outsourced discipleship to parachurch organizations. Now is the time to “insource” discipleship and bring it back to the local church. This is the conviction of pastor and author Randy Pope, and the main idea of his helpful book, INsourcing: Bringing discipleship back to the local church.

The author follows a two-part strategy in presenting his material. He presents his argument for why discipleship is important in a logical, factual manner. He explains the biblical principles and defines his terms clearly. However, when it comes to showing how to put it in practice, he demonstrates what it looks like through a fictional group that meets several times during the course of the year. Through the interaction of the participants, you get a clear sense of the principles and benefits. In this manner, the book presents both the principles and practices of how to shape people into Christlikeness.

One of the more helpful chapters was on how to implement discipleship when a church already has a network of small groups. Rather than throwing out the existing small groups and only offering discipleship groups, and rather than forcing discipleship into the existing small groups, Pope argues that a church should keep its existing small group structure and begin one or two discipleship groups and build from there.

The author includes several helpful tools in the appendices, including a sample three-year curriculum for discipleship, a group covenant, and a suggested structure for a 21-day worship experience. This is a very helpful, practical book. It is one I want to reread to think through how to implement it into my church.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com http://BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Isn’t children’s ministry just glorified babysitting? Adult Bible study and adult worship services are where true learning takes place. Children’s ministry is simply expensive child care while their parents are being taught, fed, and discipled. That’s what some people tend to think.

According the Barna research group, 43% of Christians made the decision to accept Christ as savior before the age of 13. 21% made the decision between 13-18; 13% between 18-21; and the remaining 21% after the age of 21. That says that 64% of all Christians came to faith before they turned 18 years of age.

If you study the book of 1 Samuel, you discover that Samuel ministered in the temple as a boy (2:18), and heard God’s voice as a young man (3:1). David was anointed as king of Israel at the age of 12 (16:13). At the age of 19, he relied on God to defeat the giant Goliath.

While surveys demonstrate the majority of Christians came to faith as children or youth, and while Scripture points out children can grow spiritually, many parents are not discipling their children. According to Barna, “Fewer than 10 percent of parents who regularly attend church with their kids read the Bible together, pray together or participate in an act of service as a family unit. . . . Most churchgoing parents are neither spiritually mature nor spiritually inclined and, therefore, they do not have a sense of urgency or necessity about raising their kids to be spiritual champions.”

As a pastor, I believe in the importance of ministry to children. I agree with Barna who said in another place, the “primary window of opportunity for effectively reaching people with the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection is during the pre-teen years . . . . Consistently explaining and modeling truth principles for young people is the most critical factor in their spiritual development.

My conviction on the importance of children’s ministry is not based solely on quotes and statistics. The Scriptures also state the importance of teaching children. Deuteronomy 6:4-15 is the foundational passage in Scripture on the responsibility for one generation to pass the baton of faith to the next.

In verse 4-6, we see parents and teachers cannot teach what they do not possess. They must first love God and obey his word. In our minds, the heart is the center of emotion. To a Hebrew mindset, the heart was the center of the will. To love God with all our heart means that we know his commands and we live them out in daily practice.

Verses 7, 10-15 explain the end goal. We want our children and students to love God and obey his word. Both parents and children or teachers and students engage in this learning process so they do not forget who God is and what he has done.

Verses 7-9 explain there are four primary ways parents/teachers are to teach their children/students. The first is to teach diligently. This comes from two possible root words. One means to repeat while the other means to whet or sharpen. Weaving the two together, you get the idea that a parent/teacher is “an engraver who inscribes a message with indelible sharpness and precision.” As parents/teachers, we inscribe the truth of God on the hearts of our children/students.

The second method is to talk constantly. When we sit down to dinner, when we go for a walk, when we put the kids to bed, when we go on a road trip . . . any and every activity can be a teachable moment. Some of the best conversations our family enjoyed were on road trips up and down I-5 from Seattle to Los Angeles. We talked about leadership, friendship, character, integrity, finances, loyalty, loving Jesus, ministry, and countless other topics.

The third method is a personal reminder. After teaching a six-week men’s Bible study on the life of Joseph, we gave each of the men a cross key chain. Since a key phrase in this section of Genesis is, “The Lord was with Joseph,” the key chain reminded the men that God was with them.

The fourth method is a public reminder. The doorposts of the house refer to where one lives while the gates refer to where one works. If I entered your home or workplace, could I tell what you believe by what I see on your desk or walls?

As a parent/teacher, how could you employ these methods in daily life? If you wanted to teach your children about personal purity, you might: (1) Teach diligently: Study 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 where Paul explains that God’s will is for us to be sexually pure. Study the account of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12 and the consequences of adultery. (2) Talk constantly: Discuss the sexual values portrayed in movies, TV, and commercials. Discuss real life examples. (3) Personal reminder: Give your son or daughter a “Promise” ring on their 16^th birthday, signifying they promise to remain sexually pure until marriage. (4) Public reminder: When our son was in high school, his youth pastor gave every guy in the youth group a Sparkletts water bottle to use a bank to save for their future honeymoon. It was a visual testimony that each teen pledged themselves to remain sexually pure.

If we want to teach the next generation to love God and obey his word, we must begin by making sure those qualities characterize our lives first. We must then teach with intentionality, using every method available to us to pass on the knowledge, character, skills, and values we want to communicate. We must commit ourselves to pass the baton of faith to the next generation.

This is the synopsis of a message preached at First Central Baptist Church in Chicopee, MA, on May 19, 2013. It is the first of a three-week sermon series on Passing the Baton. Please click on the link to download a copy of the sermon notes.

Colt McCoy and Matt Carter believe we are focused on the wrong thing. In their book, The Real Win: A man’s quest for authentic success, the authors explain that instead of striving to be remembered, men should work toward being forgotten. Rather than strive to create a legacy, we should aim at simply being faithful. Instead of making a name for ourselves, we should focus on making God’s name great.

Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a German church leader who lived in the mid-1700s, wrote and taught extensively, worked with orphans, established communities of faith worldwide, and penned a large number of hymns, many of which are still sung today.  Today, he’s credited with being one of many revivers of the Lutheran Church. If anybody could be credited with working toward being remembered, it could be Count Zinzendorf.

Instead, he wrote these words: “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.”

That’s it! That’s the true kind of legacy we’re talking about. Do what matters most in life. Finish your life. And don’t worry about being remembered for who you were or what you did. The focus is not on you or your legacy; the focus is always on Christ.

A few paragraphs later, the authors add,

That’s what a true legacy looks like. The legacy is not about your name being carried on; it’s about the things that matter being carried on. In the long run, it’s not about being remembered. It’s about being faithful to your calling.

I found Zinzendorf’s quote and the authors’ explanation a refreshing alternative to the pressure to exalt myself. It coincided with a recent book I read, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming nothing in light of God’s everything, in which the anonymous author encouraged his readers to follow the humble example of Jesus instead of promoting ourselves.

Once again, Christianity is a counter-cultural revolution.

I believe Satan is alive and well. I believe demons are real. I believe in spiritual warfare. I believe there is an unseen battle raging in the world between God and our adversary. While I believe our enemy is real, I simply don’t want to give him more credit than is due.

Having said all that, I encountered a situation yesterday that can only be described as spiritual warfare. I have no other explanation for it.

My wife and I live in Western Massachusetts where I serve as senior pastor of the First Central Baptist Church in Chicopee. Two of our children live in Southern California and one in Australia.

On occasion, I review books for Christian publishers. I recently read and reviewed Firsthand: Ditching secondhand religion for a faith of your own, by Ryan and Josh Shook. After posting my review, the publisher sent me four additional copies. I donated one to our church library and decided to send one copy to each of my children. I wrote a personal note to each of my children explaining why I thought the book might encourage them.

At the same time, our daughter in SoCal asked us to send her the old Washington State license plates from one of our cars. I placed two license plates and two copies of Firsthand in a white padded mailing envelope. I asked our daughter in SoCal to take the copy to her sister in Australia when she travels there later this summer.

One week ago, my wife and I took the package to the post office. We were informed that since the envelope contained more than books, it could not go media rate, but needed to go first class. We paid the extra cost and received a tracking number for our trouble.

In the middle of a Bible study last night with church leaders, my wife received a distressing text from our daughter asking what in the world we sent her. Instead of arriving in a white padded envelope, the package was in a brown mailing envelope with the white portion containing the address taped on top. There were no license plates inside. There was no personal note from me to my daughters. Instead of two copies of Firsthand: Ditching secondhand religion for a faith of your own, there was one copy along with a second book, Healing lost souls: Releasing unwanted spirits from your energy body.

Obviously, this is a case of mail fraud (or rather mail tampering). Someone opened our mail and stole part of it. It is a federal offense. My wife is reporting it to the post office this morning. Since we have a tracking number, that might help the Postmaster discover what happened and where.

It also feels like a case of spiritual warfare. Instead of receiving a book encouraging the development of biblical faith, my daughter received a book promoting new age mystical practices.

I doubt we will ever know what really happened. But it certainly feels like a spiritual battle is raging.

How does a man measure success? How does he succeed without compromising his ethical standards, becoming a workaholic, or losing his family in the process?

Authors Colt McCoy and Matt Carter believe “The real win means trusting the Lord, walking with Jesus, and living your life in the way he defined it.” Following this approach, men can win in four key areas of life:

• Win at home—you can lead your family by loving your wife first and seeing that she and your kids are following Jesus.
• Win at work—instead of making your job an idol of worldly success, you can remember that God is the one you work for.
• Win in your character—when you’re tempted, run to Jesus for help. If you fail, repent and receive God’s grace and mercy.
• Win the future—allow God to shape you through trials, and determine that, whatever comes, you will live your life to establish God’s glory rather than your own.

I was pleasantly surprised by the book. I half expected a book on success written by a football star and a megachurch pastor to be filled with a trite formula that “if you follow our principles, you too can be a star.” Instead, the book is biblical, encouraging, practical, and helpful. The authors are open and honest about their successes and their failures. They explain the lessons God taught them as they traveled through cancer, injuries, and career setbacks. They are transparent in explaining their failures as husbands and fathers and how God healed their marriages and families.

A study guide is included in the back for those who want to use the book in a small group setting.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

In his insightful volume, The Intolerance of Tolerance, author D. A. Carson cites the work of two sociologists, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, who have given us the category of “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” It is their contention that this approach dominates the religious life of American young people from a wide variety of religious affiliations. Carson contends the belief probably spans a much wider span of ages than youth alone.

As Carson explains, MTD has five basic tenets:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

“In other words, utilitarian narcissism reigns triumphant: God exists, but only to make us happy and nice, which is the aim of existence. Otherwise God minds his own business. That’s how I read the Bible, and who are you to say something different?”

We have lost sight of the fact that “the truth of the Bible, as we have seen, focuses on our rebellion and need as God sees them, and on God as the ruler, sovereign, judge, and gracious Savior who alone can rescue us from our sin and reconcile us to himself.”

Based on conversations with people both inside and outside of the church, MTD has penetrated and permeated people’s beliefs and ideas. Is it any wonder the church has so little impact in the lives of people and culture?

****************

To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you

To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you

To those who experienced loss this year through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you

To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you

To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you

To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you

To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you

And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.