Timely and Terrific: Books I Read in 2026, Vol. VI

 

BETTER TOGETHER: Making Church Mergers Work
Jim Tomberlin and Warren Bird

"Mergers today work best not with two struggling churches but with a vital, momentum-filled lead church partnering with a joining church. This much-needed resource provides a complete, practical, hands-on guide for leaders of both struggling and vibrant churches, so they can understand the issues, develop strategies, and execute mergers for church expansion and renewal. No matter what your motivation for merging your church with another  -  to begin a new church life cycle, reach more people for Christ, multiply your church's impact, or better serve your community  -  Better Together will give you the tools you need to create a thriving new entity."

You can put a checkmark beside each of the possible motivations for merger just mentioned and that would apply to what seems to be on the near horizon for Valley Christian Church and a new "church plant" happening in Lakeville, Anchor Community Church (pre-launch website under construction). There are still T's to be crossed and I's to be dotted, but it certainly seems like God is leading the leadership of both these churches to join forces to have an impact on Lakeville, Minnesota that neither could have on their own. And that's why I read this book. And it is so very, very good: A solid 5 stars.

First Line: 2% of congregations each year vote (or are required) to close, a number likely to increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but some of them could instead restart as a merger.

Page 56 / Line 5: The multisite factor was only on Healing Place's side.

A Good Line from Somewhere in the Middle: Successful mergers are vehicles of change, not preservers of the status quo.

Last Line: Is there a church merger on your horizon?

The Audible and the Angry: Books I Read in 2026, Vol. V

 

THE SOUND AND THE FURY: The Complete, Definitive Edition
William Faulkner

"The tragedy of the Compson family features some of the most memorable characters in literature. Their lyrical voices mesh to create one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century."

My beloved Wyoming niece gifted me this book, I think, because she could barely believe I had never read a piece of classic literature that she almost loves. And I admit that having to admit I had never read ANYthing by Faulkner was, admittedly, a sad omission in my educational journey. But I've got to say, I could barely force myself past the opening section that was written in the voice of a 33-year-old person of little intellect and zero sentence structure. Yee-ikes. I spent the whole time trying to guess who was related to whom, how old they were, and what color their skin was. It was a jumble of names with precious little biographical info to put with them. The second section was only slightly more coherent, whoever's viewpoint it represented. Part three gained a bit more sentence structure, but very little actual exposition or plot. Part four was finally written from what seems to be an omniscient narrator's point of view, but by then, I was so thoroughly used to not knowing who anyone was and nothing making sense placed up next to anything else, it still just felt like someone took a newspaper, cut it up into sentences and phrases, threw it in the air and then pasted it together however the pieces landed.

And then, in 1946, Faulkner included an Appendix for any reprints, purporting to be the key to the whole book. Well, he did indeed explain who all the main characters were and their relationships to each other and spelled out some events that were merely hinted at or reacted to in the main text, but man . . . slogging through 321 pages of gobbledygook to get there? I'm sorry, literary experts, but this is most definitely NOT "one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century." But that's just my opinion.

First Line: Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.

Page 56 / Line 5: What you want to get her started for, Dilsey said.

A Good Line from Somewhere in the Middle: The part ran up into the bald spot, like a drained swamp in December.

Last Line: The broken flower drooped over Ben's fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice and facade flowed smoothly once more from left to right, post and tree, window and doorway and signboard each in its ordered place.