Since talking about friendship is something we’ve been talking a lot about around our house, talking about this new book fits my thinking lately.

Christine Hoover’s Messy Beautiful Friendship is available today! Several months ago, I read a few blog posts she had written. I liked what she had to say about the Bible and friendship and her thoughtful style of writing, so I took a risk to volunteer to promote and write an honest blog about the book. (I did receive a free advance copy for being a part of her launch group.)

I read it twice. I read it first for me, but then read it a second time through the lens of a mother and teacher, testing Hoover’s words for applicability in other arenas.

My readers will like this book. It’s a valuable topic, and Hoover’s thoughts are biblical and clear. A lot of Christian books are true but boring, or interesting without depth. Hoover’s writing is both true and well spoken. I wasn’t surprised when I checked out her goodreads profile and saw the diversity of her reading habits. Being well read may not seem to be a big deal to some people, but it can result in a freshness of thought that is unbeatable when combined with a knowledge of Scripture. Hoover isn’t simply repeating [insert famous author] from a woman’s perspective.

Here are the major sections of the book:

• A New Vision for Friendship
• Threats to Friendship
• Discovering and Deepening Friendship
• Being a Friend
• Receiving Friendship

A few places that I particularly liked::

In A New Vision for Friendship, Hoover challenges a self-centered mindset of friendship that plagues even Christians. Instead of searching for the one friend to be all in all, or trying to be the one friend in all for all, Christians must recognize that, first, Christ is the perfect friend. People will fail us, and we will be disappointed if we expect a “true” friend to live up to a standard that only God can do. Second, friendship is an opportunity to love others, not primarily a way to serve ourselves. If we do not understand a biblical mindset of friendship, we will be chasing the wind. I like that she starts by defining friendship in biblical language and principles.

Threats to Friendship tackles fear, insecurity, discouragement, and a lack of knowhow as impediments to friendships. These probably aren’t the only threats, but they are certainly significant ones.

“If fear lies at the heart of our attempts at friendship, our interactions with other women will be drenched with insecurity. We will be entirely unable to handle conflict, we will lash out at anything that brushes against our old wounds, and we will be quick to retreat at the first whiff of difficulty…This may be the way worldly friendship goes, but it doesn’t resemble anything we see in Scripture” (page 54).

“Whether from self-consciousness or laziness, we simply don’t want to have to take the initiative with other women… Instead, we should want to be seekers. Initiative-takers.” (page 71).

Discovering and Deepening Friendship is about ways Christians can find friends. In a way, she is teaching the biblical art of hospitality in these chapters. She encourages responsible transparency (authentic friendship). Chapter 13, “Friend Magnet,” was the first place where I wished Hoover had taken more time to develop a section. She seems to communicate that making friends easily is simply a skill one can be better or worse at. I didn’t see the nuance where different personalities have different styles of friendships with different strengths and weaknesses. For example, how does an introvert develop friends differently than an extrovert, and what can we learn from each style? I loved her thought about using one’s social gifts to bring new friends together. I’ve seen some of my social friends excel in this skill, and I’ve seen how it blesses the body of Christ. This idea is worth developing more.

“…Part of honoring others is connecting others. There is a special kind of joy in connecting two women we think will hit it off or who share a story, interest, or life circumstance. We don’t have to be everyone’s bestie, and just because we’ve included someone doesn’t mean we have to become their intimate friend. We can help foster community among women by being a bridge between them” (page 114).

I also like her suggestion that we take the time to list (or name) the different friends God has brought into our lives at a given moment. We have different types of friendships that we sometimes forget about, or undervalue, until we take inventory and realize that God has given us each friend for a reason.

“Naming [our friends] is simply a marker for stewardship. What relationships are priorities for me in this season of life, and how can I invest well in those? Am I stewarding well the friendships God has given me?” (page 118)

Finally, I appreciated her discussion on giving and receiving throughout the book, and the reminders that Christ is our Savior, not any person. We do not need to become junior messiahs for our friends, and our friends cannot be junior messiahs for us! (Hat tip: Bob Needham!) We don’t have to solve our friends’ problems to be good friends. Far more often than solving problems, we can be listening, praying, and helping.

 

Yes, this would be a great book for discussion or a book club! In fact, this book is perhaps best read in community, because of the richness different cultures, personalities, and life seasons bring to a group.

Would it be good for kids? This is a little more tricky. The content is sound, and biblical principles are inherently universal and diverse, transcending personality, age, and station in life. However, the examples and stories Hoover tells are of adult women, so teens may not be especially drawn to the content. At the same time, the topic itself, the book organization, and the study questions are all relevant to a wider audience. I hope she’ll consider a young readers edition in the future.

Go check out her blog Grace Covers Me, or read the introduction of her book here.

Here’s an Amazon link if you’d like to buy one!

 

 

Everyone’s talking about refugees these days. I’m not sure people are doing anything differently, but since it’s a part of the discussion, I wanted to share a short list of children’s novels about refugees that I have read and enjoyed. Most I have shared with my children, and they have been received well. Several of them won Newbery honor awards. Almost all are written by Newbery winning authors. They all have a positive world view, although none are religious.

Why teach through books? Reading novels with our children is a good starting point for understanding and empathy. Most of our children live safe and sheltered lives, and although we wouldn’t want it any other way, we still want to help them reach out to others in need. I want my children’s hearts to be full of compassion. I want them asking how they can meet the needs around them. For me, this goal is not dependent on what my government chooses to do about refugees. I can ALWAYS find someone to love!

Do you have any books that you would add?

The Road from Home: A True Story of Courage, Survival and Hope by David Kherdian. Real life story of the author’s mother who escaped the Armenian genocide in the 1910s. This is one that I would give to junior high or high school students. Many people don’t realize that Hitler watched the lack of global response to the Armenian genocide, and referenced it when justifying his own plans.

The Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson. About an Albanian family living in Kosovo in the 1990s.

The Long Walk to Water by Linda Park is about a boy and a girl in Sudan. Park alternates between Nya in 2008, and Salva in 1985. This is a good one to read aloud, and it works well with a variety of ages.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. Lai tells the story of a refugee from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.  I really liked this one. It’s probably the best on my list at communicating the wide variety of emotions of a child in a new country.

Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo by Zlata Filipovic. This is an edited diary of 12 year old girl in Sarajevo during 1991-1993. It’s of interest because it is a first-person non-fictional story from a refugee child.

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle. This is a story in poems about refugees living in the jungle of Cuba, and well worth the time to read. It gave me a strong desire to learn more about the history of Cuba. The introduction states: “On October 10, 1868, a handful of Cuban plantation owners freed their slaves and declared independence from Spain. Throughout the next three decades of war, nurses hid in jungle caves, healing the wounded with medicines made from wild plants. On Februrary 16, 1896, Cuban peasants were ordered to leave their farms and villages. They were given eight days to reach “reconcentration camps” near fortified cities. Anyone found in the countryside after eight days would be killed. My great-grandparents were two of the refugees.”

The Moved Outers by Florence Crannell Means. This is about the Japanese internment during World War 2 in the States. It won a Newbery Honor award, and was published in 1945. It’s a good book, but thematically going to be received best by a teen audience. (There are several good picture books for children on this topic. This is one of the few novels.)

Finally, I have long admired The Arrival by Shawn Tan. It’s a book that tells the story in pictures better than he could have in words. If you have children or teens who are sensitive to pictures, or enjoy graphic novels, this one is excellent for discussion.

 

One of the books I read from my parents’ library while I was in California was Dream Big, a biography of an influential Christian educator named Henrietta Mears.

Mears was a single woman who organized and led a large Sunday school program in California during the thirties and forties. She saw the need for teachers to understand child development. She was passionate about teaching Bible-saturated lessons to children and college students. She was a relentless soul winner. And she was committed to reproducing herself, and teaching others how to do the same.

I found it motivating as I consider ways I pass on a close walk with God to my children. Thankfully, Dream Big spends a great deal of time on her approach and methods for engaging high school and college age students in the church.

Mears doesn’t really “fit” in a camp: She was unmarried. She was a Baptist who was hired by a large Presbyterian church to run their Sunday school program. She had a great confidence in the word of God, and yet was comfortable in intellectual circles. She taught male and female college students, but did not preach from the pulpit.

There is much to admire and emulate in her life. She had a walk with God that was marked by the fruit of the Spirit. I was challenged by her direct urgency in teaching young people God’s Word. She recognized the need to reproduce herself. I loved reading how she encouraged young people to attempt great things for God. I appreciated hearing how she undertook the responsibility of a Sunday school class. She prayed for her students. She visited them. She went looking for more, and invited them to join the class. As we’ve moved according to the military, we’ve encountered a great number of churches that rotate teachers.  It makes it so that nobody feels overwhelmed by the commitment, but it also dilutes the responsibility. I’m not sure that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

I was challenged as I consider the need for my own children to know what the Bible is all about. I was challenged by Mears’s initiative in making sure that students understood the process of reading and understanding the Bible. Her example causes me to want to ask more questions as I teach my children, to consider whether I’m teaching answers more than teaching them how to find answers. Teaching the process has the advantage because I cannot predict the needs in my children’s future, but the Holy Spirit has that job under control.

Finally, I am interested to consider the role that single adult Christians fill in our churches today. Mears took the initiative to reproduce herself and surround herself with other believers. She took seriously the advantages her single status offered her, and she was determined to make the best use of her time. She wasn’t waiting for the married Christians to invite her into the places of ministry. On the other hand, married Christians would do well to cultivate single disciples, and deliberately draw the single Christians into church life as a valuable member of church leadership. We need single heroes for Christ as well as married heroes!

If you’re of a mind to read it, you can purchase the book on Amazon here. Looks like they may be making the book into kindle format. That would be great!