Saturday, December 8, 2007

Book Review #4 Treasuring God in Our Traditions

Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper and John Piper

As I expected, I was not disappointed by this book. Not only did it point to great ways to celebrate throughout the year, it also pointed me closer to knowing the one we should celebrate - God and Jesus Christ. I think this is a great book if you have kids or if you don't. Everyone has traditions, sometimes you just have to dig a little to think about them. What legacy do you want to leave with others? What little things do you do automatically? I want to make a big deal about birthdays because it was a big deal in my family (not BIG parties but a special DAY), but my husband downplays it a little because that's how it was in his family. We're learning to compromise! :)

The book explains traditions, how to make them important, teaching traditions, and "everyday" and "especially" traditions, then talks about Christmas and Easter. I wanted to order Noel Piper's Advent Calendar for this year but when I called they were already sold out and they're redesigning it (or something, I was told) so I decided to make my own going for something similar to what she has, but it's turning out somewhere between a Jesse Tree and Advent calendar (I'll post about it later). Then my husband pointed out if we're doing this we really should do something for Lent (I used to think only Catholics did that!!), and I said that it talks about celebrating Lent and Easter in this book. So stay tuned to see if we start celebrating Lent!

The book also included poems by John Piper. I'm not sure if I'm not into poetry or just this type, I didn't really like them. I did enjoy the personal stories and letters. My one criticism of the book would be some of the spacing and "text boxes" were off a little, such as a box not having a closing line at the bottom (like it had been put on there but the overlapping wasn't done right so you couldn't see the line for the box). Also the font was small, if that's an issue and you can find a Large print edition - I would definitely buy it!

Part of my Fall Into Reading 2007 list. Previous reviews - The Camel Club, These Strange Ashes: Is God Still in Charge?, and Bleachers.

UPDATE to add, GirlTalk blog posted today about this book and there's a link to hear Noel Piper speak.

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