It is a risky thing to review books written by friends. On more than one occasion, I have sent such a review to the author for permission to publish, mostly because the review was not 100% positive. I never want to embarrass an author, especially a friend. I recall the response when I sent a completed manuscript to a well-published acquaintance with the question, “Is this publishable?” and received the reply, “Not in its present form!” That would-be-book never made it off my desk!
Nevertheless, I have friends who write books! And they have a friend who reads and reviews books. I hope my reviews encourage the writers and push them to be better writers; and I hope my reviews guide the readers in their search for good stuff to read.
And today, below, I present three friends who have written good stuff. Not the best—I doubt any of these three will become best sellers; and I should know because I have written a steady stream of bad sellers; several have not even generated enough income to pay myself back for what I spent to publish them!
But these are good books, all three, and they are books I would never have picked up had not the name on the front been that of a friend. Well, except for one. That name is Russell J. Marks III which is a pseudonym for two people who collaborated on this book. Except it is two books instead of one, printed in one binding.
Book one carries the title A Heavenly Mission and book two comes with Seeking Common Ground. Together, they came to me as I, Messenger, and that title refers to the two presumedly angelic beings who appear through a computer screen and communicate with a certain man. They give him a big, bold commission that has to do with the global community. Mostly it is a discussion about religion, which I found so fascinating given the lifeline of my friend the author.
His name is Max Russell. We grew up together in school and church with a lot of both. “When I left town,” Max told me over the phone, “I never went back to church.” But those 18 years of church-based religion must have settled deep in his soul, because this spring, Max finished his confirmation course at the local Episcopal church and was confirmed into full communion! 57 years later!
Book two carries forward the story of the same characters, talking around tables at the local café. The conversation is focused on bridging the cultural and political divides in the United States. These dialogues were written before the second advent of Donald Trump, but they sound as if they could have been written last night.
It is the dialogue that is important, in both sections of this one book. And the one book reads as if it were written by American citizens, one, burdened by the issues of our day and, two, blessed by a community of friends helping them make sense of all of it. I don’t know how much of this book is autobiographical in nature; I can only hope that much of it is, not only for these two authors but also for many of us.
Alan Streett became my friend when we were both pulled into the Academy of Preachers (AoP) more than a dozen years ago. He was teaching at Criswell College in Dallas, and I was launching the AoP with ideas big enough for the million-dollar grants that were undergirding my work. “You can say anything you want in my classroom,” he said to me more than once. I had introduced my self and asked if I could speak to his preaching class, inviting his students to the National Festival of Young Preachers. We both knew the reputation of his school, and he was determined that the reputation would not inhibit me from what was on my mind.
Later, as I began to read his books (Caesar and the Sacrament, Songs of Resistance, and Subversive Meals, for instance), I realized he was already saying things in print that surprised me. His new book is certainly no different. Exploring the Paranormal: Miracles, Magic, and the Mysterious is, mostly, Dr. Streett’s journey into and out of these fascinating realities that exist on the edges of religion and spirituality.
How Streett got into it is worth the book, and the role that played in his conversion to Christ (and his call to ministry) even more so. Frankly, I have never heard or read a narrative to compare, and that alone made me want to take him to dinner and ask a thousand questions. Maybe he will write his own life story and make it plain. If so, he will give added testimony to his seasoned convictions about the subconscious, which he came to affirm as the deeper truth underneath all the “magic and mysteries” of the paranormal. Streett wrote about it so the rest of us would not need to walk the road he has walked. And I must say, in summary, that Streett is an extraordinarily fine writer.
About the time I was making new friends in Dallas I was meeting people in Washington DC, and one of them has written a book. Tom Nealley is seasoned both as a business executive and also as a congregational minister; now he can add author to that list of accomplishments. I have read his 2023 book Leading with Diligence: A Way Forward for 21st Century Church Leaders. I confess this: I worked hard to get into this book, but the further I read the more compelling it became; and by the final sections, on visualization and on vocation, I was hooked and could not put down the book.
Neally is trying to describe a fresh way forward for traditional church, and he is writing in the midst of, one, the largest decline in church affiliation in American history, two, the public and punishing division of his own United Methodist Church, and three, the worst health pandemic in a hundred years, wreaking havoc with gatherings of all kinds. Talk about a wilderness needing a fresh and compelling voice!
Except Neally is one who understands that “status quo” is the death knell of traditional church and he offers a way out, largely by turning to data (like everybody else these days) and calling us to use visualization as a technique. I really like this idea, which apparently, I also did a decade ago when (he tells everybody in the book) I invited him to make the very first presentation of his ideas at one of our National Festivals of Young Preachers!
Now, I am engaged up to my ignorance in yet another innovative thing, Sunday in the House. It is a virtual community for de-churched people gathered around my weekly teaching of the Red Letter Jesus. When Nealley unfolded his ideas in this book, I found myself front and center with the learners. I need what this book describes, and I plan to take it up with the author himself!
So there you have it—three books by three friends. I requested these books because they were written by my friends, but I am pushing them onto your nightstand because they have something important to say, something you may also need to read and understand and embrace. Let me know if this is the case!
