Category: Non-Fiction

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Books Fun Non-Fiction Reviews

Book Review: Raising Passionate Jesus Followers


I didn’t quite know what to expect when I was asked to review Raising Passionate Jesus Followers by Phil & Diane Comer. The fact that the foreword was by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs of Love & Respect fame piqued my interest so I went ahead and agreed to review the book. To say that I was thoroughly impressed would be an understatement. While I was reading this book I recommended it to everyone that asked me what I was reading. The authors present a fantastic framework for raising your children. I think one of the reasons this particular book resonated with me so well is that it is in lock step with what I believe the only answer to raising kids or doing anything. As my Pastor Whit George says the only hope that people have is knowing the real Jesus. Phil and Diane to a phenomenal job of laying out a framework for raising your children that has a foundation rooted in Christ. There were several personal stories that helped me relate to the authors and see my struggles in raising my children in the scenarios they gave. There was only one part where I differed from the authors from a theological perspective. However, that one difference was in a section where the authors were relaying their personal list of the ten things you have to teach your kids. The authors share their list but encourage the reader to develop a list of their own so the theological difference is easily dismissed, not anything to throw the book away over. I do not want to spoil any of the book for you so I will end this review but strongly encourage you to pick up a copy of Raising Passionate Jesus Followers by Phil & Diane Comer.

*Note: I received a free copy of this book in order to review it and the links above may be affiliate links where I receive commissions.

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Books Fun Non-Fiction Reviews

Book Review: Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald

ordering_your_private_worldIn recent years I can only think of 2 books that made me seriously reevaluate my life and make significant changes because of that particular book. Those two books are Servolution by Dino Rizzo and Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb. Both of these books made me sit up and take notice. There were significant changes I implemented in my life because of these two books. You might ask why I am talking about two other books in a book review about a third book. The reason is I now have 3 books in this category. Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald stopped me short and made me seriously evaluate where I was at in my walk with God to the point that though I only finished the book this week it has already had a profound effect on me and how I structure my days. It is not very often that I feel like a book reads me but the comment I put on the title page for chapter 3 was, “This chapter! WOW! has me pegged on #’s 1 & 3!” There are several dog-eared pages in my copy of this book. In my current phase of life I lead a couples small group for our church with my wife and I do not have the time to also lead a men’s small group. When that day comes though, I will be requesting that I can lead using this book. This book is a must for anyone who is a leader or aspires to be one. I won’t stop there, anyone who is a believer that wants to have a vibrant relationship with Christ needs to read this book. I don’t know what else to say other than to say, buy this book!

Full disclosure: I was given a review copy of this book and the links above are affiliate links.

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Books Fun Non-Fiction Reviews

NIV Ragamuffin Bible: Meditations for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, & Brokenhearted

NIV Ragamuffin BibleThe NIV Ragamuffin Bible blends the wildly popular New International Version of the Bible with reflections of the late Brennan Manning (1934-2013), author of The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out. This bible contains 104 devotions, 250 reflections, & 150 quotes from the late Brennan Manning. For those who are unfamiliar with Brennan Manning, he is the author of what many would consider the best books on grace ever written, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out. I read this book over 10 years ago and still view it as one of the best Christian books ever written. The tagline on the back of this bible sums it up best: “Do you believe that God not only loves you, but that he also likes you?” This question is pivotal in our walk with Christ and the aim of this bible is to use the scriptures of the NIV and the reflections of a great man to draw you closer to God and help the reader understand how much God not only loves them, but also likes them! My plan, once my current Bible reading plan is finished is to use a year long Bible reading plan and read it in the NIV Ragamuffin Bible, stopping along the way to read the wonderful reflections, devotions, and quotes, I hope you’ll join me.

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Books Fun Non-Fiction Reviews

Ingredients for Success: 10 Best Practices for Business and Life – Joseph James Slawek

ingredients for successIngredients for Success: 10 Best Practices for Business and Life is a quick little read but packs a pretty good punch. Joseph is the CEO of FONA International an flavor company that creates flavors for the beverage, confection, grain, savory, healthcare, and dairy/dessert industries.

In his book, Joseph outlines his strategy for  business and life based on the parables of the Ten Virgins, Talents, and the Sheep and the Goats taken from Matthew 25. I will not steal his thunder and tell you what those 10 best practices are but I will say that if you were to implement those 10 best practices, you would be successful.

Overall, I thought the book was a good quick read that left me with ideas that I could implement in my life after reading it which is the aim of any writer of a book like this. Joseph has done a good job taking his experiences both working for someone else and running his own company and distilling what has made him successful down into a manageable book that just about anyone with any amount of time can read and glean insight from and does so in a way that doesn’t come across as better than thou or preachy.

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Books Fun Non-Fiction Reviews

Book Review: I’ve Got Your Back – A Leadership Parable – Biblical Principles for Leading and Following Well – Dr. James Galvin

ive got your backThere are several leadership books on the market now, this one however takes a different approach. There are two sections to this book and the author gives you the option to read either section first. The two sections are a story about 4 young adults as they are mentored in their leadership abilities by an old war veteran and former missionary. The second is an explanation of a biblical theology of leadership.

I do not want to give too much away, because I want you to read the book, but I will say I thought the book laid out a very good explanation of how true leadership is about following well. Leadership and followership are two sides of the same coin, you can’t be one without the other. Most leadership books out there will focus on the tips and strategies for being a good leader, but I think Dr. Galvin hits the nail right on the head in that even as a leader, you are still a follower, so the key is to learn to follow well and by intentionally following well, you will know what it takes to be a good leader.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how to be a better leader, but I would recommend it as a read for everyone because we can all learn to be better followers.

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Books Fun Non-Fiction Reviews

Book Review: Start by Jon Acuff

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A few weeks ago Michael Hyatt held a random drawing on his blog for 50 copies of Jon Acuff‘s book Start – Punch Fear in the Face | Escape Average | Do Work that Matters. I was fortunate enough to be picked as a winner. This book is awesome! I would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially anyone who wants to be awesome.

Jon starts off by talking about the 5 stages that every awesome life goes through in their life, the five stages traditionally are:

20’s Learning, we consume everything.

30’s Editing, narrowing down what we have learned and focusing on a couple key things.

40’s Mastering, we become experts at those couple things.

50’s Harvesting, we are blessed to reap what we have sown (good or bad).

60’s Guiding, we become educators of the upcoming generation.

Next, he talks about how with the advent of the internet the timeline above is null and void, anyone can reach any of those stages at any point in their life. Anyone can reach awesome…the key is you have to start and that is the hang up for most people, they never start on the road to awesome, so they stay mediocre for their entire life. I don’t want to spoil anymore of the book so I will leave it at that and let you read the rest for yourself, which you should because this is an excellent book. Head on over to Amazon and pick it up here, you won’t regret reading this book.

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Non-Fiction

Book Review: The Coming Revolution – Dr. Richard G. Lee

Given the current political climate in our country, especially at the begining of an election year, I thought it would be prudent to start sharpening my political focus, so I picked up The Coming Revolution: Signs from America’s Past that Signal Our Nation’s Future as my next book to review and make my readers aware of.

Lee has a very Republican/Conservative/anti-Obama viewpoint, so to many of my liberal friends he will be very hard to swallow. However, my conservative/Tea Party friends will find a lot of common ground with him.

One of the things I greatly appreciated about this book was how much historical perspective on our country was given. As we move

into the election season, I think this is a must read for conservatives who are not happy with the way our country is heading because I think he gives a lot of advice from history as to how to get where we need to be. One thing he makes extremely clear is that the founding fathers assumed the country woukd be run by men and women of faith, they knew that a republic/democracy would not survive if there were not men and women of faith to run it…human nature is just too selfish. Overall, I would definitely recommend The Coming Revolution to anyone who is not

happy with the current political environment or anyone who wants to read about how the faith of the nation’s founders affected how they structured our country.

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Non-Fiction

Book Review: The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook – Slaying the Living Dead Within – Jeff Kinley

christian zombie killers handbookWhen I decided to read The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook by Jeff Kinley I didn’t know what I was getting into. The author takes an interesting path on how he wrote the book. This book is both fiction and non-fiction.

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The author first writes a chapter that tells a story of the life after the zombie apocalypse has begun, then follows it up with a chapter explaining how the chapter before relates to our Christian walk. While reading the book, I felt like it was too disjointed but after reflecting on the experience I realize that the author has a great talent tying together a story that he has made up with the ultimate story into a cohesive unit.  I actually finished this book quite a while ago, but have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what review to write. After considering, I have to say that the author has written a pretty good book. Like I said, it seemed disjointed at the time, but after reflecting, I realized how good of a book it really was. If you are into zombie fiction at all or how it can relate to your Christian walk, you should definitely pick up this book.

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Non-Fiction

Book Review – Christian Encounters – J.R.R. Tolkien by Mark Horne

jrrtolkienBeing a lover of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when given the opportunity to read a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, I was excited. The man gave direction to the entire genre of fantasy fiction, I wanted to know what made him tick.

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In this book, Mark Horne does a

great job of explaining how the events of his life affected how and what he wrote about. It has always amazed me how men and women could have the creativity to come up with the worlds that they create through fiction. In his thorough and well researched book, Mark Horne does a great job opening up the world of J.R.R. Tolkien to the reader. One of my favorite parts of the Tolkien story was his relationship with fellow author C.S. Lewis who says that J.R.R. Tolkien was instrumental in his coming to faith. If you are a lover of Tolkien’s work or the fantasy genre in general, you should definitely read this book.

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Books Fun Functions Non-Fiction Reviews

Book Review: The Art of Deception – Kevin Mitnik

41a1QKf5hbL._SL160_You know a book about hacking and methods to protect your company from social engineering attacks written by a guy who is such a great hacker that part of his sentence is that he is never allowed to surf the internet by himself (he has someone else check his email for him) is going to be a great read on how Hackers (or social engineers as they are called in the book – he explains why) infiltrate your company to steal your sensitive information. The typical business owner would do everything they could to beef up the security infrastructure within their business, often deploying the most state of the art (at the time) gadgets that money can buy, then they would rest on their laurels because they knew they were secure…As Mitnik goes on to explain, no, no they are definitely not secure, they have neglected the weakest point in any security infrastructure…the people.

In a very engaging read, The Art of Deception explains the very real threat from social engineers and how to best combat it as someone responsible for protecting your companies assets. I would recommend this very well written book for any person in any company…seriously…Mitnik explains how everyone in your organization is part of the security infrastructure and how they need to be properly educated on the security protocols (that should be, but in most places aren’t) in place at any company. I really can’t say it enough, if you employed at any company with trade secrets (or really any company for that matter) you need to read The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnik. No really, go, I don’t want to see you around here till you have read it (just kidding, but really if you can’t afford it, go check it out from the library)…