What I’m Crunching — January 11, 2026
I finished this one and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The lessons here were immediately relevant in my own church and I was able to share insights from the book at our annual leadership retreat this past weekend. Specifically, that every church should intentionally evaluate the spaces, scope, and sequence of their discipleship ministries and always be improving.
I wholeheartedly endorse this book, even if it’s a little repetitive in places.
What I’m Crunching — January 4, 2026
This was a Christmas present from my sister and her husband; my favorite Christmas gift this year!
I’m enjoying J.T. English’s take on the importance of deep discipleship. He laments the recent decades of over-emphasis on small group community in western churches, to the exclusion of rigorous, serious study of God’s word.
I agree with him: both community (small groups) and rigorous study of God’s word are necessary for disciples of Jesus Christ to grow.
What I’m Crunching — December 28, 2025
This was a fast read, and generally enjoyable. A few things about it stood out:
– Pullman uses a variety of lesser-seen words in his writing. I often long-pressed on words to see their definition in my Kindle app while reading. I enjoyed this; I love learning new words!
– It’s another female-lead-character novel, which is fine, but I didn’t realize how this one would be geared more toward young adults. This meant that the characters were a bit more immature and the dialogue used expressions and idioms more connected to young people. Perfectly acceptable if you’re a young adult, but it didn’t connect well with me.
– I found myself not being surprised by the direction of the plot; in several cases, it was quite predictable.
I don’t expect I’ll continue on to the next book in the series.
What I’m Crunching — December 21, 2025
Book I’m Reading The Golden Compass This is the first volume of the seminal “His Dark Materials” series written by Philip Pullman. The series title comes from Paradise Lost where John Milton wrote: “Into this wild AbyssThe womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave—Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,But all these in their […]
What I’m Crunching — December 14, 2025
It’s becoming increasingly clear the impact that dopamine has on our physiological well-being. App designers and others with an economic interest in grabbing and keeping a user’s attention deeply understand and aim to take advantage of the human body’s neural and chemical design to keep our attention.
Equipped with this knowledge, we should begin making wiser choices what we give our attention to, and for how long.
“I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.”
Psalm 101:3
From the Goodreads summary:
In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.