Three Books for Free
As 2014 comes to a close, I want to share my three books with you that I published this year. Instead of retelling my story so much, it has been very helpful to point people to my books so they can understand me better. So I am offering all three books for free on Kindle, starting Saturday 12/27 and running through the end of the year. Here are some quotes that tell what each book is about. The title of each book below goes to the free Kindle link.
Most Christ-like Heretics in 2014
Do you know what it feels like to be called a heretic? Well I learned from the best! Here is a quick summary of the most Christ-like voices among the heretics that influenced me in 2014. These voices and books have been a God-send on my own journey. I am grateful to have connected with each of them on Facebook.
This is My Life
“It feels like we are just floating in space.” That’s how one of my friends who left UBF ministry with me described how she felt after leaving. I can relate to this statement very well. At UBF we were tethered to the “mother ship”. But now we had to navigate our own path. We started making life decisions on our own, with no checking against our UBF shepherds for “God’s will”. Some of us made these decisions like this for the first time, even though we are all adults. How do you find peace and contentment when your faith community just collapsed in epic fashion? Where do you go when you cannot find a local church where you feel comfortable attending? How do you begin trusting people again after being betrayed by church leadership? What do we do now? Here is what I’ve been doing: writing books. The 300 pages of three books tell the story of my life. My life has indeed become an open book.
Blogging My Books
As someone suggested, I decided to blog some of the content of my two books online. Each book is about 100 pages, so I decided to just blog important sections of each book. If you are struggling as a UBF member to understand what is happening to your life or if you are an ex UBF member who is suddenly faced with post-traumatic stress symptoms after leaving UBF, I urge you to consider reading my books. There is a lot going on at UBF ministry that has nothing to do with Christianity or the bible.
Rest Unleashed – Narrative 3 of 3
The last and longest narrative in my book, Rest Unleashed: The Raven Narratives, is my story. So far, my journey has begun with considering forgiveness and the gospel of Jesus. I found a tremendous amount of rest for my mind and heart through those narratives. The most rest however came from telling my life story from my perspective. I refused to do two things when telling my life story. One, I would not spin tall tales and would speak as much as possible without any mask or pretense. Two, I would not cut out my ubf experiences and would not see such experiences as purely negative. I titled this last narrative: “Resting in my life”.
Rest Unleashed – Narrative 2 of 3
My journey continues by considering the gospel of Jesus. Narrative 2 expresses my seeking answers to one massive question: What is the gospel? I know the easy answers. I want a deeper understanding. If the gospel is so liberating, why do I feel so guilty all the time? That question spun through my mind day after day while at UBF.
Rest Unleashed – Narrative 1 of 3
Based on DavidW’s advice in his recent article, I decided to “blog my books” here. So I’ll present three articles for each of my two books over the next several weeks. Each article will mainly be a direct quote of some pages in the books. The theme of narrative 1 in my book Rest Unleashed: The Raven Narratives is forgiveness. Thus my journey begins with considering forgiveness. Enjoy.
Book Review: Fundamorphosis
How could he know? That question surfaced in my mind over and over again as I read Robb Ryerse’s new book, Fundamorphosis. How could someone I never met, who lives many miles away, who has an entirely different background than me, who is a Brown’s fan for crying out loud– how could such a person experience nearly the same kind of transformation that I have been going through? The answer is straightforward: God is transforming cocooned Christians in our generation.
Book Review – I Choose: Subtlety in Cults
When I heard about the new book by Isabelle Renaud, “I Choose: Subtlety in Cults“, I bought one on Kindle for my phone. This is a great read if you want to see a honest and sincere view of what it is like as a member of University Bible Fellowship. Isabelle was a member of a Canadian chapter of UBF around 1999 to 2002, spending about 3 years there. I was surprised that the author even shared her testimonies (the personal applications to Bible passages) that you are pressured to write as a UBF member. These were hard for me to read because it brought back so many awful memories of losing sleep, giving up family time with our children, and boring Friday nights that were demanded of us so that we could keep good standing in the University Bible Fellowship ministry. Like Isabelle, I remember spending 5 or 6 hours hearing testimonies late into the night.
What next? Four books
[Admin note: This article was modified on 10/26/2014 to remove one of the four books that became unpublished recently.]
Today our new Friend submitted a thoughtful, heartfelt and well-articulated article entitled “What next?” I want to share my response as an article instead of a comment because I have far too many emotions and thoughts racing through my veins. I am both excited and encouraged to read Friend’s thoughts. But I don’t want to go backward in my journey. I have asked myself that question thousands of times the past three years since resigning from UBF on July 4th, 2011. What do I do now? UBF shepherds promised to make my name great like Abraham, to train me to be a world-class leader, to learn how to be a Christian missionary and how to deeply study the bible. Those promises turned out to be a mirage for me. I have no idea and no authority to determine what is next for UBF ministry or people. What I can do is concern about what is next for me and my family. Here are my thoughts.
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