Amy Boucher Pye

Tag: John Ortberg

  • Review: All the Places to Go by John Ortberg

    I haven’t posted a book review for a long time. Here’s one about a book by a popular author, John Ortberg, exploring doors. Yes, doors!

    God’s wisdom never ends. We proclaim this to be true, but I realized it afresh when reading a book by a Christian who has submerged himself in the Bible for decades. I understood again how much I don’t know – and how much I have yet to learn and understand.

    Here John Ortberg explores doors. Now I knew that doors appeared in Scripture, such as that which Holman Hunt pictured in his famous painting on Revelation 3:20, “I stand at the door and knock.” Or Jesus being the door for the sheep in John 10:7. But I loved learning the layers of meaning the author uncovers in such a simple symbol – doors that open for us, doors that close, how we approach doors, do we fear that doors will remain slammed shut, do we run from doors.

    But Orberg isn’t concerned so much about the particular doors, rather the people we become as we approach them, and our relationship with the Master Door Opener/Closer. He sees life as a series of choices that impact our characters – will we yell at our (grand)kids/spouse/friends or humble ourselves and put their needs first? What happens to our hearts when God opens a door but we follow in Jonah’s footsteps and run a mile? What about when we, like Abraham, venture into the unknown? Do we pretend our husband is our brother, as he did with Sarah? Or do we grow in our character and follow God in obedience with faith, even when the Lord asks us to make our biggest sacrifice ever (as he did with Abraham and Isaac)?

    I found All the Places to Go engaging and thought-provoking, and appreciated understanding doors in a new way. It’s a book that sparks ideas – it makes me want to delve into the Bible with new questions. But although John Ortberg’s books can be funny or provocative, his humour can jar people at times, and his style might not be yours. Some of his stories and asides I would have cut with my editor’s red pen – but you might resonate with just those passages and diversions.

    Though mentors weren’t a main emphasis of his book, I found their impact in his life to be moving and encouraging (for instance, he learned about the levels of meaning of the door from his Greek professor). As modern people, we can let our goals or dreams of success waylay us from our relationships, but life is about people and friendships and doing the journey together. Whether the door is open or shut.

    All the Places to Go … How Will You Know?: God Has Placed before You an Open Door. What Will You Do? John Ortberg (Tyndale, ISBN 978-1414379005)

  • Interview with John Ortberg

    An interview that originally appeared in the Woman Alive book club, where I talk all things books with prominent Christian authors.

    john_ortbergSoul Keeping was very moving to me to write, particularly because it gave me a chance to reflect on Dallas Willard during the final days of his life. I hope that through reading it, people will realize the wonder and mystery of what it means to have a soul and learn how to care for it well.

    The book of Dallas Willard that impacted me most was The Spirit of the Disciplines, and I’d recommend that for folks to read. But my quick warning would always be that Dallas’ material is very dense. And, at least for me, I often have to read it through several times to be able to absorb it—kind of like osmosis.

    There’s no particular story behind the long titles of my books [If You Want to Walk on Water You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat or Everyone’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them] other than I have a mind that tends to think in thoughts that can only be expressed in long titles. And, there’s something that I like about combining the thoughtfulness and substance of deep thinkers like Dallas Willard with a spirit of fun, joy and delight that can make it accessible to people. So I try to aim for that.

    Another Christian classic that is great for our soul in a hurried world is Richard Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline. If someone’s looking for a work that’s shorter and more easily applied, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence remains an absolute classic.

    Nancy and I read together separately. We actually tried reading together back when we were dating and first married, but both of us are teachers and we would tend to start teaching each other, and that’s not great for a marriage. But we do love to read the same books and then talk about them on our own, and we do that for spiritual books from folks like Henri Nouwen to fiction and biography, and Nancy’s favorite adventure sagas.

    I am always reading a book about Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is one of my favorite characters. I like history and biography immensely. I also loved the most recent third volume about the life of Winston Churchill, which was begun by William Manchester before he died. I also read The Fault in our Stars, and even though I’m not a young teen, I thought it was quite well written.

    John Ortberg is the senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California. He has written books on spiritual formation including The Life You’ve Always Wanted, Know Doubt, The Me I Want to Be and Who Is This Man?. He is married to Nancy, and they have three grown children.