I had the pleasure of hearing Bailey Heard speak at a retreat on living a legacy. She is the widow of Andrew Heard, author of A Gray Faith: Walking Through the Dark Parts of This Life. You might visit her blog at baileyheard.com. Her story, cased around the loss of her husband after just a few years of marriage introduced me to Andrew.

Andrew passed away at age 30 of metastasized cancer. A Gray Faith is written during his illness. They are the couple who appear to have it all. Until he received the news that he has terminal cancer with an 8-month prognosis. With a masters in divinity, you might expect a more intellectual approach, but I think you find a man who had questions, who wanted to love God, was afraid and sad, but who searched honestly for answers knowing that some might not be answered this side of heaven.

I finished Jen Hatmaker’s book, Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity this morning. Her writing style seems similar to mine – a little sarcastic, a little crazy. It’s one of those books that you want to buy a whole case of and hand out to people. At least it was for me.

Jen’s name started showing up first when a friend mentioned her blog, www.jenhatmaker.com, then I saw an ad for their HGTV show, My Big Family Renovation, and then someone mentioned her books and even last week an excellent post about raising brave children from Women of Faith showed up in my Inbox. So I’m considering this Divine Suggestion.

Jen’s not the regular pastor’s wife-again that voice is a bit sarcastic-but you cannot fault her heart for Jesus and her obvious love for “poor people”. Even Jen recommends this book over some of her others (which I’ll be reading) as the “most relevant and vital to my generation”. Interrupted broke my heart with some statistics about where today’s church looks to be headed: “…roughly 62 percent of all unchurched adults were formerly churched…approximately half of all American churches did not add one new person through conversion growth last year…94  percent of churches either were not growing or were losing ground in the communities they serve…most outsiders are not anti-church (our gospel isn’t provocative enough to incite backlash anymore); they simply dismiss the church as irrelevant to their real lives since it seems mostly irrelevant to the people who go there” (emphasis added).

Don’t assume this is a “preachy” book. It so is not. It’s her journey, not only of a conviction, but of her heart. I highly recommend it. But be prepared. It may interrupt your life too.

P.S. I’ll find something written by Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution) too. Anyone who can preach a sermon that convicts 2 Texans to give up their relatively new cowboy boots to put shoes on the feet of Austin’s homeless and walk barefoot out of church one Easter…well, I want to read something he wrote.

I’ve been a reader since I was little and Mom took us to the public library for the summer reading club. I remember walking out with a stack of books almost as tall as me. I love books and I could spend HOURS reading. Who needs to clean house, really?

Several years ago, my sister and I decided to start a book club of sorts. We pick a non-fiction book. Then once a week, we call each other (she lives in Phoenix) and discuss a few chapters of the current book. I’ll share a bit of what we read and you can share your favs here too.

We’re starting Be Excellent At Anything by Tony Schwartz next week. Have you read it? What did you think?