AS FOR ME AND MY CRAZY HOUSE BOOK REVIEWS

I’m stoked to be able to head to the Simply Youth Ministry Conference this weekend and teach two half tracks (4 hours each) on each of the books I’ve written.

• The first will be on Saturday: “As for me and my crazy house: strategies for the rest of your life.”
• The other is on Sunday: “Criticism Bites: how to respond two and even learn from your critics.”

Regardless of which one we’re talking about, I’m stoked to be able share some of my learnings with my youth ministry tribe peers and if you’re going, I would love to have you join me!

But as I was preparing these sessions, I decided to google my book titles and see what else I could find.  Criticism Bites is too fresh for very many reviews to come up. But I’m clearly not very good at this because in the process, I found two book reviews on As for me and my Crazy House that i’d never seen.  I thought you might enjoy them, especially if you’ve never read the book and were wondering if it’s for you or not.

Here’s the words of a youth pastor in Ohio, Jeff Beckley:

The overarching quality of this book is the realness.  The author’s transparency of his family life is both refreshing and re-assuring, that pastor’s families don’t have it all together, and it is as times crazy.  But, the book does a great job at providing insight of developing balance with family and ministry.

You know it is a good book when there are statements or ideas that will be lifelong “sticks”.  What I mean by “sticks” is these are things that I hope to do within my lifetime, or within the time my children are still in my home.  Examples would be the “moving of the fulcrum” on page 94, or turning off the cell phone and turning attention to the kids, finding a mentor, dating your wife, one-on-one time with your kids, the long distance race of parenting…just to name a few.  You may read this list and think those are all no brainers…yeah, but don’t you want practical ways to accomplish all those things.  This book will provide that for you, with humor and realness!

… you can read the rest of the review on his site here.

Here’s another one from another youth pastor in Ohio, Austin McCann.  No idea if they know each other, it’s a big state- really big on an election year.  Ha!  Anyway, he writes in part:

I’m not exaggerating when I say this, but this has been one of the best student ministry books I have ever read. That may come as a surprise to many because this book doesn’t reveal “the next big youth ministry model” or “a new creative way to reach students.” It’s simply a book that focuses on something so much more important than all of that-the spiritual and emotional health of yourself as the student pastor and your family. I absolutely love this because I believe the student pastor being where he needs to be spiritually, emotionally, physically, is the most important aspect of student ministry. Events, Bible studies, games, etc. can wait, making sure you are the student pastor God called you to be is more important.

..you can read the rest of his review on his site here.

Lastly, you might want to note that the publisher recently changed the subtitle of the book from “Guarding your heart, marriage, and family from the demands of youth ministry” to “Guarding your heart, marriage, and family from busy life”.  It really doesn’t reflect any changes in the book itself, but there is a subtle shift that removed the words “youth ministry” from the subtitle.  This was not prompted by the youth ministry world, but rather by the overwhelming feedback from those who read the book outside of that profession that said they didn’t think this was only for youth ministers, but rather for anyone whose is married and raising kids in the midst of a CRAZY schedule and demands.

So, if you want a copy or to send some to people trying to love God, their spouse & their kids in the midst of the crazy, well feel free to grab one in the side bar and we’ll get it shipped to you ASAP!