Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Book Review: God in Slow Motion by Mike Nappa

God in Slow Motion:  Reflections on Jesus and the 10 Unexpected Lessons You Can See In His Life by Mike Nappa is an okay book that could have been made great with a little stronger focus.  Based on the title, I expected lessons about slowing down and resting in Jesus' presence, which is a popular topic for books of late.  This is not what I got.  Instead what I got were ten bible stories, discussed in a chapter each.  The "slowing down" referred to a lengthier commentary on each story instead of being a theme of the book.

As I started reading, I adapted to that idea and then expected to see "unexpected lessons" in Jesus' life.  That excited me!  I love to read about the little things churches overlook about Jesus and leave out when teaching about Him.  That wasn't what I ended up getting either.  What I ended up reading was ten extended sermons on stories about Jesus' life.  While the titles of the chapters referring to each story sounded intriguing, the actual point brought out by the stories were things that I consider to be obvious about Jesus and His teachings.

So then, I adjusted my expectations, and thought, well, maybe what the author is trying to achieve here is a really slow, deep analysis of each story, drawing out details that we may miss.  As far as that goes, my expectation was about 50% met.

The one thing this author does well is draw the reading into the stories in places where they can question, "What would I do if I were in that situation?"  I could see where someone who attended a really dry, biblically academic church may see this as a breath of fresh air.  It could come across to them as a much needed injection of life to the scriptures.  For me, though, scriptures are already very alive and very real and this book just seemed to repeat things I already knew.

This book could use a serious refocusing.  Much of what the author writes is good and captivating, but with little focus beyond "stories of Jesus", the book falls flat for me.  It seems too disjointed and distracted.  I'm not saying it's a bad book.  It just could use some serious higher level editing.

This book was provided to me by booksneeze.com in return for my honest review.

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