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That Happy Certainty - Gospel | Culture | Planting
Book Reviews

Dream Small by Seth Lewis – A Review

Written by who!?

In the Christian publishing scene it’s fairly unusual to come across a book where you’ve not come across the author before. By and large, a lot of the books that tend to get published have been written by conference speakers and large-church pastors. But Dream Small breaks with that trend. Seth Lewis? Who is he? Hang about, I don’t recognise the name as being anyone particularly extraordinary…

Exactly. And so welcome to Dream Small, a wonderful call to reconsider how we measure our lives, embodied by the fact it’s written by someone you’ve probably never heard of who is trying to live their life ‘dreaming small’. In fact, there’s a delightful line in the book where the author acknowledges, “I’ve got so much ordinary you could still call me extra-ordinary, not because I have something extra beyond ordinary, just because I’ve got so much ordinary!”

How do you measure your life?

In a sense, this is a book about what we count as significant. Lewis is a wonderful writer but applies his gift to share a powerful burden: to invite us to consider whether in our lives we’re longing for the things that God has actually created us to long for. As the subtitle puts it, this is a book about ‘The secret power of the ordinary Christian life.’

To give you a sense of how the book feels, in her commendation, author Jen Othman, describes Dream Small as like “spending an afternoon with a kind friend who brings you back to what’s beautiful and true.” I think that’s absolutely on the money. Early on in the book Lewis reflects on the seeming contradiction in the apostle Paul’s words to Timothy: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” (1 Thess 4:11) Applying this, Lewis compellingly persuades us to reconsider the priorities that our world encourages us to adopt – to see whether actually we have bought into a norm where effectively we are chasing after our own significance. Instead he longs for us to be captivated by something not necessary ‘bigger’ but most certainly ‘better’.

Writing beautifully about a beautiful life

Writing his name throughout this review makes me realise how the author shares his surname with one of the most well-known Christian writers from the twentieth-century. It’s a big comparison, but this Lewis’ writing does evoke similarities with his famous namesake. It’s a book that is a joy to read from a delightfully-put words-on-the-page point of view, which of course befits the beauty of the message. Lewis uses wonderful turns of phrase and imagery to help you fall in love afresh with Jesus and his ways. 

Dream Small isn’t a long read, but its impact could well be life-long. At the very least, you’ll feel refreshed, recalibrated and renewed in your desire to live the life God has given you, but using God’s ‘measuring-tape’, not your own. And yet be warned: this could mean a ‘radical’ ordinariness to the things you choose to value, love, and long for. Dream small.

You can pick up a copy from the publisher here.

–

I wanted to share eight particular quotations that beautifully or powerfully resonated for me:

1) “Having a Creator who cares about us explains a lot. It explains why we can’t seem to cure ourselves of the habit of caring about ourselves and the people around us – and explains why we feel that the things we do matter and have a significance beyond themselves.”

2) “When God measures our value, he doesn’t borrow our measuring tape.”

3) “As we move ourselves and our world away from God, we are like the embers flying up from a campfire – still flickering with the glory we were given, even as we slowly fade away into ashes and dust.”

4) “In our sin we tried to make ourselves as big as God, and all we won for ourselves was death. In his love, God made himself as small as we are, and he won his children life.”

5) “Our value is not derived from our actions, dreams or achievements, or buy how we collectively measure each other on these things; and yet it is secure – it is built-in, breathed in, by our Creator. In this light, the world looks completely different. Suddenly, you are free from the impossible task of dreaming up your own value and meaning. You don’t have to prove your worth with your performance in the classroom, or on the job, or in some area of talent. You don’t have to create your own significance with dreams that go further and reach higher than the dreams of others.”

6) “I can see myself as the author of my own story and dream the best part, action and ending that I can for myself, or I can see myself as a character in a story that is bigger than I am and align my dreams with a plot that is bigger than my life.”

7) “God came to save small people, because that’s the only size people come in.”

8) “Contentment. Satisfaction. Joy. Peace. Purpose. Meaning. Love. Aren’t these the things that big dreams were supposed to give us? They are, but the big dreams were never big enough to keep their promises. When Jesus turned the ladder of success upside down, he showed us that the treasures we’ve been seeking, and so much more beyond them are hidden in a field – hidden in his Mustard-seed kingdom that grows in the ordinary daily things of ordinary life, the things the world keeps overlooking as insignificant. We thought the answers were above us, but somehow if we made ourselves big enough then we could mean something, and be recognised, and finally be satisfied. But looking up and climbing over each other to make ourselves as big as possible has only let us away from the very things we were seeking.”

–

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review.

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September 29, 2022by Robin Ham
Book Reviews

Four Fab New Resources for Churches to Celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

I wanted to flag up two brilliant resources for churches and ministers to use over the next fortnight…

  1. Platinum Jubilee Video from Go Chatter

This lovely video from Go Chatter picks up on the Queen’s own request for prayers for her time as Queen before her coronation, as well as using quotations from the Queen’s Christmas speeches. It finishes thanking God ‘for our Queen who serves her King’.

You can download a non-preview copy from Go Chatter here.

2. Queen Elizabeth II book by Alison Mitchell & Emma Randall (‘Do Great Things for God’ series)

We’ve enjoyed a few books from this ‘Do Great Things for God’ series of Christian biographies for kids. It kind of mimics the ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ series which you tend to see in the kids’ bookshelves of supermarkets, etc.

What I especially liked about this book was the level of interesting detail in the way Alison Mitchell tells Elizabeth’s story: from the surprise of her not expecting to ever be the monarch, to the different areas of her charity service, as well as fun little anecdotes that I’d not come across before, like when Elizabeth and Margaret sneaked out of Buckingham Palace when war was over to celebrate with the crowds. Emma Randall’s illustrations are bright and feel personable.

It ends with some snippets from her Christmas messages, a timeline of her life, and a quotation of Mark 10:45 – ‘for even [Jesus] did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’.

Full colour, full size illustrations are available to download for free enabling you to read the book in church, etc. You can also download a school assembly plan, as well as worksheets for different age groups.

You can pick up a copy of Queen Elizabeth II here.

3. Jubilee Object Lesson Set

This is interesting – not seen something like this for sale before. A set of visual aids (3D printed!) for your own all age Jubilee talk or assembly.

Available here from One Way UK.

4. ‘Rise Up & Serve’ Jubilee Song from Hope Together

A new anthem ‘Rise Up and Serve’ has been commissioned by HOPE Together and partners, and written by song writers Graham Kendrick, Mal Pope and the contemporary worship band Rend Collective. You could play the video or sing along in church.

More info and various versions, backing tracks and sheet music here.

5. ‘The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022’ tract by Roger Carswell

A short folded tract explaining about the Queen’s 70 year reign, using examples from her speeches where she talks of faith in God, and the forgiveness only found in Jesus. Written by respected evangelist Roger Carswell, it also explains that one day every knee will bow before the King of Kings, even the Queen herself. Available for 15p for one copy, with reductions for bulk orders.

Available here.

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May 23, 2022by Robin Ham
Book Reviews

Seek and Find: Old & New Testament Bible Stories by Sarah & André Parker – A Review

Our little ones absolutely love these two books, Seek & Find: Old Testament stories and Seek and Find: New Testament stories.

The husband and wife Parker team have created two beautiful resources for toddlers to engage with. Vibrant and fun illustrations by André are framed with fab ‘seek and find’ challenges from Sarah that help re-tell the story.

From our experience, these books are especially engaging for 2-6 year-olds. We’ve had hours sat on the sofa searching for ‘ten bright butterflies’ in the garden of Eden or ‘five lost hats’ as Jesus calmed a storm. I particularly liked how in the New Testament book, in each story you have to find Jesus, but he’s always given a different adjective, e.g. ‘find one kind Jesus’ or ‘find one risen Jesus!’.

As with these ‘seek & find’ style books, they develop sorting, matching, and counting skills – and children learn to play with them independently. There’s not many types of books where you linger on one page for an extended period of time, but in these you definitely do!

The hard-back format is great to hold and makes them especially durable for repeated use. They’re nice and big too – a little wider and a little shorter than A4 for each page. Accompanying activity books with colouring and other challenges are also available.

You can take a look inside the Old Testament version here.

You can pick up these books from the publisher here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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January 6, 2022by Robin Ham
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About Me

 

Hello, my name is Robin. Welcome to That Happy Certainty, where I write and collate on Christianity, culture, and ministry. I’m based in Barrow-in-Furness in South Cumbria, England, where I serve a church family called St Paul’s Barrow, recently merged together from two existing churches, St Paul’s Church and Grace Church Barrow.

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“If we could be fully persuaded that we are in the good grace of God, that our sins are forgiven, that we have the Spirit of Christ, that we are the beloved children of God, we would be ever so happy and grateful to God. But because we often fear and doubt we cannot come to that happy certainty.”
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