I really like books; I like owning them, having shelves full of them, and reading them. I’m currently in the midst of four separate books between various small groups and my own personal reading. I started reading Frank Peretti at 11 years old and started collecting the Star Wars expanded Universe at 12; 17 years later my Star Wars novels count is well over 80 and takes up three shelves of one of my bookcases. I was obsessed with Christian apocalyptic fiction for most of Jr. High and High School thanks to the Left Behind books (but I won’t say anything more about that – except that I never finished the whole series). When looking at my bookshelves, I never expected for it to hold a book by Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz (which is going to be released as a theatrical film soon). JRR Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper, G.P. Taylor, Chuck Colson, and two series on Philosophy and Popular Culture (Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, Terminator, Green Lantern, Batman, X-MEN, Battlestar Galactica, 24, LOST) sure, you’d find those, but Donald Miller? Wasn’t he the guy that the “cool kids” read, those on the 21st Century cutting edge of Christianity? Yeah, that was way too “Christian Hipster” for me when I actually thought about it, and I honestly would have rather read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books if given the choice (which I own but haven’t finished).
All that changed one night a few weeks ago. It was a cold Tuesday night and I’d just finished leading a C.S. Lewis reading group called “The Inklings” (what else would you call it?) when I ran into my friend Andy. We hadn’t seen one another since the Leadership retreat for National Community Church a few weeks prior, so we got to talking. Before we knew it we got talking about dreams, destiny, and how it takes intense conflict and perseverance to make a good story (all in “epic superhero/comic book movie” context as well as some of my own life story). All of the sudden a light goes on inside Andy’s mind and he asks me “Have you ever read Donald Miller?” I said “no”, and I wasn’t so eager to begin. Andy began to explain that he understood my hesitation, as he didn’t like Donald Miller either, at first. It wasn’t until he read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that his perspective began to change (and he has now lead multiple smallgroups though this book). In fact, my friend believed so much that I should read this book that he bought me a copy and had it sent to my house. When that happens, you’ve got to give the book a shot because someone you respect sees it as a powerful vessel for wisdom, transformation, and change. So I began reading.
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