Jeff McLain

This is a review of A Cry in the Wilderness by Keith Green. This book which released in 1993, through Sparrow Press, features twelve messages from Keith Green about what it means to live an uncompromising faith. This book was released posthumously, by his wife (Melody Green), compiling together some of Keith’s messages about an uncompromising faith. I grew up on the music of Keith Green, and early on in my spiritual search and journey, I read many of his thoughts. Over the years, I have read and reread his books many times. Keith was an individual of unbridled passion, unwavering commitment, and endless youthfulness. These traits and characteristics make him an encouragement to read, as the light of the spirit and the power of God’s scripture will come alive to you, influencing you to carefully examine our intentions, life, and commitment to Jesus. If you are reading Keith for the first time, each of his books are different, and for me it is important to realize that Keith is a musicia

This is a book review of How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy. This 2010 version was translated by Boris Dralyuk and published by Calypso Editions. As a read, How Much Land Does a Man Need is a short reflective parable from a classic was first released in 1886. This edition of a lesser celebrated work of Tolstoy, is in Russian and English inside the book.  Though not one of the most popular translations, Boris Dralyuk translates this short work of Tolstoy, because of the way it speaks to seasons that are “marred both environmentally and economically by the consequences of unbridled greed.”[1] To accurately translate Tolstoy into a modern era, his goal was “to recreate Tolstoy’s idiosyncratic voice with as much faith and color as possible.”[2] He mentions the ways he was hoping to capture the “subtly modulated version of what the Russians call skaz” that was utilized by Leo Tolstoy.[3] I agree with and appreciate the way Dralyuk explains Tolstoy’s work in this book as “a serm

For the past few weeks, I have been a regular guest on the Discovering God Podcast  that is hosted by Rip Wahlberg. This well done video and audio podcast is excellently produced by Blake Wahlberg, and covers a diversity of topics related to the church and the scriptures. It is the hope of this podcast to take aspects of discipleship online. For those of you that do not know, Rip Wahlberg and I have been good friends over the past decade. Our friendship formed as we both invested our time on the Leadership Team at the Lancaster Vineyard Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Additionally, years later, our family would settle for a season into Sanctuary (A Vineyard Church) where Rip was the Lead Pastor. In that season, Katie and I joined the Transition Team, and I also served on the Preaching Team. Though our friendship has spanned both of those shared experiences, it was in these collaborative efforts that we learned of our similar but also different approaches to church and the scriptures

This is a book review of Safe People by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. This book explores what it means to find relationships that are good for you and how to avoid those that are not. Cloud and Townsend’s book, Safe People , was first released by Zondervan in 1995 and has been released several times since. In many ways, this book is written in style that the authors also utilize in their New York Times bestseller Boundaries. At just about 200 pages, the authors explore their thoughts on safe people in three overarching sections. Those three overarching sections to this book are (1) what are unsafe people, (2) how to tell if you attract unsafe people and (3) then what it means to be a safe person. In the first section, on what unsafe people are, they look at defining unsafe people, personal traits of unsafe people, interpersonal traits of unsafe people, and how we lost our safety to unsafe people (or have become unsafe ourselves). Throughout the second section, the authors exp

Throughout the summer at River Corner Church , we have been in a series on the life and ministry of Jesus, as recorded by Mark. This series looks at the difference the Kingdom of God makes in our lives - a difference that is not only an eternal difference, but it also makes a difference in the here and now. I enjoyed preaching through Mark's narrative on Jesus. Mark's narrative on the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus starts with Jesus declaring that it was time to change our way of living and to live into the way that the presence, goodness and good news of God (the Kingdom of God) had come tangibly into the present (Mark 1:15). In each of the stories told by Mark, after that proclamation of Jesus, we witness Jesus demonstrating how God's Kingdom was making a difference in their day. The difference that God's Kingdom makes is more than just getting to go to heaven when we die. Through Jesus' inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth, God's eter

This is a book review of Leadership and the One Minute Manager (updated edition). As a read, Leadership and the One Minute Manager explores a situation approach to leading others. This book by Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi, was released through William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.  In this book, the authors explore the role of a leader in what they have trademarked as Situational Leadership . For me, Situational Leadership is best described as another way of stewarding one’s leadership influence and it leans somewhere in-between the models of Technical Leadership and Adaptive Leadership . Though the book was updated in 2013, it first was released in 1985, and I think it is fair to say that the type of leadership organizations employ and the type employees desire to see in a workplace has evolved considerably since this book's release and rerelease. In Patrick Lencioni fashion, the authors write this leadership book through the format of a

This is a book review of A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut which was released in 2005. Though, let me state that I am reviewing the 2007 release and reprint through Random House Trade Paperbacks. As I understand it, this was Kurt’s last released work before his death, though other unpublished works of his were released post-humorously. In fact, the Los Angeles Times is quoted as saying that this book “may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir,”[1] and perhaps it is just that - a memoir that has now turned classic for those who feel ill fitted in this contradictory world.   Though I have been familiar of Kurt Vonnegut as an author, I had not previously read  A Man Without A Country , which in many ways is one of his most classic writings. As I sat in a train station, waiting for a connection, this book was sitting on the shelf of a newsstand and it stood out to me because I too often feel  the lingering loneliness of being an ill fit to a context or era. This read has be