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Christmas Is Not Your Birthday: Experience The Joy Of Living And Giving Like Jesus (2011)

by Mike Slaughter(Favorite Author)

3.64 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1426727356 (ISBN13: 9781426727351)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Abingdon Press

review 1: The overall idea of the book is good: Return to the true and fulfilling meaning of Christmas by giving rather than receiving. The author also challenges us to give to causes where we can truly make a difference, such as those working in impoverished areas, etc.I didn't like that the author seemed to repeat things over and over again. At times it even seemed like he copied the same paragraphs from earlier chapters. I also didn't like that instead of focusing on the general idea of giving to worthy causes, the author used his church's involvement in Sudan as literally every example. I'm sure the author didn't include it to make his church just look wonderful, but that's how it came across to me.Good message, but the book needed heavier editing. I wouldn't recommend it as the... morere wasn't much original thought at all. Just the message against materialism.
review 2: This book was written by a UMC pastor in our annual conference who has seen his church shaped into what many see as an excellent model for evangelical proclamation along with an incredibly strong sense of mission. This book, designed as a 5 week advent study essentially lays out the same ground work that has been applied at his church. The title pretty much gives the content of the book away. Essentially Slaughter takes the Christmas story and fashions it into a call for us to serve the least in this world. In that way the book is certainly a noble attempt to get Christians to look beyond themselves and into the world which Christ came to redeem. There was a lot of really good stuff in this book. I really wanted to give this book 2 stars, but there were enough redeeming qualities to it to make it worthy of the third.The downside of this book is that in its zeal to make Christmas about everyone else, it fails to really get at the Gospel message of Christ coming to the world FOR US, to deliver US from slavery to sin and death, and to procure new life for us both in time and eternity. My sense is that Slaughter sees the FOR US message of Christmas to already be assumed, and that an over emphasis on the 'FOR US' has lead people to neglect the world around them. I think he makes a mistake in assuming that the 'FOR US' is already the accepted message of Christmas. In fact, I think the Christmas spending and debt which he rightly decries is more a result of our over emphasis on Christmas being a time to do for others. It is in the intense 'giving' that we find ourselves in debt. The book rightly focuses us on redirecting our intense giving, but it is loaded with a lot of masked guilt.I liked a lot of this book, but it was not a book of 'Good News'. It took one of the greatest 'Gospel' occurrences, the birth of Christ, and turned it into a law. It took a liberating historical event and used it to bring people into a 'do good' bondage, that can just as easily lead to despair.Again, lots of good stuff in here, but not the book that is really going to help you get at the 'true meaning' of Christmas. less

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