Dan Cooley's Blog, page 33

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I felt so stupid.

It should have been a grand time. JoLynn (my wife) and I were on an Alaskan cruise for our 30th anniversary. There were 1200 people on the cruise, 400+ who chose this cruise to hear the mega pastor/author speak. He has sold over 80 million books. I've sold 10k. Why is it when I meet "big name" people I make an idiot out of myself?

Even before the trip I was hoping – and praying for a chance to meet this author. I'd love to write more. Some council, a bit of help, a recommendation couldn't hurt. I wanted to meet him, but was nervous about it. I was both relieved as well as disappointed there wasn't much chance meeting him with that many people on the cruise.

After white water rafting in Juneau we had some time left to blow money in town. We wisely headed to the chocolate shop where I ordered a month's worth of dark chocolate something to last us through the afternoon. When I turned around there was JoLynn talking to the mega-author and his wife as if they had know each other for decades. Texans can do that.

I'm not Texan.

I stood by stupidly with water dripping off my new made-in-china Alaskan cap listening to the conversation. My mind was like a hurricane whirling at mach speed with no one able to predict its direction. JO had this "Don't let the hurricane destroy the moment" look in her eyes. It did.

All I could think about was what I needed. What I wanted. I wanted him to like me, to ask about me, to be able to tell my story. So I broke into a story about our son, and something we and I have in common besides writing – being a pastor.

"We have this boy Caleb" I blurted out, "he is 16, our youngest. All of our kids, we have four of them, and the husband of our oldest were sitting around the table one night. We were asking Caleb what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said 'I want to be a pastor'. Everyone around the table started telling him why he shouldn't do that job."

There was no recovery. So I dug in deeper, but one can only be so honest in a blog.

Later JO asked, "So, why do you think you get so intimidated by certain people?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like yesterday…

I had really, really hoped she didn't notice. More than that I had prayed it wasn't as bad as I imagined. It was. She did.

"It's just me. I'm just that way. Sorry." That's what I answered and really believed. It's just the way I am. She didn't laugh. I thought she should get off my case. It wasn't something I could do anything about. I was wrong.

She told me to "lean into it." And to, "Figure out why you're that way." Ugh.

All I could think of was, "You think I was bad yesterday? You should have seen me with DC Talk."

 

Next Blog – Others: God talking

 

PART 2 OF: OUR SURPRISE! AWESOME 30TH ANNIVERSARY 5-STAGE VACATION

Stage 3 Seattle: The Naked Lady

No - not JoLynn.

Before we decided on the Alaskan cruise, I had already committed to doing a wedding back in Winnipeg. The Cruise with Max (I can call him that, we had our picture taken) was the weekend before. JO, ever hoping to extend a vacation, pointed out the needless extra travel to go from the Cruise to NM on Saturday, only to head back to Canada the following Thursday. Why not stay up North?

We did.

We spent Sat-Mon AM in Seattle with some friends we knew from Tucson (Jill and Jerry) who now lived in Oregon. What fun.

We visited the original Starbucks. The logo is naked. SURPRISE! JO let me buy a mug anyway.

We found good coffee somewhere else. And French pastries. And the Seattle underground. And chocolate shops and the space needle (by this time we were way too cheap to go up the thing) and a mega-hotel room (free AAA upgrade). But, the vacation wasn't over yet!

 

 

Stage 4 Vancouver Island: Cliff Climbing

After taking a plane to WA and a big boat to Alaska and back, it was now time to say goodbye to our mega-hotel room and catch a smaller boat to Victoria.

Mercy is that place beautiful. The beauty helped to make up for our missing rental car.

Monday night we landed and grabbed the first taxi off the dock. We arrived at the car rental 15 minutes after it closed. AAA isn't perfect. Our kind driver found a car rental place still open for zillions more $. We shelled out our space needle savings for a Mazda 6. Then we headed over to our friends who had relocated to Victoria from Winnipeg. But first we had an all important Canadian stop.

Tim Horton's.

It's our favorite Canadian bagel, coffee, doughnut café. It's not incredibly high-quality - but it's cheap, as common as eagles in Alaska, and a good memory.

Then we zoom zoomed to Willie and Susie's place, where they have a guest quarters we had all to ourselves. Our own bedroom. Our own bathroom. Our own entrance to the house. Mega-hotel upgrade!

 

Willie took out a bunch of Vancouver maps that night and gave us ideas for our Tue-Wed stay on the island. He talked us into climbing a little mountain the next day. Willie said something about a "scramble towards the top." After clinging by fingernails for the last hour of the climb over thousand foot cliffs we stood on top of the island. Then we saw some, like, 80 year-old men who came up for an early morning walk. SURPRISE! That was deflating. But hey, we had fun.

Later we drove up the West side of the island eating stuff that had been swimming a few hours before. Ah, fresh meat.

We also saw Steve and Larissa – more friends who relocated to the island from Winnipeg. It's hard to understand why these couples would leave the character-building prairies and the coldest major city in Canada for the ocean-surrounded mountains of Vancouver Island.

It's so cool to see these two couple starting their families. We were involved in their weddings years ago in Winnipeg. This year Susie and Steve are getting their Doctorates. Somehow my 8th grade graduation from a class of 24 where I received the "most improved trumpet player" award didn't seem like a good topic starter.

Total weight gain to date? 7 lbs. JO? SURPRISE! She didn't gain a gram. Sometimes I don't like her so much.

 

 

Stage 5 Winnipeg: My Greatest Surprise

On Thursday we traveled. From a bus to a ferry to another bus to an airport to another airport to yet another airport. Finally in Winnipeg we got to hug some great friends, rent a car, and hit the bed. That's after stopping at Tim Horton's of course.

Winnipeg was amazing. Again we had perfect weather just like Victoria and Seattle. No rain, no snow, no bugs, and unlimited Canadian chocolate and coffee shops. There is a heaven. We spent a lot of time with old friends, officiated at a wedding, saw more friends at the reception, and got to attend Elim while we were there.

It's hard to describe how encouraging this time was for us. While on the cruise I (Dan) had some time of introspection which is rare for me. It rather sucks to know you need to change. Buy me a Ferrari and I'll tell you about it. But Winnipeg was different.

Playing pastor and wife you sometimes wonder if you are accomplishing anything. The giving goes down or the attendance plateaus and you feel like you are spinning your wheels. But when we returned and saw those we had invested in for those years - wow. I don't know about JO, but for me – I've never been that encouraged in all my 53 years. It's hard to believe, after all we went through in those short 7+ years at Elim – after a church split, after having our car stolen, after feeling -50 wind chills, after being bitten by mosquitoes and snowed on at the same soccer game, after having our church annex burned down - that it could be one of my favorite places to be. But it is. This was my greatest surprise.

God is good, all the time.

PS –  6 "gots"

 

· Caleb got shoes with toes that have, like, changed his life. He even runs in the things. My toes hurt when I look at them.
· Micah got a snake. He feeds it frozen mice. Slow snakes need help.
· Amanda got a guy. Wedding date is Dec. 28 – at Camp Peniel in TX. They have horses. Napoleon Dynamite wedding anyone? LuckEE
· Megan got a new job at a Motherhood/Maternity store in the mall. NO, it's not what you think. JoLynn isn't pregnant.
· Dan got a new article published in Leadership Journal (Summer 2011 edition)
· JoLynn got her cruise

Thanks for all your prayers and friendship!

Dan and JO

You Are Light - Schools Go Dark

This summer the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a public school could bar a church from renting its space - even while renting to others. In NYC this has affected 60 churches, and is now spreading to neighboring states.

I pastor at Cottonwood Church in Rio Rancho. We meet at beautiful Stapleton Elementary School in the picture. We believe that "going portable" is one of the best ways to live lean and impact our communities with the light of Christ. It allows us to go where the people are. This week we were able to give Stapleton another 19 filled backpacks for students who needed them. The week before we cleaned the grounds so students could return to the cleanest school in Rio Rancho. It's great fun, sheds the light of Jesus, and both Stapleton and Cottonwood benefit.

I'm not a petition signing type of guy. But for this I'll make an exception. NYC has over 1600 schools, and over 1500 of them sit empty on Sunday mornings. You can tell the NYC Department of Education and Courts that this ruling should be changed here.

The ruling is currently in appeal. It could be overturned by either the full circuit court or go to the Supreme Court. Jesus said you are "The light of the world." Lets pray we can continue to light up our schools for decades to come.

 

OUR ODD 30TH ANNIVERSARY 5-STAGE AWESOME VACATION FROM HEAVEN

Stage 1: The Set-Up

 

Our 30th anniversary was coming up and I didn't know what to do. Time was short and money was shorter. The choices seemed to be:

1 – Make Dave Ramsey's day, take JoLynn to Taco Bell, and sleep in the Jeep. Or,

2 – Make JoLynn happy, go somewhere wild, and sell the Jeep.

But then, oddly enough things worked out. I have JO and the Jeep. Can life get any better than that?

 

 

Stage 2: The Cruise

So we flew to Seattle, got on this really big boat, and went to Alaska. Now for the top 3 oddities

 

1 The Odd Excursion. Last April we were sitting at our computer in toasty NM looking at possible cruise excursions. All the pictures looked to us like older people sitting in yet another (but smaller) boat staring at whales. Ugh. We wanted to do something exciting. So we signed up for White Water Rafting in Juneau. This was the furthest north city we visited. Where it rains all day. And the summer wind-chill is stuck at like -30. Like.

We can now say we've been white-water rafting in Alaska. Truth is, it was more like freeze-floating through people's back yards. "Hey, look at those lawn chairs!"

It was fun to put in by a glacier, and the first third really was white water. This excursion was odd in that it was the only one that wasn't marvelous. It was also the only day it rained on our entire 15 day trip! We saw a few eagles on the float, some icebergs where we put in, a bit of scary white water, and some really nice BBQs.

The normal marvelous excursions included kayaking and standing on a boat with other old people watching whales. Let's get back to odd.

 

 

2 The Odd Author: Have any of you heard of an aspiring author named Max Lucado? Somehow he found us on the cruise. We got to talking, and after some prodding Max admitted he had only sold around 83 million books. We gave him some pointers on switching to a more productive agent. Admittedly it was embarrassing when he insisted on having his picture taken with us. We can only pray it doesn't go to his head.

I know what you're thinking.

Yes, we contacted our attorney within an hour of when the picture was taken. We wouldn't want Max plastering our famous faces all over Facebook. Yikes! Shoot, he probably has 50 followers.

 

 

3 The Odd Missed Opportunity. On a cruise ship every opportunity is made to make up some of the money they lost by giving such outstanding rates. There are trinkets for sale by the pool, charges to use your phone, the internet, the Captain's bathroom. They even made real coffee in the free buffet area knowing JO and I would invest heavily in the coffee shop upstairs. What, no two-pump-half-caffeine-light-whip-mocha? And you call this a cruise? Why then, one wonders, would they miss the greatest opportunity of the trip?

They took us to Hubbard glacier. It's over 70 miles long, and is 7 miles wide where it dumps into the ocean. It sounded like thunder when the ice was cracking, and there were gigantic splashes/waves when parts of it would drop into the ocean. THIS WAS REALLY COOL! But I digress - there was money to be made here!

There were these massive cracked off sections of the glacier, much larger than any we saw fall, we're talking larger than our cruise ship, just waiting to fall. But they didn't. It was like staring at lost income.

WHERE WERE THE GLACIER CANNONS? What we needed was a massive red-neck-constructed, gas-powered, potato-shooting-canon. Mount some of those suckers around the sides of the boat like a good old-fashioned pirate ship. For 50 bucks a potato I'd have laid down some serious cash to drop some ice into the ocean. Alas, no canons on this ship. It was probably built by Canadians.

 

Stage 3-5: Coming.

 

The Corruptible - like house paint on a Ferrari

 

What do you get when you combine a Christian Marine with a SWAT Cop with a Dyslexic Detective?

Answer: One multifaceted author.

A story more engaging than The Corruptible is that of the life of its author. If you plan on reading anything by Mark Mynheir, it's worth taking a trip to his website at http://www.copwriter.com.

That being said, lets take a look at The Corruptible – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

I read this book without having read the first in the Ray Quinn Series, The Night Watchman. The back story was woven in well so it wasn't a problem. I may pick it up now, as this was a good read and the reviews say the first book was even better.

I started reading The Corruptible one night, and quit after the second chapter. On July 4 I picked it up again and read the rest of the book through in one setting.

The author's background makes the book informative as well as believable and interesting. The ending made sense and wasn't the let-down I've felt when finishing other mysteries. As a Christian Published book, it's more of a clean mystery (no sex or foul language) than a mystery with a Christian message.

The Bad

Nothing is more fun than getting wrapped up in a good book and forgetting what day, time and decade it is. Few things are more frustrating than coming back down to earth before you are ready. There were three things in this book that consistently reminded me I was reading, and brought me back to earth.

1 – The Editing: I'd get into the story and then a series of poorly written paragraphs – sentences that should be split, unnecessary words, etc. would remind me it was only a story. Like restoring a Ferrari and finishing with a coat of brushed-on house paint this book deserves better. It wouldn't bug me so much if the rest of the book wasn't so good. This was especially noticeable in the first few chapters. Either it got better or I was so wrapped up in the story I didn't notice anymore. Here is the first chapter. See if you agree.

 

Corruptible by Mark Mynheir (Chapter 1)

2 – The Dart Gun. You will know it if you read it. Like Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars you want to hit fast-forward whenever it shows up. But, what mostly reminded me I was reading was…

3 – The Ugly

The Ugly

This book needed some ugly.

In the story the protagonist Ray a non-Christian ex-cop struggling with the death of his police partner. He's been injured by the same creeps who killed his partner and can't walk without excruciating pain. He's a bitter man using alcohol to dull his demons.

But then, the bad guys come calling. Ray has his chance. He takes off after them. But, due to his earlier injury, Ray falls down some steps and belly-flops on the concrete below. In a fit of anger and frustration he screams…

Nothing bad.

I'm no expert but I've ridden with cops on duty. If I'm supposed to believe in a bitter, addicted ex-cop he needs to have a dark side. Shoot, even a normal side.

It was hard to hate the bad guys as well. They too needed more ugly.

Yes, I know it was written by a Christian and is published by a Christian Publisher. But surely it can still be emotionally accurate. Shoot, I'm a pastor and I wanted more reality. This squeaked so clean I sometimes found it fake.

Recommendation

If you like a good detective mystery you will enjoy this book. The author knows his stuff. If I read chapters three to the end in one setting, it must have been good. With a fresh coat of good paint and some ugly added it could have been great. I'm sticking by Mark. Someday soon he will finish his Ferrari with style, and I don't want to miss it.

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group sent me this book free for this review. You have to pay $10 for yours. That means I made, like, $3 an hour for this review. Use your time more wisely and order yours at CBD.

DanielCooley.com

LINK

Why Church Made Me Leave Church

I received this letter from a good friend. He gave me four reasons why church was making him leave church. How would you answer? I'll paraphrase (shorten) his reasons below.

Reason 1. I've attended everything from Presbyterian to non-denominational to home churches. Every place I went, people had radically differing views of what scripture meant to our lives, and what God expected of us.

What do you think? Has this been your church experience?

Reason 2. If you dropped a group of people who had never heard of the Church on an island with a copy of the Bible, there is absolutely zero chance that they would develop something that was remotely close to the Church as it is now. That bothered me. If we were given scripture as a guide form the Creator on how to do the most important thing in the universe, shouldn't it be reasonable clear?

Unless we find a hidden untouched island tribe, learn their language, put it into print, educate the people and then drop down a Bible, we will never be able to put the Bible/island illustration to the test. But it is an interesting scenario. What do you think?

Reason 3. Music as an attractor. Light shows and performances. Youth groups. Massive spending on buildings and air-conditioning. The focus on butts in seats and giving rather than on spiritual growth and concern for wellbeing…

Motives, so hard to judge, so hard not to. Do you agree with him?

Reason 4. Every denomination and every church has a different combination of opinions, actions and traditions. "The Church" is a hodge-podge of groups that can't agree on anything beyond "Jesus," and even then they differ on who He is and what His priorities are. What does this say about God? Even His body can't agree on what He says.

OK, so if we take out the harshness, does he have a point?

I'm going to try to answer some of these questions on Sunday, but would love to have your input before then!

Dan

Erasing Hell

There has been a lot of talk about hell lately. This video response by Francis Chan will be the best 10-minutes you will spend today. I will try to embed it into the blog, but if it doesn't work on your computer you can simply go to http://youtu.be/qnrJVTSYLr8. ENJOY!!

 

Dan

 

Rob Bell & Love Wins - The Why

This week at church we are asking the question, "Why doesn't the church act like Christ?" That question dives straight into a new book written by Rob Bell.

In Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, he seems to be re-defining hell and trying to find a way to get everyone into heaven.

Why?

The Why

Rob starts with "The Why" and then forces the Bible fit his thesis. He redefines hell because he believes evangelical theology about heaven and hell causes Christians to be uncaring, limiting God's love. I found this thought four times, and I probably missed some.

1. He sarcastically states, [If ] "you were surrounded by Christians who believed that . . . you were going to leave someday and go somewhere else to be with Jesus . . . you could possibly end up in a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren't known for doing much about it. . . . That would be tragic." p. 6-7

2. "It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die." P. 45

3. "Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death." P. 78-79

4. "Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don't throw very good parties." P. 179

Maybe he is right. I would have helped had he given research given to back up his premise. He didn't. And CS Lewis disagreed.

Lewis said, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one."

Everybody has a right to their opinion, but nobody has a right to be wrong in their facts. They can't both be right. So, who is - Lewis or Bell?

I did a Google search and found the largest private disaster relief organizations are those who believe in a literal heaven and hell. They are those who are looking forward to the next world. Three of what are often listed as the top four (it rather depends on what kind of relief you are focusing on for who is listed as largest) are Christian organizations who are doing just what Rob Bell says isn't done. The top four are:

1. The Red Cross

2. The Salvation Army

3. The Southern Baptist Convention

4. The Roman Catholic Church

If William Booth, the SBC and the Catholics aren't thinking about the next world, who is? And no one is helping out this world more. No one.

CS Lewis was right. Those who are looking forward to the next world are the most involved in fixing this one. From Saddleback's P.E.A.C.E. initiative to alleviate AIDS to Compassion International, Samaritans Purse, the lists are overwhelming. And, those who insist there is no real heaven and hell in the future, those who agree with Rob – where are they on the list?

I'm still looking.

If you want a good, fairly complete discussion of Love Wins, check out the Christianity Today article at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/april/lovewins.html

Meanwhile, here are a couple Cooley cliff notes.

Heaven

The chapter called: There Are Rocks Everywhere – This is one of the most beautiful chapters written on the omnipresence of Christ in print anywhere, from any time. Amazing. Rob Bell hit a home run here. Too bad it was bound in the wrong game.

The chapter on Heaven – I thought Rob did a nice job combining the present Kingdom of God and the coming Kingdom of heaven and earth. This was a great read.

Hell

After giving a selection of passages where different words are translated into Hell in some English versions, Rob writes, "And that's it. Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word "hell" in the Bible they got from those verses you just read."

The second death is never mentioned. The lake of fire is never mentioned. Revelation is never quoted. Only verses that support Rob's position are quoted.

Hell is spoken about without the word being used, just as prayers are prayed without the word "prayer" being used. No Bible student would consider his study of prayer complete if she only looked at verses where the word "prayer" was used. To leave out entire passages of scripture speaking about hell because the word isn't used is lousy Bible study.

Somebody buy Rob a topical Bible.

Some hellish verses that were left out include:

Rev 21:8 (NLT) "But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

Rev 22:15 (NLT) Outside the city are the dogs—the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie.

Rev 14:9 (NLT) Then a third angel followed them, shouting, "Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand 10 must drink the wine of God's anger. It has been poured full strength into God's cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. 11 The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name."

The most complete definition Rob gives for his view of hell that I could find was: "We need a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God's world God's way. And for that, the work 'hell' works quite well." P. 93

Focusing on a bad thesis (The Why) makes for bad theology. Too bad, I really enjoyed his writing when the Bible came first.

danielcooley.com

Radical Together - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Author David Platt struggles with church budgets and gets nauseated with all the vision talk. This is my kind of author. It's my kind of book. Except for the bad and the ugly.

 

The Good:

With its excellent content, engaging writing style, wonderfully short length, and in-your-face application, this is a good book. It made me crave a radical church – and realize the main thing holding it back is me.

David writes about doing church where we ask ourselves, "Is this the best way to make disciples?" He wants to pour every decision, every dollar spent through that grid. Maybe the best way to make disciples, he thinks, isn't with convenient parking spots and greeters with lattes. Maybe we should "put the wonders of God's glory, holiness, wrath, justice, kindness, jealousy, grace and character on display." And "show people the most biblical, holistic, clear, and captivating vision of God that we possibly can and then trust Him to take care of the seeking." Hmmm.

 

The Bad:

This book is downright convicting. David gives real-life examples. One was of a couple evaluating if they really needed a larger house. Instead they used their house savings to adopt children with Down syndrome. Others sold themselves into slavery in order to witness to slaves. And I was proud of my Jesus belt-buckle. What this book is talking about is radical. If you don't like conviction, this book is bad.

 

The Ugly:

Those who read this book will want to use it. In order to use it, we need to know what scriptures are being quoted. But some irrational editor decided to use endnotes instead of references in the text. Say what? I'm not lazy; I just want close parking when I order my latte and sit down to read Radical Together with the references IN THE TEXT. Endnotes are ugly.

For church leaders this book is a must read. It will change the way we do church – it's already changed me. But David, if you want another star, give us references in the text next time.

 

And now for some links:

You can watch a short video of it here

You can order this book online at CBD or Amazon.

I received this book free from Multnomah Books for review. If they had offered me a Ferrari I might have lied. But they didn't. Therefore the opinions I have expressed are my own.

Radical Together by David Platt (Chapter 1)

Radical Together - The good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Author David Platt struggles with church budgets and gets nauseated with all the vision talk. This is my kind of author. It's my kind of book. Except for the bad and the ugly.

 

The Good:

With its excellent content, engaging writing style, wonderfully short length, and in-your-face application, this is a good book. It made me crave a radical church – and realize the main thing holding it back is me.

David writes about doing church where we ask ourselves, "Is this the best way to make disciples?" He wants to pour every decision, every dollar spent through that grid. Maybe the best way to make disciples, he thinks, isn't with convenient parking spots and greeters with lattes. Maybe we should "put the wonders of God's glory, holiness, wrath, justice, kindness, jealousy, grace and character on display." And "show people the most biblical, holistic, clear, and captivating vision of God that we possibly can and then trust Him to take care of the seeking." Hmmm.

 

The Bad:

This book is downright convicting. David gives real-life examples. One was of a couple evaluating if they really needed a larger house. Instead they used their house savings to adopt children with Down syndrome. Others sold themselves into slavery in order to witness to slaves. And I was proud of my Jesus belt-buckle. What this book is talking about is radical. If you don't like conviction, this book is bad.

 

The Ugly:

Those who read this book will want to use it. In order to use it, we need to know what scriptures are being quoted. But some irrational editor decided to use endnotes instead of references in the text. Say what? I'm not lazy; I just want close parking when I order my latte and sit down to read Radical Together with the references IN THE TEXT. Endnotes are ugly.

For church leaders this book is a must read. It will change the way we do church – it's already changed me. But David, if you want another star, give us references in the text next time.

 

And now for some links:

You can watch a short video of it here

You can order this book online at CBD or Amazon.

I received this book free from Multnomah Books for review. If they had offered me a Ferrari I might have lied. But they didn't. Therefore the opinions I have expressed are my own. Check out more reviews at DanielCooley.com

Radical Together by David Platt (Chapter 1)