Books – Page 6 – Sunday to Saturday

BOOK: What If Jesus Was Serious About Prayer?

May 4, 2022April 21, 2023 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

What if prayer wasn't a thing you put on your to-do list to knock off, but a practice you continually perform throughout every aspect of your life? What if prayer isn't about communication with God, but communion? What if praying to God and its effectiveness has nothing to do with our devotion? Through 53 devotionals, Skye Jethani's What If Jesus Was Serious About Prayer? slowly and deliberately challenges the reader to rethink how we view prayer while inviting us to enter into deep communion with God.

Books/Reading the News

BOOK: Reading the Times

May 2, 2022March 28, 2023 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

From newspaper fact checkers to evaluation methods such as S.I.F.T. to diversifying one's news feeds, there is a tremendous amount of time and energy devoted to debunking lies and conspiracy theories. Despite the trend to provide more quality information to the public, according to a 2022 PPRI poll, 60% of white evangelical Protestants believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump while QAnon conspiracies ravage large swaths of churches in America. While fact-checking methods and diversifying one's news feed can be helpful, it seems to do little to move people from yelling at each other to holding a respectful conversation. How did the church get here? Is there a theological way of consuming the news? How can we think and act Christianly to the news?

Books/Liturgy/Prayers

BOOK: Common Prayer Pocket Edition: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

April 27, 2022February 19, 2023 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

For those looking to dip their toe into a liturgical calendar and historical prayers, Common Prayer Pocket Edition: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a perfect introduction. The 11-page introduction succinctly explains why a book of common prayer is useful while quickly orienting the reader on how to use the book.

Books/Guns/Gun Violence

BOOK: Collateral Damage

March 28, 2022March 28, 2023 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

Pastor James Atwood, who passed away in 2020, called gun violence the most important theological issue for the American church. His conviction is rooted in Mark 12:28-34 where Jesus says the most important commandment is to love God and your neighbor. Atwood says you cannot love God and not love your neighbor, they are fundamentally connected. Collateral Damage is a prophetic call for the church to get involved and not remain silent when 40,000 fellow image-bearers are being killed each year while hundreds of thousands more are psychologically and emotionally damaged from the effects of gun violence.

Books/Guns/Gun Violence

BOOK: Whom Shall I Fear?

March 16, 2022February 19, 2023 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

As humans, most of the time we want complex issues to be solved easily. For instance, if individuals with guns are targeting churches, then members of churches should carry guns to counteract the threat. While on the surface that may seem like the logical thing to do, and certainly a good portion of Americans would agree, as Christians we must consider what the Bible has to say. In Whom Shall I Fear? author and pastor Rosalind C. Hughes doesn't say whether a church should hire armed security or not but invites the reader to take a step back and answer the question, "What is the church and what is its mission," before deciding how to deal with the violent culture we live in.

Books/Guns/Gun Violence

BOOK: Children Under Fire

March 7, 2022September 23, 2022 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

We have read many books on gun violence-- one that details a prophetic Christian call towards gun violence (Beating Guns), one that tells a personal shooting survivor's story (When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough), and one that details the enormous mental, economic, and physical cost of gun violence (Collateral Damage). Children Under Fire carves a different path by telling the heartbreaking, intimate stories of two seven year old children, Ava Olsen and Tyshaun McPhatter, who form a profound friendship after being deeply traumatized by gun violence.

Books/Guns/Gun Violence

BOOK: When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough

February 18, 2022September 23, 2022 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

For many Americans, statistics on the number of gun deaths in the country doesn't phase them. For instance, did you know that every day in the United States, 316 people are shot? Did you know that 106 of the people that are shot die (5 of them being children from 1-17 years old)? Did you know that sixty percent of gun deaths are suicides and another third are homicides? Are we willing to accept these statistics as normal? What will it take for us to unite and pass common sense gun laws?

Books/Guns/Gun Violence

BOOK: Common Ground

January 28, 2022September 23, 2022 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

Some books on gun reform lean heavily on statistics, others choose a personal story, while others blend the two. Common Ground takes a different path. Penned for small group settings, but useful for the individual as well, author Donald Gaffney's focus is teaching people how to talk about guns and gun violence. In the preface, he lays out three rules -- confidentiality, trust, and respectful dialogue -- that all small groups should use to keep the discussion civil and polite. While not everyone will agree with each other, it is essential everyone treats each other with dignity and respect.

Books/Guns/Gun Violence

BOOK: Beating Guns

January 19, 2022September 23, 2022 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

Some say it's a gun problem. Some say it's a heart problem. Authors Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin say it's both. Each day in the United States, 105 people die from gun violence. Once every 30 minutes, a person commits suicide with a gun. Eighty percent of all firearm deaths in developed countries occur in the United States, and eighty-seven percent of all child related gun deaths in the world's developed countries occur in the US. Despite the alarming statistics, Beating Guns was not penned to shock or shame. It's a call for Christians to prophetically stand against violence and lead the way toward gun reform.

Books/Justice/Racism

BOOK: Jesus and the Disinherited

January 7, 2022June 17, 2023 SundaytoSaturday.comLeave a comment

When a major cultural event, such as George Floyd's murder, shifts the focus of a country, it is easy to assume that critiques of the American church and racism are a recent phenomenon. Oftentimes we are simply unaware of prophetic voices from the the past such as Howard Thurman and his quintessential Jesus and the Disinherited. Penned in 1949, Thurman critiques the church and its seduction with power while detailing the psyche and motivation of the oppressed. His ultimate conclusion is that belief in Jesus, in conjunction with community, can empower the disinherited.

Category: Books