I remember always being bored in history class. Perhaps it’s because Canadian history isn’t terribly exciting (at least, not the way it’s taught in our classrooms). But whatever the reason, it represents a huge gap in my knowledge.

It’s the same for many of us when it comes to our faith. Because we don’t know what God has done in the past, we have difficulty understanding and appreciating what’s happening in the present and future.

So today’s recommendation is Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.

Why this book?

There are a lot of really good books on Church history, but what I love about this one is how Shelley balances academic precision and reader comprehension.

His approach keeps us thinking practically about the information we’re learning; it’s not just about collecting facts, it’s about becoming a well-rounded, thoughtful follower of Jesus.

Here’s how Shelley explains his hope for Church History in Plain Language in his foreword:

Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia. The time between the apostles and their own day is one giant blank. That is hardly what God had in mind.

The Old Testament is sprinkled with reminders of God’s interest in time.

When he established the Passover for the children of Israel, he said, “Tell your son . . . it will be like a sign . . . that the LORD brought us out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8, 16, NIV).

And when he provided the manna in the wilderness, he commanded Moses to keep a jar of it “for the generations to come” (Exodus 16:33, NIV).

As a consequence of our ignorance concerning Christian history, we find believers vulnerable to the appeals of cultists. Some distortion of Christianity is often taken for the real thing.

At the same time, other Christians reveal a shocking capacity for spiritual pride, hubris. Without an adequate base for comparisons they spring to the defense of their way as the best way — their party as the superior party.

Finally, many Christians engage in some form of ministry without the advantage of a broader context for their labor. When they want to make the best use of their time or their efforts, they have no basis for sound judgment.

I am not suggesting that one book surveying our Christian past will refute all error, or make the reader a humble saint, or plot a strategy for effective ministry. But any introduction to Christian history tends to separate the transient from the permanent, fads from basics. That is my hope for this book among my readers.

A basic understanding of history allows us to appreciate what God has done and continues to do in the world, but also to better recognize the difference between truth and error.

What’s one period of church history you’d like to understand better? How would that knowledge help you better follow Jesus today?

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Every year, we make lofty goals about what we want to do in the New Year … but before too long, our good intentions fall by the wayside. Because I’ve got a bit of a (well-deserved) reputation as a bookworm, I want to encourage you to read a few good books that will benefit your walk with the Lord in 2013.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at books covering five critical genres:

• Theology
• History
• Practical Christian living
• Contemporary cultural issues
• Fiction

Why these five? Because we need to know Who we serve and what He’s done in the world. We need to know what’s going on in the world today and how to live out our faith practically. And we also need to cultivate a sense of enjoyment of the good gifts God’s given us.

This week let’s start off with theology.

While many evangelicals have a negative view of theology, the fact is, we’re all theologians. We all have ideas about who God is and what He is like, ideas that really do affect every other aspect of our lives. It’s no wonder, then, that in order to grow in our faith, we need to better know the object of our faith, Jesus Christ.

Here’s the first book I’d encourage you to read to help:

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

Why this book?

Knowing God is one of the first books I ever read that left me in awe. Packer’s insights into the central pursuit of the Christian life — not simply knowing things about God, but knowing God intimately — are a great gift to believers.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite passages in this wonderful book, about the amazing truth that God has made Himself known to us:

Perhaps you have been acquainted with the Bible and Christian truth for many years, and it has meant little to you; but one day you wake up to the fact that God is actually speaking to you — through the biblical message.

As you listen to what God is saying, you find yourself brought very low; for God talks to you about your sin, and guilt, and weakness, and blindness, and folly, and compels you to judge yourself hopeless and helpless, and to cry out for forgiveness.

But that is not all. You come to realize as you listen that God is actually opening his heart to you, making friends with you and enlisting you as a colleague — in Barth’s phrase, a covenant partner.

It is a staggering thing, but it is true — the relationship in which sinful human beings know God is one in which God, so to speak, takes them onto His staff, to be henceforth his fellow workers (see 1 Cor 3:9) and personal friends.

A few words of encouragement as you read this book:

It’s probably the most challenging book you’re going to see from me. I could only read a few pages in a sitting before I had to put it down and ponder, write a few notes in a journal, and consider what was said in light of Scripture.

It’s rich and weighty stuff best read over a long period of time and that’s because few books as worthwhile and faithful to God’s Word as this one. If you haven’t read Packer’s book, do pick it up and get started today. If you already own it, start reading it again and try to look at it with fresh eyes.

What are some ways we take the privilege of God speaking to us in the Bible for granted? What are some ways we can recapture the sense of awe Packer describes above?

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Working at this ministry now for all of eight weeks (when I wrote this), here is my seasoned perspective on the place: Compassion is filled with broken, renegade, ragamuffin, hopeless, and hopeful Christians. Just like you.

We spend most of our day caring for kids we don’t know, wondering why more people don’t do the same, and standing with one foot in a sea of desperate humanity, and one foot in an ocean of blessed grace.

The day is long with need and hope.

It reminds me of the story of Eutychus. After a long day, Eutychus went to a late-night church meeting with Paul as the featured speaker. It was likely hot in the crowded room, so Eutychus decided to sit in the window ledge to catch a breeze.

As Paul was preaching, Eutychus was getting sleepier and sleepier. He finally fell asleep and tumbled out of the third-story window, to his death. Seeing this happen, Paul ran to the lifeless Eutychus and “hugged him hard.”

“No more crying,” Paul said. “There is life in him yet.” Undaunted by the interruption, Paul told even more “stories of faith” until dawn! At dawn, the crowd dispersed with everyone, including Eutychus, “full of life.”

Days at this ministry are often long and hard. Every child released is a joy, and each release reminds us about the rest of them.

However, at the end of every day, despite our best human efforts, we still land in the hands of grace. I haven’t fallen to my death in my eight weeks at Compassion—although some meetings had me looking for a window. But, I have certainly felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted.

I remain so thankful that the grace that gives life to a young man doing his best while handicapped by his own humanity is the same grace that covers us at Compassion, a collection of messy Christians battling the “impossible.”

When they picked him up, he was dead. Paul went down, stretched himself on him, and hugged him hard. “No more crying,” he said. “There’s life in him yet.”

Then Paul got up and served the Master’s Supper. And went on telling stories of the faith until dawn! On that note, they left—Paul going one way, the congregation another, leading the boy off alive, and full of life themselves. —Acts 20:9b–12, MSG

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for your grace. Help us to explore the wonder of that grace every day and to be amazed by you in a new way.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the people who work for and on behalf of this ministry. As I was meditating on this subject today, something just opened my eyes, letting me see more than I had seen until now.

It just hit me: We are men and women working together under the single most important statement that a human being has ever made.

We are serving the Messiah, the Son of the living God. That’s who we are; we are one by this undeniable truth.

There are no boundaries for us, no impossibilities. We are unstoppable, and we have no parallel. There are no limits for what we can accomplish, no dream is unreachable, no land is unavailable, no person is out of our grasp, all because of the truth of that one statement.

This is you and me, men and women who have put our trust in this transcendent truth. This is who we are; this is our identity. We are His, forever bound to His mercy, forever in debt for His undeserved grace.

Isn’t this amazing? Isn’t it just incredible that all of this is ours?

We are the people who form a family. Men and women of God, fighting each day the good battle, united as one and standing tall on this powerful statement, trying to do the best we can so in the end we can say we did what we were called to do, to serve Him and those around us.

This is us, brothers and sisters united in one by His holy name, by His eternal sacrifice, by His faithfulness and love, by this truth.

We are imperfect people, different, reprehensible, sinful, but justified by the only one who is just.

We are one in Him, and as one, we live by this one statement: “He is the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” —Matthew 16:15–16, NIV

Prayer: Lord, help us to always remember that the reason for our daily efforts is that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and someday we will see you face to face.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Angélica Pérez Allende works as a Project Communications Manager for Compassion Mexico.

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I’ve been reading My Ántonia by Willa Cather, one of those books you’re forced to read in school then read again as an adult and realize it’s amazing. It tells the story of pioneer life on the rolling plains of Nebraska and how the pioneers faced hunger, fierce weather, and a totally unknown culture.

It brings me back to stories my mother told me about her mother’s childhood, growing up on the plains of Kansas and Nebraska.

My great-grandmother — perhaps I get my love of storytelling from her — tapped out her biography on an old typewriter, telling tales of what it was like in those early days scrabbling out a living from the hard prairie. Of dirt floors and bare feet and all too little to go around.

When my great-great-grandmother was just 4 years old, she was sent to live with neighbors. Her father had never come back from the Civil War, and her widowed mother couldn’t take care of all her children.

My 4-year-old great-great-grandmother was forced to do hard work to earn her keep. When her mom learned of how harshly she was treated, she immediately snatched her back home, determined to provide for her however she could.

Similar tales have been my heritage — stories of simple, hard-working folks who didn’t have much, but made much of what they did have.

One time, a co-worker from Guatemala told me that Americans had never known what it was like to be poor. I instantly thought of my great-great-grandmother, working at 4 as a domestic servant.

Of the countless other pioneers who scraped and sacrificed and barely got by, in many ways living a similar lifestyle to what millions of subsistence farmers still lead around the world. My forebears certainly knew what it was like to be poor — even if it has been largely forgotten by my generation.

But what stands out to me in reflecting on my grandmothers and their mothers and their mothers is the enduring pioneer spirit. The no-nonsense, “can-do” of the prairie that believes in the future, knowing that through hard work and God’s blessing, they could transform the dirt into abundance.

They lived in poverty, but poverty never lived in their hearts. Belief and hope were their sticking points.

I don’t doubt that there are many living in poverty around the world with the same hope for the future that my family had.

But I know there are also those who haven’t just arrived in a new land where possibilities seem to stretch as wide as the prairie.

There are those whose shoulders have been bowed. Generations of corruption, war and scarcity have extinguished the pioneer spirit. People who live by scavenging in dumps, who are closeted in oppressive slums or battered by unjust regimes may not have anything or anyone to tell them a story of hope.

They live in poverty and poverty lives in their hearts, telling them there is no chance for change.

It can be dangerous to make comparisons when it comes to poverty. Every individual’s experience is unique and different. But I think that in this way, my family never has known poverty.

God protected them from the hopelessness that creeps in from years of strife and claims the hearts of people living in desperate situations around the world today — as it did the hearts of many early pioneers of the American plains as well.

This teaches me more than anything else that poverty truly is a spiritual issue. It’s something that clutches at the heart and not only the purse strings.

That’s why more than just aid is needed. That’s why Jesus is the center of what we do at Compassion.

When a child hears the message that God loves her, that He sees her, that He has every day of her life written down, it changes everything. It changes the horizon from one of scarcity to one as wide as the sky. It teaches her that change is possible. It convinces her that there is hope.

Perhaps she even gets a bit of the pioneer spirit — the belief the future is big and God is even bigger.

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What is Compassion? This is a question I have heard dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. It was even one of the first questions I was asked during my first job interview for Compassion Dominican Republic.

Almost two years have passed since I started this wonderful journey, and that question still walks through my mind.

The blessing of growing as a member of a partner church in my hometown, and now having the privilege of serving them at the national office, gives me a wide perspective to answer this question, yet my answer is only a very short thought: I AM Compassion. WE ARE Compassion.

Each task, every step, each contribution, every role — we are all Compassion! All we are and all we give make a huge difference in how people’s lives are impacted by our common work.

Our lives take a different turn once we start to see right in front of us “that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). The smile of a baby, the hug of a child, the gratitude of a mother—there will always be different ways for us to understand this truth.

Truly, our work is not in vain. Praise our Lord for letting us be tools in His hands for the glory of His name and the expansion of His kingdom.

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. —Romans 12:4–5, NIV

Prayer: Holy Lord, it’s amazing how noble you are, as you do the labor in your vineyard and let us feel like it’s us working for you. Thank you for giving us the wonderful opportunity of serving you in this ministry. Please help us give the best of ourselves for the glory of your name. Amen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ariel Veras works as an IT Specialist for Compassion Dominican Republic.

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The nativity story has many incredible twists and turns, so wonderfully sewn together that people mistake the truth of Christmas as fiction: Bethlehem, the manger, the star, the angels, the shepherds, Herod, and so on.

One such twist was the coming of the wise men. Who were these people? Their identity in the nativity story is shrouded in mystery.

As a little boy in Sunday school, I wondered how they could have possibly heard about Jesus’ birth. They appeared from nowhere, yet they knew that the Savior had just been born. We might have no knowledge of who they were, but they had complete knowledge of what the story was all about—the story of Christmas.

The wise men entered the scene and suddenly spiced up the plot.

Today, I see modern wise men in this ministry. Here at the country office in the Philippines, visiting sponsors often just show up. They are strangers, but there is warmth in their presence, as if their sudden appearance is important to the “plot” that we live out in the field.

They come smiling, shaking hands, and giving gifts. I ask myself, “Who are these people?” I have no knowledge of their personal lives, yet they have a perfectly good understanding of the lives of their sponsored children and how we serve these children.

These modern wise men spice up the plot, and the lives of the children are changed dramatically. Hope, joy, and excitement enter.

The wise men in the nativity came to honor the God-child. You, our sponsors are modern “wise men” who come to honor the God-image in each child. You see what no one else sees. Beyond the poverty and hopelessness, you see the special person that God created in a child.

When Jesus was born in the village of Bethlehem in Judea, Herod was king. During this time some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. —Matthew 2:1, CEV

Prayer: We thank you, O Lord, for your gift of Christmas, which speaks of your love, your mercy, and your salvation. And thank you for people who keep Christmas alive by freely sharing their love. Please continue to bless our sponsors so that in turn they may bless the children.

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As we came out of the house, David, my boss at that time, and I were speechless. We had asked to visit one of the families who had a child registered at the child development center.

The leader took us on a short walk through fields until we arrived at some dwellings. They were built of bricks in the middle of nowhere.

As we entered the room, we could not believe what we saw: the remains of a fire with a tin on the top in the middle of the room, a mattress in one corner and a small rope in another where a few rags were hanging.

The father and mother looked at us. They had their two boys with them, one of whom came to the school we supported. Their clothing was just barely decent. Just as I started to take a picture, I noticed a small gesture from the lady, trying to straighten her sweater. Dignity is still so important, even in such dire conditions.

Once back in our room, David and I had a time of prayer together, not knowing what to say or just how to react to such a desperate situation. As we were trying to put our words together, a clear thought came to my mind: the nativity.

Even though we were there in January, that thought came clearly to me as an answer for these people. Jesus chose to come into the world in this type of dwelling. If He were to come back today, He may choose that particular place.

That meant a lot to me and helped me as we struggled to pray. We had been so embarrassed being among these poverty-stricken people. But I sensed that Jesus did not feel that way.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. —2 Corinthians 8:9, NIV

Prayer: Dear Lord, you entered this world as poor and reached out to the poor. We pray that we may be ready to become poor in such a way that the people whom we want to reach will feel at ease with us and see you in us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Vermes Pascal serves as the Sponsorship Director for Compassion France.

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It was a quiet, intimate dinner with Peruvian child sponsorship program graduates. To my right sat Claudio. This young man was very excited to be at this dinner and was fidgety to share his story.

His father died of alcohol abuse when Claudio was only 2. His mother, scared and drunk, soon left her four children abandoned in a one-room tin shack. At age 2, Claudio was an orphan, desperate for love and daily care yet without food, electricity, or hope.

A neighbor opened her home, and for a brief moment, someone cared. Claudio’s bed was a straw mattress soaked in urine that he shared with his sibling. Daily he scrounged to find food. Claudio was relentless. He became a survivor.

During his childhood years, he was bullied. Deep shame set into his soul. His playground was a rock pile cluttered with glass shards. His little body was cut up and bruised. Pus oozed from infected head wounds. As he tells his story, his excitement wanes; his head drops in shame.

“No one touched me,” Claudio whispered. “I was untouchable.”

When he was 4, his surrogate mother heard about a program at a local church. Though not a church-goer, she went to check it out. We smiled. The local church—the light in a dark community—rained hope into this struggling child. Claudio was registered. A new day dawned!

A loving tutor reached out to him. “She knew me, understood my struggles, honestly cared for me. Until now, no one touched me—but she did.”

The tutor bought a bottle of shampoo and washed his hair for the first time. She tended to his head wounds. Claudio cried, “She touched me, she washed my hair! She loved me.”

Now known, loved, and protected, Claudio grew up to know and love Jesus. Today, this child sponsorship program graduate named Claudio is a pastor studying to be a missionary.

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. —Romans 12:10–11, NIV

Prayer: Our Father, help each of us today recognize in a fresh new way the impact our lives have on others through the work of Compassion. Thank you for choosing us to be part of your holy work.

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I dislike the phrase “every parent’s nightmare.” It’s been so overused that it has become a watered-down cliché. Truth is, there’s probably only one nightmare that every parent shares…and that is the fear of losing your child.

Last week, that nightmare became a reality for the family members, friends and loved ones of 20 precious little boys and girls and six adults (who were also someone’s children) in Connecticut.

I can’t imagine what those parents are going through right now. It’s horrific. And you find yourself wondering how the world continues around you when yours has stopped.

I thought I was going to lose my 5-year-old son, Morgan. Friday night, around 9:00 p.m., he woke up from his sleep and said he was sick. He went to the bathroom and tried to throw up.

Then, without warning, his face changed. His eyes rolled back into his head, his body went limp, and he was unresponsive. My wife and I tried to get him to snap out of it, shouting his name, tapping his face, trying to make eye contact.

Nothing.

We started to drive him to the hospital. On the way, he threw up. I’m not sure he even knew it.

His beautiful blue eyes stared off into space as the fluid poured out of his mouth. We called 911 while we were en route, and an ambulance met us halfway and took him to the ER from there.

He stayed in this “catatonic” state during the entire ambulance ride. Within seconds of arriving at the hospital, doctors had him lying on a bed, with wires and tubes connected everywhere.

“He’s barely breathing,” one doctor said. So they immediately shoved a tube down his throat, another up his nose. They turned on the respirator to get him breathing normally.

And I lost it.

I was helpless. Watching my baby boy’s limp body on that hospital bed, struggling to breathe, and not knowing what to do or how to do it.

I was…weak. Impotent. And absolutely horrified. I sobbed. I felt nauseous.

Images of life without my son popped into my head. My world was being torn apart right in front of me. My wife and I prayed. We started contacting friends asking them to pray as well. I have not cried so hard in years.

Then, after nearly two gut-wrenching hours, he sat up. He looked around the room. Fear covered his face. The horror in his eyes.

He looked at me and screamed — as best as he could scream with a tube down his throat. As awful as that scream was, it was progress.

Five days and several tests later, Morgan is back to being a normal, rambunctious little boy. Doctors discovered he had suffered an occipital lobe epileptic seizure. The good news is, he’ll likely outgrow it.

And in the meantime, anti-seizure medication will help prevent future episodes. I praise God for protecting my baby boy.

The right doctors, the right equipment, his decision to get up and alert us that he was sick just moments before he went into the seizure, the call to 911 at the right moment…God’s fingerprints were everywhere.

Then I think about the parents around the world who don’t have access to ambulances, emergency rooms, EEGs, MRIs, CT scans and the like.

As helpless as I felt watching my son surrounded by doctors and medics with machines hooked up to him, I can’t imagine how helpless a mother or father must feel in the developing world where this type of technology and help is too far out of reach.

What does a family do, when living in extreme poverty, if their child experiences what my Morgan did? The answer all too often is, sadly, nothing. And many children are lost every single day. Thousands of parents who live the nightmare that I prayed so desperately to avoid last Friday night.

That’s why I’m proud to be part of the Compassion family. We have a fund designed just for this purpose — to meet the emergency medical needs of our sponsored children. This holiday season, my family is making a donation to this fund.

If, God forbid, a child in one of the poorest parts of the world has a dire medical need, this fund makes sure that mommy and daddy can get their child the help he or she needs. Just this past year, the fund helped a little boy in Africa get a life-saving heart surgery.

If you sponsor a child, thank you. You could very well be saving a life. Please consider adding an extra donation this holiday season to the medical needs fund.

If you don’t currently sponsor a child, here’s your chance. Get involved.

Because no parent should have to face the nightmare of losing a child simply because they can’t afford help.

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