Your Jesus is too Safe is a reminder to Christians of what Christ himself asked his disciples in Matthew 16… Who do you say I am?  Jared calls out Christians on who we make often make Jesus out to be and drives home the Biblical truth about who Christ truly is.  As Jared put’s it:

Let’s be frank: if you find the message of Jesus easy to digest, you’d better check the label on the box. you may be consuming a diluted version of Christianity. (p.27, Jesus the Promise)

       Despite the serious nature of the book Jared throws some great humor even referencing Stong Bad and his footnotes go from serious Biblical references on one page to out of no where humor on another. In fact, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the footnotes just as much as the content. Though that’s probably not fair because it’s not often I enjoy getting slapped in the face by a friend who says You’re not doing it right! That’s not who Jesus really is!  Still with each turn of the page it was hard not to want to read the footnotes first! Some of my favorite footnotes:

…These false prophets are fortunate to live in the days of tolerance of blasphemers. As a prophet, they wouldn’t have profited in the olden days. p.42

I keep assuming that you’re someone who speaks aloud to books. If I were you, I wouldn’t do this if you’re seated next to someone in a waiting room or on an airplane. Unless you really want to freak people out and give them a good story to tell their friends. In that case, go ahead, weirdo.  p. 101

Okay, he was on  donkey, so we’ll call it “lukewarm pursuit.” p.126

Check out Matthew 13:11-16. How’s your mind? Blown? p.184

    There was very little about the book I did not like or agree with. And honestly it’s not because of Jared, his writing style or anything of that sort, but instead because of how I love reading about the person of Christ. Through everything I have made him over the years, I find it refreshing to re-remember who Jesus is and throw aside some of the things Christ is not. I would like to say the book made me feel good but at times it made me feel pretty worthless. Your Jesus is too Safe is definitely worth the read if only to re-examine who Jesus is. I leave you with my favorite passage from the book. It’s speaks volumes about Jared’s heart, the book and the person of Jesus Christ:

     My friends, Jesus is not a pop song, snuggly sweater, affectionate boyfriend, a poster on your wall, self-help book, motivational speech, warm cup of coffee, ultimate fighting champion, knight in shining armor, or Robin to your Batman. He is blood.

    And without blood, you die. (p.243 Jesus the Provision)

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you can pick up a copy of Your Jesus is too Safe at Amazon.

You can also ready more of Jared’s work at the following blogs: Gospel Driven Church and Thinklings

Finally, to read some other reviews of the book try the Your Jesus is Too Safe Blog Tour.

p.s. Jared, sorry I missed my date on the tour. I was on vacation without computer access (as any good vacation should be) and flubbed up the auto publish of this.

I never knew that the review world was such a hard cookie to crack (by the way I’m really Jones’in for some Oreos and talk of cookies only makes it worse). I get quite a few unique visits to the reviews each week but I’m struggling to get discussion started. I’ve tried taking notes from some of my favorite review sites, asked them questions about generating discussion and implemented a lot of their advice. But Now I just have to wait and see if it works out. I get a quite a few comments from friends about the reviews, just more in person and not on the articles. Oh well.

So what is my point? I’m not too sure. I love doing what I do on the site, so I have no plans of stopping. Even with Scrubs “potentially” ending the series this year, I’ll probably go back to Season 1 and do reviews too. Anyways. I’ve been meaning to start talking more on this my personal site, so it was a good excuses to talk.

Cheers.

I enjoy punishing myself through fruitless side projects. One that I truly love and thought was going to be far more popular than it turned out was my Rock Band/Guitar Hero parody (real band) site joinarealband.com.

I made it because I am an actual drummer and the game kind of annoyed me at first… let me take that back, the people who loved the game annoyed me. The games are actually quite fun, despite the lag of where actual notes and beat should be played (I’m not alone). But I found it annoying how proud people were to be great at this game when with probably just a little work they could have been good at the real thing.

Despite it’s current un-popularity, it was pretty enjoyable to make.  Especially some of the little subtle comments and graphics. I wanted it to be humorous, but fairly PG rated, which if you know a lot about about the rock star lifestyle isn’t really that easy.  Either way, my parody hero Darren Barefoot inspired the idea with his ever so clever parodies iCryptex and Get a First Life. Now sure this isn’t the only parody of the game in town, possibly just the worst publicized one. Rock band jokes like college humor’s roadie hero,and the accordion hero game made me laugh endlessly in fact. Then my favorite web comic XKDC chimed in on the Rock Band situation and I knew for sure I wasn’t alone.

But honestly, what did I expect… once people start making t-shirts making fun of the situation it usually means the market is flooded.

Case in Point: