Book Review: I Was There by Chris Martin

I’ve finally gotten around to typing up this book review for the latest book from fellow blogger and writer Chris Martin. I hope you’ll buy his book and check out his blog after you finish reading this! 🙂

This was a great book. It told those same stories from the Bible in a new and interesting way. The first-person viewpoint is definitely a great asset in this book, helping the stories provoke emotion. The way Chris Martin develops the characters and draws us near to them makes you want to know them even better. I love how he uses the characters’ back stories to help us identify with them. It’s difficult to develop characters in the small amount of space available in short stories, and Chris does this wonderfully. His descriptions of the actions and emotions of the characters are also done very well. He tells the stories in such an emotional and thought-provoking way that you can’t help but feel for the characters. I love the way that Chris brings a new perspective to the stories he retells. I believe that these stories would even be interesting for non-believers. The only negative point of the book are a few small grammatical errors, which could easily be fixed with some extra proofreading and editing. Chris Martin certainly has a talent for writing that makes the stories and characters seem even more relatable. This book is definitely worth the read.

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Help! Again!!!!

Dear fellow writers and readers, and other random people. I must say this again.

HELP!

Yep. That’s right. I’m stuck. Again.

I’m not much of an inventor.

I’m needing some help from some creative, technologically-inclined people right now. I need you to comment and share…

Ideas for technology in the future.

And I’ll need to put them in my new novel.

Thanks to your help with character names, all of my characters have names that are either (a) made up, (b) are altered to fit the time period, or (c) sound like futuristic names. Now I need inventions for the future world. The only things that I’ve figured out so far are really, really, really tall buildings, hover cars, super-fast transporters, and lights that simply float and aren’t connected to anything. And I’d love to have you help me come up with more futuristic inventions.

Please comment and share your ideas! I need all the inventions I can get! 🙂

Is He Dead Or Not?

Caution: There may be a few spoilers in this post, or, if you’re like Sherlock Holmes, you could deduce spoilers from things I say in this post. Just sayin’.

Have you ever noticed that it’s impossible to believe that people are actually dead in superhero movies?

I’ll admit that the same problem occurs in other movies, too, and in books fairly often. Or is that just my imagination? It’s not.

Sherlock Holmes, for example. He “died” in the books, and he “died” on the BBC Sherlock show (Which I have not watched, but I know quite a bit about thanks to a few friends. *wink* And a past post I reblogged.)

And then, of course, there’s all those minor characters in the superhero movies that supposedly die but don’t. Sometimes main characters, too, like Captain America, although we know that something’s up from the beginning of the movie. You can almost never believe that people are actually dead in those movies.

But you know what’s cool? That’s happened in real life before, too! All those people that are raised from the dead, like Lazarus. (We don’t know the names of most of them.) But the best coming-back-to-life episode? Jesus.

Unlike in superhero movies, Jesus really died. And then he came back to life. He conquered our sin by suffering the worst death the Romans could invent, and then he rose again, conquering death itself. He love us that much.

 

Keep Your Mouth Shut

Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut,
and you will stay out of trouble.

Proverbs 21:23

Man, was Solomon wise or what?

Anyway, this is definitely very good advice. Watch what you say. Words can speak so much about a person’s character, and the words you say can reveal who you truly are.

So keep your mouth shut.

Smiles

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Luke 15:3-7

NIV

Then Jesus told them this parable:“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

The Rhyming Gospels

“If one has a hundred sheep,” He said.

“And one sheep goes astray,

“Will he not leave the ninety and nine

“In the wilderness today?

“He’ll seek until he finds it, and

“When that lost sheep is found,

“He will bend down beside it; He

“Will lift if from the ground.

“The lost sheep he will carry home;

“He will not count the cost,

“Will call unto the neighbors, ‘Rejoice,

“‘I have found the one I lost.’

“I tell you it’s the same in heaven.

“When one sinner God’s word heeds

“There’s more joy than for ninety nine righteous,

“Who no repentance needs.”

~There is much rejoicing when just one person comes to know God.~

The Church

“Who’s the church?”

“WE ARE!!”

Ah, the memories. So, anyway, one of our former youth leaders believed that those five words are very important, or to rephrase them into four words: “We are the church.”

The church isn’t a building; it’s the people. It’s us. It’s not the place where the believers come together: it’s the believers themselves.

Our church has recently been going through a lot of changes. We’ve certainly downsized, and we sold our old building. We’re currently in our temporary location, and our new building is being finished off. It’s been a rough journey, and it’s been a true reminder that the church isn’t the building, that it’s the people.

Challenge: Remember that the church isn’t the building, it’s the people who are in the building.