Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Fruitful Discipleship:

Fruitful Discipleship: Living the Mission of Jesus in the Church and the World by: Sherry A. Weddell
Non-fiction, religion, 232 pages
Physical Book Count:1
Book Count:5

1: This is the 3rd book in a series of books on discipleship.  My review of book 1 is here.    And my review of book 2 is here. 
2: Having read both of the other books, I put this book on my Christmas wish list.  I did not get it and so used my Christmas money on it, because I wanted it that badly.
3: This book talks about the Diocese of Lansing and the Forming Intentional Disciples Forum a lot for real life examples of things it talks about.
4. Just today Sherry personally responded to a comment that I made on the Forum.

That being said, this book is a little different then the other books in the series.  Instead of being mostly focused on how to form Intentional Disciples in the church, this book largely deals with the charisms that should start being displayed in  the life of disciples.  It also includes how these might be used in life to lead other people threw one or more of the thresholds leading to discipleship in them.  It notes that all baptized Christians have been given charisms (aka supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit to be used to build up the Church.)  It goes over the most common charisms that are found in Called & Gifted workshops, which is a program made to help people find out what their gifts are.These are: encouragement, helps, hospitality, mercy, pastoring, evangelism, prophecy, teaching, administration, leadership, giving,service, celibacy, extraordinary faith, missionary, voluntary poverty, healing, intercessory prayer, knowledge, wisdom, craftsmanship, music, and writing.  For each one it goes into what the charism is, what it is not, how it might be different then the call of all Christians to do something similar (i.e. everyone is called to pray for each other, but a charism of intercessory prayer is different then just that.)  It also has a real life example of someone with this gift using it.  A very important note after going over the list is that you can not just take a survey, or read this book and find out what all of your charisms are.  They can be used as a start, but as 2 people can do the same thing using 2 different charisms, having someone trained in discerning charisms and going into detail about the how and why one uses their gifts helps ones determine the exact gifts one has.  Of course many people use their charisms without ever knowing what gift they are using to do what they do; however, it can be helpful to know this so one can work in areas where their gifts will yield the most fruit.

The Lilac Bouquet:

The Lilac Bouquet by: Carolyn Brown
Fiction: mystery, E-book
E-Book Count:4
Book Count:4

I signed up for a reading challenge for this  year, that has you pick out books based on many different criteria, so I picked this book as a book with a color in the title.  (Although it is named after the flowers that do not always have the same color, in this book they did.)  So given this, I will be reading some books that I might not usually to fit all of the themes of books to check off the list.
  
Having said this, I liked this book.  It was according to the author started out being based on an old country song.  It is the story of a young women that wants to have a big wedding after every generation in her family from her great-grandmother on ended up a single mother who never married.  The only problem is that to do so she needs to work as an assistance to a man that lives alone in his house on the hill (that might be haunted) who her great-grandmother (who raised her) hates.  Her great-grandmother also hates her fiancee's grandfather and the feeling is mutual.   She is determined to find out what happened all those years ago when the 3 were around her age that caused all of these issues.  And as she does she learns the family history of all 3 families and how events of decades ago still haunt the town.  

Monday, February 26, 2018

No Stone Unturned:

No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators by: Steve Jackson
Non-fiction: history, science, E-book
E-Book Count:3
Book Count:3

This book is a collection of stories about crime cases investigated by NecroSearch International, a group of scientist and other specialist in the forensic sciences that got together to make a way for experts to help officers of the law use science to solve cases/find bodies/collect evidence.  Cases included in this book include some of their early cases, high profile cases, and cases where the learned something important about how to use science for crime solving.  This is an updated version of the book from when it first came out and so has more information on what happened after their involvement in a case.  

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

A Catholic Quest for the Holy Grail:

A Catholic Quest for the Holy Grail by: Charles A. Coulombe
Non-fiction: History, Religion, NYR, E-Book
E-Book Count:2
Book Count:2

As you might have guessed from the title and the fact that it is a e-book, this is a book I picked up for my Amazon free book for the month on the last day of the month and so grabbed something rather then have no book for the month.  Having said that, this book was a lot better then I thought that it would be.  Much of the book deals with the history of the church as well as the common stories and legends related to the Holy Grail.  This includes both the stories related to King Arthur as well as other ones like the grail stories relating to Charlemagne.  It tells about orders of knights and related histories as well.  The only part that got a little meh was at the end were it becomes about the stories of the grail in the modern world, where while pointing out good points in the past and bad things about modern life, it doesn't do the inverse, leading to a "The past was so great and perfect," vibe.