If you liked.......Churched by MPT

For those of you who enjoyed Churched: One Kid's Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess by Matthew Paul Turner , here are a couple other books you might enjoy…..

My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood
by Christine Rosen


Born Again And Again: Surprising Gifts Of A Fundamentalist Childhood
by Jon M. Sweeney


The Christian Culture Survival Guide: The Misadventures of an Outsider on the Inside by Matthew Paul Turner and Stephen Baldwin

Enjoy! :)

Churched: One Kid's Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess

I've been reading Matthew Paul Turner's excellent book Churched: One Kid's Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess by Matthew Paul Turner. I finished it last night. It was a quick read, but it kept dragging me down rabbit trails of memories. I could so relate to this book. I love Matthew's humor and ability to express and expose the absurdity of things without being offensive.

However, while I found the book engaging and quite entertaining, I was quite surprised at the emotions the book invoked in me. Wow.

I felt the fear - the fear used to motivate. I felt the judgment. I felt the stress of having to look perfect. The anxiety that I might do something wrong and be rejected or reprimanded. I literally felt that. I thought I escaped it, but apparently it still has some power over me. And that is scary!

A whole range of emotions came flooding back as I read Churched! Yes, it was funny - at times laugh out loud funny. Unbelievable, and outrageously funny. This can so not be true funny! Yet I felt humiliated. Like people, (myself included) were laughing at me. I thought I had escaped all that! I had even passed on those same kind of silly stories and laughed at our hubris. Our superiority.
How absurd it all sounded. How stupid. How crazy.
Yet how familiar, how normal.......

I don't know what else to say. Or how to say it. I'm uncomfortable. Exposed. Some pages brought tears. It's amazing how deeply ingrained in me this is. Even though it's crazy, weird and not logical, it's........normal?

With my new lenses, I laugh. I understand why, as a group, we were laughed at, made fun of, stereotyped. I understand why I ran. I understand the bigger picture. I see the absurdity. I see the shallowness of the rules. The audacity of having all the answers. I feel the legalism biting at my heels.

Turned inward instead of outward. Exclusive instead of inclusive. Judgmental instead of accepting. Perfection instead of messiness. Out instead of In. Withdrawn from instead of living with.

A black and white island in a Technicolor world.

Wow! This book is so dead on! If you are tempted to dismiss it as exaggeration, don't. I'm here to tell you it's not. So laugh, if you must, I did! And then reach out with love to your brothers - even if they don't return the favor!

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb

Well – summer is off to a kind of crazy start – between the doctors, the vet, the accident, and Kim, Chris and Kelsey traveling. Carissa is pretty busy working so I’ve been kinda lazy….
The hammock is a great place to read – when Cairo lets me.
So far this summer I have read:
Twenty Chickens for a Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood by Robyn Scott
Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk
Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch
Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith by Carlene Cross ( I really liked and related to about half this book – then it just became sad…and hopeless)
Turning Tables by Heather MacDowell and Rose MacDowell
The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection by Gordon Ramsay

So, now I have to decide what to read next. More Theroux? Some classics, like Proust, Sinclair or Tolstoy ? Victoria Rowell’s memoir? A book by Lisa Samson or Jo Kadlecek? Or Matthew Paul Turner’s Beatitude: Relearning Jesus through Truth, Contradiction, and a Folded Dollar Bill (while I wait for his new book Churched to come out)? Or something by Wright, McLaren, Rollins, Foster or Willard?.
I’m also interested in Lynne Hybels thoughts in her short book Nice Girls Don’t Change the World. Too many choices. Too many books!
Deep books, fun books, books to learn from, memoirs…….
This is supposed to be fun – not stressful.

What have you been reading; what is on your list for the summer or vacation reading? I’d love to hear your suggestions and recommendations – cuz goodness knows I don’t have enough choices already! ;)

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life." ~Helen Exley

It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle. ~Sutton Elbert Griggs

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. ~Edward P. Morgan