The Bookshelf

in Bear Witness, Nurture Community

Mission Ready Friendship

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"Mission Ready Friendship: A Blueprint for Deeper Relationships and Life-Changing Faith" by Jason J. Simon spells out simple and incremental practices any Catholic can use to develop deeper, more purposeful friendships. Whether we know it or not, we all have family members or friends who are fighting hidden battles of doubt, alienation, isolation, guilt, compulsions, grief, or hopelessness. But often we don’t know exactly how to offer the Good News of Jesus to them in these struggles—at least not beyond offering our “thoughts and prayers.” Mission-Ready Friendship is a roadmap for how to truly befriend your friends, not by solving their problems for them but by going deeper to become the friend Jesus created you to be.

You will learn how to

  • become more invested, curious, and empathetic toward others;
  • pray for the people God has placed in your life;
  • be ready for the ways God is prompting you to build deeper friendships; and
  • bring intentionality to your relationships to accompany them closer to God.

Jesus himself used these practices with his followers and sent each of them to use mission-ready friendship to share his good news with others. It’s a simple but powerful approach to relationships that promises to change lives, including your own.

 
Posted by Jill Fischer
Tags: community, jesus, good news, witness, friendship, evangelization
in Prayer, Faith

Wasting Time with God

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At first, the book "Wasting Time with God," by Klaus Issler seemed slow moving, but thank goodness, I continued. The book became deeper the more I read, or maybe I became deeper the more I read.

This is a bit longer read, but still easy to spend short times with. Stick with it, the book builds on itself. The title intrigued me. It spends time addressing experiencing God in leisure. The foreword tells you what to expect. I wish I had paid more attention to it. It says the book may catch you off balance, and it did that to me.

I highlight things that impress me when I read. The chapter I highlighted most in this book is the beginning chapter, The Quest. This chapter asks, what are you looking for…which reminds me that same question on Holy Thursday on the Mount of Olives. The author does use some diagrams that may make the book seem more scientific, but don’t let that dissuade you. The author also takes you through friendship, humility, and faith as necessary virtues to develop as we spend time with God. He speaks of the need to become more “mature” in our capacity to know and be friends with God. As we do that, it becomes natural to want to just “waste time” with this God, we love.

The book is divided into two parts and if you stick with it, I guarantee your relationship with God will change and you may actually want to waste some time with Him. 

Tags: faith, god, time, humility, friendship, virtues