October 2023 MBR The Christian Studies Shelf

The Christian Studies Shelf

Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith
Bill & Kristi Gaultiere
Fleming H. Revell Company
c/o Baker Publishing Group
www.revellbooks.com
9780800742812, $18.99, PB, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Feelings-Thriving-Faith-Emotionally/dp/0800742818

Synopsis: If you have ever taken a personality test, you may have found yourself in enthusiastic agreement about the positive aspects of your personality, while the less desirable traits listed may have made you a bit defensive. Maybe you read up on a different personality type and wished you had more of those qualities. But the truth is, every type can get stuck in unhealthy emotional and spiritual patterns. And no matter what your personality, you have the potential to grow into the healthiest and most loving version of yourself.

With the publication of "Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith", Drs. Bill and Kristi Gaultiere use the Enneagram to lead you through a journey of discovery, showing you how God can transform unhealthy patterns of anger, shame, anxiety, and sadness into freedom, joy, peace, and love. Through eye-opening insights, engaging stories, and simple soul care practices and spiritual disciplines, this book offers an avenue to renewed hope and personal growth you may not have thought possible.

If you want to go from knowing your personality type to growing in wholeness, empathy, and faith, let the Gaultieres and "Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith" be your guide.

Critique: Exceptionally 'reader friendly' in style, organization and presentation, "Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith" is impressively informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking, inspired and inspiring. While from a Christian perspective and highly recommended for personal, professional, community, church, seminary, and academic library Personal Growth & Self-Help collections, it should be noted for clergy, seminary students, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.49).

Editorial Note: Bill and Kristi Gaultiere (https://www.soulshepherding.org/about-us) have been counseling and ministering to people for thirty years and are the authors of Journey of the Soul. Bill is a psychologist who has served in private practice, co-led a New Life psychiatric day hospital, and pastored churches. Kristi is a marriage and family therapist who has also served in private practice and church ministry. Together they are the founders of Soul Shepherding, a nonprofit ministry to help believers discover their next steps for growing in intimacy with Jesus, emotional health, and loving relationships.

Get Past Your Past
Jason VanRuler, author
Zondervan
https://www.zondervan.com
9780310367413, $19.99, PB, 208pp

https://www.amazon.com/Get-Past-Your-Facing-Connection/dp/0310367417

Synopsis: As Christians, any of us can get stuck in our struggle. Jesus came to set us free and give us life (abundant life) but while we believe it for everyone else, it's hard to accept his forgiveness and grace for ourselves. We continue in our old ways, living as one with no hope because we're afraid of failing if we try to get better.

But what if brokenness (the array of behaviors and symptoms that show us that all is not as it should be with us) isn't all there is? What if we can change?

As a licensed therapist and a man who's dealt with his own problems (including childhood trauma, alcohol abuse, drug use, and bouts of depression) Jason VanRuler understands what you're going through. With the publication of "Get Past Your Past: How Facing Your Broken Places Leads to True Connection", he offers empathy, grace, and a hand to hold as he shares from his own places of brokenness and his professional knowledge to help you:

1. Overcome the lie that you're the only one who struggles with brokenness
2, Look your brokenness square in the face and take small, doable steps to overcome it
3. Learn to love and be loved in your most cherished relationships
4. Cultivate authentic connection with those around you and with God
5. Find the courage to be vulnerable about your story and embrace the freedom that comes from sharing it

The life you dream of isn't that far away. But you can't stay where you are. It's time to embark on your journey toward healing. "Let Get Past Your Past" be your guide along the way.

Critique: Written from a distinctively Christian perspective, "Get Past Your Past: How Facing Your Broken Places Leads to True Connection" is a life-healing, life-enriching, life-affirming, and life-changing read. While also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99), "Get Past Your Past" is especially recommended for readers throughout the Christian community that have an interest in Christian Counseling and Spiritual Growth.

Editorial Note: Jason VanRuler (https://www.jasonvr.com) began his career in 2011 and has worked with many populations over the years, ranging from persons who are incarcerated to top CEOs, performers and artists, and just about everyone in between. Jason has extensive experience as a clinician, coach, and speaker and operates a multistate private practice. In 2018, Jason joined Bethesda Workshops in Nashville, TN, where he serves as a group leader and facilitator. Jason is known for his ability to relate and connect with his clients and offer hope to those who have felt hopeless. He has an engaged and rapidly growing online audience for his insightful, short videos sharing practical tips for psychological care, self-help, and healthy relationships.

The Catholic Parents' Survival Guide
Julianne Stanz
Loyola Press
www.loyolapress.com
9780829455175, $16.99, PB, 128pp

https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Parents-Survival-Guide-Questions/dp/0829455175

Synopsis: Raising a Catholic family is never easy, especially when it comes to discussing our faith with our children. Despite trying our best, sometimes we all need help addressing issues of faith respectfully, honestly, and accurately.

Written by author, catechist, lay church leader, and mother of three, Julianne Stanz, "The Catholic Parents' Survival Guide" is a practical manual for talking with children about how to navigate life through the lens of the Catholic faith.

Featuring an accessible question-and-answer format, Julianne not only equips readers with tools to help explain Catholic beliefs, ethics, morality, and faith practices, but she also prepares us for how to deliver this information in a manner that will resonate with children.

She addresses such questions as:

Who is God?
What is the Holy Spirit?
What happens if you miss Mass?
What happens after we die?
Does God answer prayers?
What will we do in heaven?
Why do Catholics pray to Mary?
Why can't women become priests?

In addition, each individual chapter includes key takeaways, notes for reflection, recommended resources, and tips for putting these insights into practice. "The Catholic Parents' Survival Guide" provides reliable information about the Catholic faith and parent-tested methods for sharing it with children.

Critique: A welcome, informative, inspiring, and thoroughly 'parent friendly' in organization and presentation, "The Catholic Parents' Survival Guide: Straight Answers to Your Kids' Toughest Questions" is especially and unreservedly recommended reading for every Catholic parent wanting to instill in their child Catholic Christian Values. While also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.49), "The Catholic Parents' Survival Guide: Straight Answers to Your Kids' Toughest Questions" is a stellar pick for family, church, and seminary Catholic Parenting collections and reading lists.

Editorial Note: Julianne Stanz (https://www.juliannestanz.com) is a nationally known speaker, retreat leader, storyteller, and the Director of Parish Life and Evangelization for the Diocese of Green Bay and a consultant to the USCCB Committee on Catechesis and Evangelization.

Hidden Price Tags V. 2: Works of Art
C.J.S. Hayward
C.J.S. Hayward Publications
https://cjshayward.com/books
9798376516492, $2.99 Kindle, $12.24 Paperback, $20.24 Hardcover

Ordering: https://cjshayward.com/hpt2

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Price-Tags-Orthodox-Technology/dp/B0C2SCMS2Z

C.J.S. Hayward's intersection of science, spiritual thinking, and technology receives an uncommon and powerful focus in Hidden Price Tags V. 2: Works of Art, which operates as both a supplement to his prior treatises on technology and spiritual thinking and a unique intersection between elements of Orthodox Christian works and an analysis of technology's impact on spiritual thinking in the world. Hayward builds a case for caution and outright abstinence as the ever-increasing list of new technologies affecting daily lives promises not only revised visions of reality, but impacts on spiritual thought and choices. This, in turn, reflects a more reasoned approach to choosing and employing technology's assets based on its long-ranging impact rather than just its artificial allure. He tackles some heady subjects, indeed: "'What is good for us as human beings?' This in turn includes 'What use and abstention from technology is good for us as human beings?' That question drives this whole series. I do not write to reason you into being Orthodox, but I would be mistreating you to use anything less than the best resources I know to answer the challenges of technology and using technology without burning yourself."

Hayward adopts a wide-ranging, freestyle approach to his subject, injecting analysis of such disparate works as Damon Knight's thought-provoking short story "To Serve Man" and Douglas Adams's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." These readings are linked with key facets of technological choice and perception, with personal reflection and group debate encouraged through questions that promote readers to link their literary pursuits with concurrent reflections on choices in technological employment (or deployment, as the case might be). Few other treatises would juxtapose subjects ranging from Louis Carroll to vaccines, Einstein, and Biblical scholarship. Few, also would tackle the wider-ranging applications of Christian Orthodoxy to matters of public health, mental acuity, and the dark side of technological developments. Though some might critique the wide-ranging nature of Hayward's connections here, indeed, their ability to enlighten, educate, and provoke discussion and debate is one of this book and the series' strengths. It examines a seemingly-disparate collection of artistic and literary works as they relate to issues of choice, spiritual pursuits, and ultimate impact.

Perhaps the greatest application of Hayward's rambling and revealing discourse will be to spark debates among younger generations who view technology as a given part of their lives without fully understanding the wider-ranging impact of their choices. In this, Hayward offers particularly thought-provoking food for thought: "Technology has its uses, but when technology is a drone, noise in the background that prevents silence from getting too uncomfortable, then it is a spiritual problem, a tool to medicate experience. And there are some technologies, like video games, that exist to medicate experience."

The title Hidden Price Tags comes with a caution: entering the book's title on Amazon and other places results in too many 'hits' for similar-sounding 'price tag' guides. Those interested in Hayward's specific book would do well to utilize the ordering link to go directly to his title. Libraries, readers, and book groups either familiar with Hayward's previous writings or interested in works that are heady, revealing, potentially controversial, and immersed in Eastern Orthodoxy's connections to modern life will want to include Hidden Price Tags V. 2: Works of Art in their collections and on their reading lists. Its ability to draw creative connections between Orthodoxy, modern thinking and beliefs, and underlying spiritual connections makes it a standout of vast importance to thinking readers.

A Canticle to Holy, Blessed Solipsism
CJS Hayward
CJS Hayward Publications
https://cjshayward.com/books
9798393853952, $5.99 Paper/$2.99 ebook

https://cjshayward.com/chbs

https://www.amazon.com/Canticle-Holy-Blessed-Solipsism-Selection/dp/B0C47YL4CV

A Canticle to Holy, Blessed Solipsism: A Selection of Poems is a selection of poems chosen by CJS Hayward from his "Best Works" series. It will particularly appeal to spiritual-minded thinkers who appreciate reflections centered on "embracing heaven and earth." This gathering of forces invites a form of spiritual inspection that reflects a quest for God and connections to religious service and perspectives. Hayward's quest embraces the fallacies and possibilities of spiritual thinking, and will prove both thought-provoking and controversial in many of its contentions and observations:

"the poisoning of our spiritual diet
has moved us
from knowing the mind as the heart that meets God
to growing and over-growing that which reasons,
so that it is at the heart of our lives,
in Christians as much as the atheist..."

From better understanding how frustration leads to spiritual revelation to receiving works that assume the perspective of God in interpreting spiritual roots and questions, Hayward's diverse canticles and free-spirited poems offer the rare opportunity to delve into the intersection of God and humanity to better understand the processes, paths, and promises of both.

Religious and spiritual thinkers interested in literary expressions of the search for God, understanding, and the greater gifts of God will find A Canticle to Holy, Blessed Solipsism both resonates in the soul and should be elevated to greater reflective discussion in book clubs and spiritual literary circles. Its inclusion as a mainstay in a Christian thinker's library would be appropriate and important.

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