Review and Giveaway: Healing Your Church Hurt by Stephen Mansfield

I've attended half-a-dozen churches in my three decades and I've been fortunate to leave each on good terms as the circumstances of life moved me on. This is clearly not the case for everyone. Many people have been hurt by the place that they expect to be the most safe. It is to these people that Stephen Mansfield has written Healing Your Church Hurt.

The Twitter² Summary:

If you’ve been part of a church, you have probably been hurt or know someone who has. Stephen Mansfield knows how it feels, but he also knows how to dig out of that hurt. If you’re ready to choose the tough path to healing, Mansfield will walk you through it.

The Low-down:

Mansfield immediately sets the stage for how he will address the topic with a story of a little guy named Timmy. Timmy gets his arm stuck in a vending machine. Crying and bleeding, the boy begs for help, when all along, the boy was clutching onto a Snickers that kept his arm pinned inside. Once he let go of the bar, his arm was set free. Mansfield compares Timmy’s story to the experience of people hurt by the church, but who hold on to the “Snickers” of hurt and anger. While Mansfield doesn’t go so far as to say that the reason for the hurt is irrelevant, but he does stress that our healing can’t begin until we choose to let go.

He stresses that we often have unrealistic expectations of the people we find in church. We expect people to be broken and flawed in the world around us, but for some reason, we expect the people we find in church to have everything all together. With this understanding, Mansfield encourages those wounded by the church to overcome their own hurt and come through their trial with stronger faith on the other side.

Healing Your Church Hurt has previously published as ReChurch. Although it's well written and its content is solid, it just didn't connect with me. I imagine if I'd been through a church hurt, it would be much more impactful.

The Rating:

3 of 5 Stars (A book to check out from the library, but not to own)

The Links:

The Author’s Website

The Publisher’s Website

The Contest:

I’m giving away a free copy of Healing Your Church Hurt.There are two ways to enter: either comment below with your thoughts on how to overcome a church hurt and email me at perplexedpastor@gmail.com or comment below, follow me on Twitter and included this link (http://bit.ly/H7RwzY) in a tweet.

Enter by 11:59 PM Central Time, Friday, April 13 for your chance to win! (Winner will be chosen from all entries by The Little One grabbing your name out of a hat or fishbowl or other suitable item.)

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Tyndale House Publishers. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC's “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Review and Giveaway: Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos

When I was young, I loved a good monster story. I watched the movies, read the books and even stayed up late to sneak in creeptacular viewings of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video on Friday Night Videos (ah, growing up in rural America with no cable). Somewhere along the (long) road through college, however, I began to find monster stories less interesting and more disturbing. I can now no longer make it through movies like Se7en or Scream, that I repeatedly watched and enjoyed those first few years of college.

But throughout my love/hate relationship with monster stories, the one type of monster whose story has never really interested me the zombie. I don’t know what it is about zombies, but they’ve never really done it for me, so it might not come as too much of a shocker that a book with the phrase “Living Dead” in the title wouldn’t be at the top of my reading list. But surprisingly, it was. From the moment I first heard about Night of the Living Dead Christian, I found myself excited to get my hands on copy. And I wasn’t disappointed.

The Twitter² Summary:

In author Matt Mikalatos’ second (not-quite-true) story, he takes us on a journey of overcoming the monstrous inclinations within us all. The comedic tale of Mikalatos and his neighbors features zombies, vampires, mad scientists and a next-door werewolf named Luther.

The Low-down:

Mikalatos crafts a clever narrative wherein believers of all stripes are portrayed as monsters straight of the cheesy B-movies of the past. What’s great about Night of the Living Dead Christian is that Mikalatos doesn’t sit on the sidelines lobbing cynical bombs of monster labels at his pet peeves in the church world. Rather, he inserts (and accuses) himself as a character in the narrative.

Although Mikalatos narrates the story, his werewolf neighbor, Luther, is truly the main character as the central plot of the book follows his struggle to tame the beast. Mikalatos even occasionally turns over narration duties to allow Luther to wax theological on the nature of sin, rescue, and redemption.

A story at times both sad and funny enough to elicit audible laughter, Night of the Living Dead Christian forces the reader to examine his or her own monstrous inclinations.

The Author’s Own Words:

watch on tyndale.com

The Rating:

4 of 5 Stars (An interesting book that kept me turning the pages)

The Links:

The Author’s Website

The Publisher’s Website

The Contest:

I’m giving away a free copy of Night of the Living Dead Christian – comment by 11:59 PM Central Time, Friday December 23 for your chance to win! (Winner will be chosen from all entries by The Little One grabbing your name out of a hat or fishbowl or other suitable item.)

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Tyndale House Publishers. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC's “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”