Kelly Minter

A few years back I went to a bible study and the key song was written by her, "This is My Offering". This song is on a cd that is no longer available - so I copied the words, folded them up and placed them in my bible where I take them out to read them. I have read other books written by her, but this one is different.

Like that song tugged at my heart and broke me before the Lord - this book does the same. In fact this song resonates in the pages of this book. On the surface it is a simple story about a people that have been forgotten. A humanitarian evangelical adventure to reach the lost with the gospel. Minter does an amazing job of bringing the Amazon to life. Her descriptive ability is amazing and it does not take much to imagine walking in this jungle.

But there is more to this book - and the author who penned it. This book is about living your life as a beautiful offering before the Lord. It is about surrender to the Power of Christ, to opening your heart, soul and life to the truth in action of the gospel. It is about a woman who knew the gospel, prayed the gospel and taught the gospel - and more powerfully through her journeys she experienced the gospel and lived it. And - living the gospel in its fullest is too often not done.

In our Western world we are comfortable with our religion, comfortable with our churches and their programs. We are complacent in our evangelism, complacent in our Christian walk. We have too often boxed in the Lord's power, silenced the Holy Spirit and relegated miracles to those that belong to a charismatic movements. We sit stoic in our worship services, we walk blinded to the hurting - and all the while we justify it with the fact that we are active in our local congregations. Too often we simply go through the motions of this faith we say is life changing, failing to tap into to the full life-changing power of the blood of Jesus.

Minter encourages the reader to see with the eyes of Jesus and respond with His heart to the hurting people around us. She engages the reader with a people who are not afraid of miracles, expect great things from a God who created all and never box Him into a certain confined set of religious protocol.

I will say I wanted to go to this place, but then through Kelly Minter's own testimony and the moving of the Holy Spirit - I was convicted of the fact that remains. The God of the Amazon is the God of America. It is the willingness and obedience of the people that call Him God that makes the difference. So I walked away from this book with an ever deepening appreciation for the song Kelly Minter wrote - now if I could only get my hands on the cd so I could listen to it in the car. Seriously, though, our lives are beautiful offerings and powerful tools. Thank you Kelly Minter for this beautifully written book and for reminding us all of the power of God.

Thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.… (altro)

My small group selected this to study for six weeks and I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. What I liked most about it was that Kelly Minter definitely had you in the Word throughout the entire study (and not just in Nehemiah). Minter takes plenty of time in the book for observation and personal reflection/application from the Scripture. We did this study along with the weekly video series and I found that to be helpful. I'm sure I'll do another Kelly Minter study and now I know that if I do it by myself without a group, it would be worth getting the videos.

Overall, there are a lot of take-aways from the study and I would encourage anyone doing it to continually pray and to seek a compassionate heart like Nehemiah but to also ask God to reveal what He has put in your heart to learn from this study.

One of my favorite quotes from the study was by H.G.M. Williamson: "Spiritual growth is generally better gauged by the quality of what passes as normal than by the fleeting moments of particular uplift."… (altro)