Remembrancy

Max on Life is a great resource for everyone, Christians who have questions or have friends and acquaintances with questions and non-Christians who have doubts, concerns and questions of their own.

Using the questions he has received over the course of his ministry, Max Lucado’s compilation of these questions and his answers spans everything from questions about our Christianity to raising kids, money, relationships and Heaven. Lucado’s answers are always rooted in Biblical teaching and sometimes humorous.

Answering questions such as, “Who Is God? How can I know what He is like? How can I trust that He is powerful enough to take care of me?”,  “How can I talk to my kids about sex?” and “My anxiety is affecting my health, family and work. Where do I turn?”, Lucado does not gloss over his answers. Instead, he shares Biblical principles as well as some personal guidelines.

This is a book that will be very valuable to hold on to for a guide of how to answer tough questions when they are thrown at you or even to go to when you are struggling in different areas of your own life.

***This book was provided to me free of charge by Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way for either a positive or negative review

I am a fan of The Food Network and the Top Chef  series so when the opportunity to review a book by a chef from Top Chef Masters, Rick Tramonto, came my way, I looked forward to it. Scars of a Chef documents Tramonto’s life from childhood through all of his successes as a world-renowned chef and then some.

Spending his teenage years struggling in school experimenting with drugs, Tramonto found that work was the one thing that would keep him out of trouble. From his first days in the food industry working at a new franchise location for Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, Tramonto details his education in food as he climbed the ranks of the culinary industry.

The book was interesting to me up until about page 200 where I was really feeling like I was just reading a chef’s version of name-dropping. At this point, I was also still waiting to hear about Tramonto’s relationship with God (which actually didn’t begin until late in Tramonto’s career).

Scars of a Chef is engaging and, as a bonus, the author shares some of his recipes at the end of every chapter. If you are a foodie or a fan of Tramonto, this book won’t disappoint.

****A copy of Scars of a Chef  was provided to me free of charge from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way for either a positive or negative review of this book

With the subtitle of “The Good News About the End of Christian America,” I was excited to read this book. I was looking forward to new insights into where Christianity is headed. Instead, I was introduced to all of the reasons why current Christians (lumped into five subcategories) are getting it wrong.

Gabe Lyons contends in The Next Christians  that the new group of Christians are those who submerge themselves in society and have the right idea, even though their mission is not to lead people to salvation. There is even a warning about this kind of Christianity: “The next Christians must be aware that operating in the center of the world requires a deep anchoring in Christ, a grounding that’s achieved only through means unbecoming to most. Otherwise, it hardly ever works.” The author even mentions his research but shares very little of the actual findings.

While I was disappointed with where Lyons was going with the book overall, he does share several practices that are instrumental to anyone who is pursuing the Christina walk. These include being immersed in Scripture, being postured by prayer and fasting for simplicity. All good lessons for any Christian to be reminded of.

I pray the next Christians don’t immerse themselves in cultural America just to say they did so. Hopefully, they lead a few of the people around them to Christ, just as the Great Commission calls us to do.

So, I was one of the lucky people selected to host a Coffee-mate office party last Friday. Feb 2 was deemed “Free Flavor Friday” by Coffee-mate. Coffee-mate sent me an awesome party package and my co-workers got to enjoy some yummy coffee and some great Coffee-mate creamer flavors.

Here are some pics from the party:

Thank you Coffee-mate for the great event!!! We loved it.