Monthly Archives: February 2015

Art, Book Reviews

Book Review: Culture Care, by Makoto Fujimura

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Culture CareI’m proud to have been a part of the Kickstarter effort to launch Makoto Fujimura’s Culture Care. This is a much-needed work for artists of all kinds to encourage, facilitate, and bring about a beautiful, healthy, and generative culture. Though artists in the typical sense of the word will find it especially insightful and motivating, Fujimura here expands the definition of an artist to the creativity found within us all as image bearers of our creator, thereby necessarily including businessmen, janitors, and all walks of life as equal participants in the cultivation of culture’s soil.

Mako powerfully and explicitly states, “I am not a Christian artist. I am a Christian, yes, and an artist. I dare not treat the powerful presence of Christ in my life as an adjective” (65). We create because it’s who we are, and we glorify God in all we do. In a commercially driven society that creates a thing and then the soon-to-follow “Christian” version of the thing, we’re all too sucked into marketing in a sacred vs. secular divide. A painting does not need to contain a cross to be “Christian,” nor a song mention any part of the gospel to be called the same; in fact, we don’t even need this adjectival language! If it glorifies God, it is beautiful and that for which we strive in caring of and for culture through creativity and artistic expression. When left in the hands of commercialization, art becomes something else, a mere commodity that is cheapened on so many levels. When “gifted” to the world for the sake of others—for the sake of glorifying God—then artists (of all kinds) will do more than fill an order, get a check to pay a bill, or simply please a customer: they rightfully care for their culture.

Weaving scripture throughout the text, Mako does anything but ignore our rooting in Christ as the motivation for Culture Care (both as title and concept), but writes and argues in such a way that should be convincing and convicting for believers and nonbelievers alike in working toward better cultivation. Though nowhere stated as a goal and purpose of the work, I see many artists discovering a window into our creator, the author of their gifts and talents, through Culture Care. I highly recommend it for all formal artists, those desiring such, and those who simply want to better understand how they are or are not positively, creatively, and lastingly impacting their culture.

Thanks for this one, Mako. It’s pulling me back into my artistic roots, and with healthy motivation. Blessings to you and yours on the farm—keep digging and cultivating all types of soil.

Book Reviews

Book Review: Fairness is Overrated (And 51 Other Leadership Principles to Revolutionize Your Workplace), by Tim Stevens

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Fairness is OverratedRight from the start you know what you’re getting with this book: fifty-two chapters, each roughly two to four pages in length, addressing a different principle Tim Stevens has observed and practiced—for better or worse—in his years in leadership positions. Fairness is Overrated (And 51 Other Leadership Principles to Revolutionize Your Workplace) is offered as a “take it or leave it” book of practical wisdom and experience. Few chapters are written expressly for churches and non-profit organizations, but much of the book can be applied for any leadership situation. Though the author and I likely differ in our ecclesiastical approach (I do not see the church primarily as a non-profit business, nor do I believe it ought to be run as such), I can still appreciate the value of some of these points by way of application in another. Of course, Stevens does not claim anything in the book to be a “fix it all,” of sorts, and encourages discernment in the reading and application of each practice, even to the point of writing back-to-back chapters that disagree with one another (because that’s what wisdom calls for at times!). He concludes that “leadership is not an exact science. If you do the same thing twice, it can be exactly right in one instance and the absolute wrong action in the next situation. Leadership requires prayer, discernment, collaboration, intuition, research, experience, confidence, self-control, and guts to take risks” (223).

Stevens hopes the book will be “a manual you will reach for again and again as you face new challenges” (xiii), and, “[w]hether or not you agree with [him], it’s a win if something [he says] creates room for your team to have productive discussion” (xvii). I foresee it being just that.

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. 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 Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Reviews, Theology

Book Review: The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, by Christopher J. H. Wright

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The Mission of God's PeopleFor those who’ve read the latter, Christopher J. H. Wright’s The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission should not be thought of as a sequel to his larger and quite dense work, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (my review here); rather, it might be seen as an elaborated point of that work written to be more accessible for a book series (Biblical Theology for Life), the writing of which Wright was asked to be a part. Do not, however, let that lessen your interest! Though there is certainly overlap—even quoting of MoG—this is incredibly insightful and convicting, even for those of us who have been preaching and teaching the same things for years. Since I deal mostly with students in these kinds of recommendations, my order of recommendation would be to read first MoGP and then MoG, with a few exceptions. For the more advanced, MoG would naturally provide a greater foundation for MoGP—and, yes, I’d still recommend reading both.

In Wright’s own words:
“If the basic argument of my earlier book, The Mission of God, was that we need to read the whole Bible in all its parts comprehensively to discern and describe God’s great mission of cosmic redemption, then the argument of this book, The Mission of God’s People, is that we likewise need to read the whole Bible comprehensively to discern and describe what the implications are for us, the people whom God has loved, chosen, called, redeemed, shaped and sent into the world in the name of Christ” (267).

Keep in mind that this is not a how-to book, but one of A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission. If in search for a “what to do when my mission program fails and no one is being converted,” then one should probably read this book for a number of reasons, though it certainly won’t provide the specific answer anticipated. Wright looks to answer, by way of several avenues within a truly holistic picture of mission, “Who are we and what are we here for?” A detailed outline is provided at the beginning of the book, making it easy for one to locate sections for specific material and lesson planning, though I still recommend reading it through in its entirety.

As I have read others’ reviews of this book, one concern that is sorely misguided and needs correcting is that Wright does not deal with our mission as expressed in the New Testament, specifically Jesus’ “Great Commission.” Not only does he address this tree (perhaps these readers/reviewers didn’t make it all the way through the book), but he does so by looking at the forest of the Bible in its entirety to better understand what that means. The reader certainly benefits from Wright’s scholarship in Hebrew and the Old Testament as he makes the narrative come alive and become practical and applicable for us all by understanding our story—the story. The mission of God’s people is the same from the beginning ‘til now. It would help to better understand our past in order to better understand and appreciate this great truth of Scripture!

Here’s yet another book added to my “must read” list!