Many Christians feel uneasy about the Enneagram as a way of deepening self-awareness; this is mostly because the test has some connections to the Sufi religion and new age thought. That makes this book by Richard Rohr necessary and helpful to be able to gain the insight of the enneagram from a source that is operating from a Christian worldview. This book has sections on where the enneagram came from, what it is, what the 9 enneagram personality types are, and how Christians can benefit from it without adopting non-Christian ideas. The most helpful part is part II of the book which goes into depth on the 9 types, from a Christian perspective. Most helpful, Rohr identifies the root sin of each type, and how God can redeem that sin into a beautiful gift. He also talks about what gifts the types naturally have, and how we can grow in those. I have heard that the enneagram does not put people in boxes, rather, that it helps people identify what boxes they are already in and how to get out of them. This book is very helpful for understanding yourself and others, and for getting out of the boxes that are keeping you from living in a full and redeemed way.

This book is friendly while helping one to see one's REAL self...and giving insight and well as practical ways to grow and change for the better. I am buying a copy for each member of my family! By far, the best "self-help" book I've read...

The Enneagram is more than just a form of personality typology, it goes to the roots of our motivations and perceptions. For this, I have always felt secure in using the Enneagram to explore my insecurities and thusly, life lessons to be learned.

Through my years of struggling to find a simple clear message from the Christian faith, I find this book to be challenging without being offensive nor condescending. I had to put the book down several times just to mull over a single paragraph. This book is an excellent source for learning the Enneagram and, as a bonus, explains the Christian faith in a nonthreatening manner.

This book was required as the text for a course at a local college. We'll written and documented, it allows the reader to research on his own if he is in disagreement with the author. A pleasure to read, I read 80% of it one saturday. Good for the beginner, in that it defines terms used in simple language that makes it easier for the reader to grasp to concepts presented. I reccomend it highly to anyone, Christian or non, who wants to know more about Christian history.

Kyle pulls together a diverse collection of eshatological beliefs, predictions and events in such a way that one can really get a grasp on where we (as the church universal) have been on this issue. Is the dispensational premill position the historically dominant position of the church? What about the church's historical view of the rapture, the millennium or the tribulation. How did the church deal with deviant eschatologies?

I've studied eschatology in seminary, but this book really brings the scattered ideas and events together in an understandable and thought provoking way.

This book is a MUST READ for every pastor or teacher. If you are a layman, get the book. Read it, and then give it to your minister. Before you speak on the end times read this book!

Easy reading. Easy to understand. Moves quickly.

There is finally some solid, Evangelical scholarship taking non-scholarly popularizers like Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe and Pat Robertson to task. This book is dry in places, but it's handling of the past is crucial to our understanding of the present. The book does a monumental job of documenting end times paranoia from the time of the early church to today. Highly recommended...especially for those who helped make Hal Lindsey a millionaire several times over!

20 years ago I read the incomplete memoirs they were excellent this edition adds some unpublished material, many cross-references and footnotes which I found nice to have, the compilers Rosell & Dupuis have done a great job. The book itself is very inspiring.

Mind you when I've drifted a little from God I found Finney objectionable, to hard to take! but when I've gone down the track of James 4:8 "draw near to God and God will draw near to you, cleanse your hands you sinners, purify your heart you double-minded" then Finney speaks as one who has faithfully gone down that path before me and as one who knows how to give good clear instructions on how to progress effectively! Good bye dead-religion, hello God.

I also highly recommend his "Revival Lectures". I have learn't more on answered prayer, effectiveness, revivals and my relationship with God from Finney's books than any other (outside the Bible) and I have many many answers to prayer to suggest it isn't just theory or dead words.

Best wishes to all.

Charles Finney is THE posterboy for American evangelicals--at least when the subject of revival is raised. Finney is lauded for his zeal, the crowds he drew, etc. What so many fail to note is that Finney WAS A HERETIC. Plain and simple. He denied the sinfulness of man, the death of Christ for the sins of man (he denied the imputation of our sin to Christ, and Christ's righteousness to us), and salvation by faith alone. So why did I give this book a five star rating? Because Messrs Rosell and Dupuis don't whitewash a thing about Finney--they give us the heretic, warts and all. There have been sanitized versions of Finney's memoirs on the market for years, but now the curtain is lifted, and we can see Finney's fishy theology for what it is, and from the source. This quote from Chapter 4 is significant: "[I could not believe] that men were utterly unable to comply with the terms of the Gospel, to repent, to believe, or to do anything that God required them to do. That while they were free to all evil, in the sense of being able to commit any amount of sin, yet they were in regard to all that was good. That God had condemned men for their sinful nature, and for this, as well as for their transgressions, they deserved eternal death, and were under condemnation...That men were passive in regeneration; and in short...the fact of a nature sinful in itself. These doctrines I could not receive. I could not receive his [George Gale, Finney's pastor] views on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the Will [sic] or any of their kindred doctrines." (pg. 48)

It should be noted that George Gale was a Presbyterian minister, and held to the doctrinal stance outlined in the Westminster Confession of Faith. That Finney did not hold to the WCF is clear from his account of his ordination:

When they [the ordination committee] had examined me, they voted unanimously to license me to preach. Unexpectedly to myself they asked me if I received the [Westminster] Confession of faith of the Presbyterian church. I had not examined it--that is, the large work, containing the Catechisms and Presbyterian confession. This had made no part of my study. I replied that I received it for substance of doctrine, so far as I understood it. But I spoke in a way that plainly implied, I think, that I did not pretend to know much about it. However, I answered honestly, as I understood it at the time." (pp.53-54.) The Westminster Confession of Faith, while unashamedly Calvinistic, still contains an understanding of justification that all major denominations would agree on; even those who would reject its Calvinism. Thus, for Finney to repudiate the WCF shows his flaming heresy.

That Finney didn't have a grasp of orthodox theology is evident from the assessment of George Gale after hearing Finney's first sermon: "When I came out of the pulpit [George Gale] said to me:'Mr. Finney, I shall be very much ashamed to have it known, wherever you go, that you studied theology with me.'" (Finney refused a chance to study at Princeton Seminary, claiming financial hardship. When he was told his tuition would be provided for, he still refused, stating that the Princeton grads he knew, George Gale included, "were not ministers that met my ideal at all of what a minister of Christ should be" (pg. 47.) (Why Finney consented to study with Gale, when it was plain how he felt about Gale, and Gale's theology, is beyond me. But then again, how he could deny all the cardinal tenents of orthodoxy and still be licensed by Gale and others is also beyond me.)

There is much more to this book than the portion I have chosen to concentrate on, and it is all interesting. I am just happy to find, in plain English, and his own words, evidence of Finney's heretical beliefs. I am tired of people accusing me of slander when I charge Finney with heresy; now I can prove it. This book is full of fascinating history, bad theology, and juicy narrative. If you are a Finney fan or foe, you should read this book--you won't be disappointed.

I first read Finney's Memoirs when I was around 18, and it ignited within me a passion for revival that has not ceased. This edition, with all of its additions and footnotes, makes the Memoirs even more exciting.

Finney was used of God to birth revivals through intercessory prayer and preaching against sin in both America and England. Someone has said that 90% of his converts stayed true to the faith (about 10% of Billy Graham's stay).

In his Memoirs, written when he was in his 70's, Finney shares how God saved him, baptized him with the Holy Ghost, and immediately began using him in the conversion of souls. Formerly he was a lawyer, but he gave it up in order to become an evangelist. He tells stories from various revival meetings, including the humorous (and awe-inspiring) revival in the town of Sodom, with it's one righteous man -- Lot! He also shares how the Lord led him to give a series of lectures on revival, which were later published in book form and used by God to bring revival in various countries, including China through the ministry of Jonathan Goforth in the early 1900s.

If you're hungry for revival and more of God today; if the state of the modern church upsets you, then read this book.

One Church Many Tribes is a deeply spiritual book that helps "white bread" readers like me to understand some of the greater universalities of our Christian faith. I strongly recommend this book for readers everywhere, and especially for those who live in areas with a Native American population.

This book is half exploration of the Native experience with the Church, and half examination of how a Christian life should manifest itself in particular cultures. Twiss gives a good general introduction to the spectacularly poor manner in which First Nations peoples have been treated as not merely targets of evangelization, but as believers who did not find the alleged brotherhood of the faith either very brotherly or faithful. It is a sad, disgusting tale, made personal by the account of Chief Spokane Garry.

It is the rest of the book, however, where the hope shines through. Here, Twiss asks the darn good question: Why shouldn't First Nations persons use their own instruments, music, dress, and dance to honor God? Yes, why not? He expands the argument to include aboriginal peoples all around the world, and it is actually applicable to any culture that wonders why it's being fed the Western way as the alleged way things are to be done. He developes a careful, Biblically sensitive mindset on how to think through these issues, such that one can disassociate cultural items from an original context that may not have been consonant with Biblical values, and give them new life in the Christian worldview. It is a great vision of Christ transforming culture. When this type of thinking catches on around the world, the kingdom will grow in leaps and bounds. For anyone who feels their culture, or subculture, has been stepped on by middle-class Western values that someone has tried to hide in God's mouth, this book will help set you free to drum, create, dance, and dress in ways that both make sense to your people and honor your God.

...at how balanced this work is. Twiss does an admirable job of presenting a coherent and sensitive biblical viewpoint on the cultural influences on both Scripture - which he obviously holds in high regard - and our theologizing. This allows the reader to have a greater understanding of how cultural blind spots exist in our theological and religious thinking. At the same time, the author explores both the possibility and desireability of cultural awareness, sensitivity and incorporation into our theology and church's (or messianic synagogue's) life.

For the inexperienced church choir director, this book is a godsend. Very little instruction in how to wave your arms, but jam-packed with information on how to do the thousands of other things that choir directors have to do. To quote the book, "It's not enough just to be a good musician.... A church choir director must be a conductor, a coach, a teacher, a pastor, a dictator, a diplomat, a salesperson, a promoter, a cheerleader, a caregiver, a people person, an idea person, an organizer, a singer, and oh yes, a musician."
This little book has dozens of ideas on how to keep the energy and spirit and joy in a church choir. I used a dozen little Post-It tabs to mark places I wanted to re-read. Highly recommended.
For actual conducting technique, I recommend Choral Conducting: Focus on Communication, by Harold A. Decker and Colleen J. Kirk.

About 3½ years ago, I was suddenly placed in charge of a small choral group of nine people. This saved me a lot of time and energy. Many of my fears, were mentioned in the first chapter. The book is encouraging and insightful because it deals with problems and solutions you will have to deal with as a music minister in your church.

If you're starting and don't have much experience this will be a great book to help you over the learning curve.

If you've been doing choir for a while, this will encourage you with some of the best ideas concerning music ministry. I've re-read the book as a refresher and truly feel like the fire has been restarted.

I found this to be the most inspiring book I found that is written specifically for a new choirmaster.

It doesn't get too technical. It offers unusual suggestions for getting your choir out of its established rut. It prepares you for the emotional issues that will arise.

I read "The Wednesday Night Workout" the summer before I took the reins of our choir and found it to be VERY helpful. I began the new choir season organized, innovative and armed with humor.

I agree with Diana that the book well written and gives a sobering account of the future of Proestants and the Disciples of Christ, in particular. Not a hard read at all!

This is a readable book that is hard to put down if you are interested in the future of Christianity. Hamm helps us understand the differences in how various generations approach organized religion. He states that North America is the area of the world most in need of missionary work at this time. Even though his focus is the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), I think most of the book is relevant to all the mainline Protestant denominations. I am a lay person interested in this topic and found the book quite understandable.

Madden's book is essentially the only source for a comprehensive history of South Carolina's Catholics and it is certainly excellent by any standard. I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in a very small, but important part of South Carolina History.

This account continues to be a valuable resource and reference for historians studying the history of the Catholic Church in S.C. Because it is one of the few, written and published to date. It has been a tremendous help to the Diocesan Archives and individuals with catholic history archival interest.

This is a really meaty book, with lots and lots of good, solid scholarship. Some of the articles are path-breaking; all are rewarding.

Articles by S. Kent Brown, David B. Honey and Michael P. Lyon, Victor L. Ludlow, Lousi Midgley, Marian Robertson Wilson, John L. Sorenson, John F. Hall, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Hugh W. Nibley (The Last Days, Then and Now), Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks, David Rolph Seely and Jo Ann H. Seely, Andrew C. Skinner, Richard D. Draper, C. Wilfred Griggs, Kent P. Jackson, Daniel C. Peterson, and Stephen D. Ricks.

Can't ask for authors better than these...

The sections include Book of Mormon Studies, Old Testament Studies and Ancient History, and New Testament Studies and Early Christian History.

I got it for the article on Leroy Robertson's Oratorio from the Book of Mormon.

Richard Gula's book is a concise, clear, and complete examination of the moral issue of Euthanasia. It deals with issues such as Autonomy and the Common Good. It was especially helpful to me as a care giver for a member of my family who was suffering and dying of cancer. It helped me to clarify the issues and to answer many of my questions and the questions of others in my family. More importantly, it motivated me to read the Word of God and to enter into a deeper prayer with the Lord. This book is easily understandable to the layman and also meets the needs for academic research. It is a book I have read more than once and will continue to read.

This was an excellent book that helped to clarify the issues related to hastening death and allowing to die from the Catholic perspective. One is euthansia and one is not. An important book to read for anyone considering a living will or dealing with issues of death and dying. Simple and concise.

This is a wonderful Christian (Catholic) book written by a Jesuit scholar. It came highly recommended by my Spiritual Director. I found it to be life-changing. So, I highly recommend it if you are ready to be challenged! Overall, Richard Hauser, SJ, encourages the reader to rethink or think about his/her current model of spirituality. He discusses with great detail the model that Christ lives within us. This is a concept taught more in Eastern religions, but has Biblical basis. According to Hauser, many of us miss this Biblical truth because it is unfamiliar to us in the West since we were raised to think Christ is outside of us and we have to reach out to please Him. From the discussion in the book, including diagrams, Hauser helps the reader see the difference and encourages us to live our life with Christ within, rather than striving to please an external God. A very subtle difference, yet highly empowering!

Hauser's "In His Spirit" is the wisest and richest reflection on the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives that I've ever read. Drawing on scripture, Merton's insights into contemplation, Maslow's psychology of self-actualization, and frank personal anecdotes, Hauser helps the reader better appreciate (1) that the divine Spirit indwells each and every human being--all of us, as it were, participate in the Pentecost event; (2) that as a consequence the deepest stirrings of our selves can be trusted; and (3) that the key to a living spirituality is an ever more intentional cooperation with the unifying, enlightening, and enabling Spirit within. I can think of only one or two other books written within the last twenty years that have provoked more thought (and gratitude!) in me than this one. I also strongly recommend two follow-up books on the Spirit written by Hauser: "Moving in the Spirit" and "Finding God in Troubled Times." Taken together, the three volumes of this trilogy can change your life.