one of the latest batch of books sent to me via the ooze was a real eye catcher. partly because it was on the top of the stack. it was "oh shit it’s Jesus, the relevance of Jesus without all the religious crap." i had fun showing it to many of our church staff and other laity that happened to be around (it was right before vbs, so there were quite a few people). i even started reading it myself. however, i have yet to finish myself and i’m not sure i will.. why? people keep taking it to read.

one of the first things that caught my eye with the book is that it has no publisher. i went looking for the publisher mark and found nothing. then reading into the book apparently no one wanted to touch the book. not even a self-publisher company. they equated it to ‘the shack’ in some ways that is was controversial enough that publishers didn’t want to touch it.. i could get that. throwing ‘shit’ in a title isn’t exactly literary norm.

however, in the youth office it has become a funny book for us. lots of giggles. so it wasn’t surprising that one of the interns showed his college friend the book during vbs week. she sat down and read it in one sitting, which essentially rendered her useless during vbs but she picked an okay day to do that. i told her she had to write me a review for it.. not sure she took me seriously… i wonder why?

she loved the book. the writing for her was simple enough (ie. no heavy terminology) and flowed well. she felt like the book made some good points that she could identify with.

i was intrigued to get past page 9 which is where i ended the one time i opened the book and subsequently fell asleep on the couch. but it was our mission experience week, not a whole lot of time to read when you are in my position. so in a conversation about books i said to one of our adult youth ministers "i’ve got a book for you" and showed him the book, which he laughed out loud at. then he took the book and i haven’t seen it since. i’ll probably see it again but not sure when.

i asked him what he thought of the book so far. he was less than impressed. "it takes some easy pop shots" which for him were not enlightening or challenging. at that point he was hoping for me. but he reads on.. i assume he is reading on. otherwise i’d like my book back. haha!