Two More Books from 2009

The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings by C. S. Lewis
My brother, Joel, gave me this book as a Christmas present in 2008. It's an anthology of excerpts from Lewis' books, letters, and essays arranged as 365 daily readings. End notes provide bibliographic information for each selection.

A little Lewis everyday in 2009 was a good thing! I was inspired and encouraged many times. I was reminded of how brilliant Lewis was, and how fun he is to read. Finally, I was delighted to discover some new Lewis books that really need to find their way into my library. 2009.12.31



True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In by James Choung
I preached a sermon series called "Trust Worthy: Is Our Christianity Worth Believing?" in the Fall of 2009. During the time I was preaching those sermons, I ran across this book by James Choung at the Intervarsity Press website. The title was so close to that of my series, that I snatched it up to see if there was anything in the book that might be useful to me.

Most of the book is a fictional story of people struggling to understand and share their faith in ways the are meaningful and credible. The story is a vehicle for introducing a new method for talking about the Gospel. In other words, the book is an illustrative narrative that demonstrates Choung's suggestions for how to share the Gospel in our contemporary, western, post-modern society.

In the last section of the book, Choung explains his goals in developing his new method. First, it needed to capture the big picture of the kingdom of God and make it relevant for everyday life. Second, it needed to be framed in the context of the whole of Scripture (Genesis - Revelation). Third, it needed to be simple to understand and short enough to draw out on a napkin. Last, it needed to be presented in a way that truly sounds like good news.

I found Choung's critique of typical evangelical approaches to presenting the Gospel to be right on. His narrative approach effectively and believably illustrated the difficulties of talking about faith and Christianity. I believe his new approach to evangelistic conversation is very useful and have already found it to be helpful in my conversations with others. 2009.10.09