Read Accidental Saints Finding God in All the Wrong People Nadia BolzWeber 9781601427564 Books

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What if that person you've been trying to avoid is your best shot at grace today?

...And what if that's the point?

In Accidental Saints, New York Times best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber invites readers into a surprising encounter with what she calls “a religious but not-so-spiritual life.” Tattooed, angry and profane, this former standup comic turned pastor stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve. But God keeps showing up in the least likely of people—a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious Bishop and a gun-toting member of the NRA.

As she lives and worships alongside these “accidental saints,” Nadia is swept into first-hand encounters with grace—a gift that feels to her less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit with a blunt instrument. But by this grace, people are transformed in ways they couldn’t have been on their own.

In a time when many have rightly become disillusioned with Christianity, Accidental Saints demonstrates what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with scripture together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives. This unforgettable account of their faltering steps toward wholeness will ring true for believer and skeptic alike.

Told in Nadia’s trademark confessional style, Accidental Saints is the stunning next work from one of today’s most important religious voices.

Read Accidental Saints Finding God in All the Wrong People Nadia BolzWeber 9781601427564 Books

"I am someone who had lost faith in American Christianity. Pastor Bolz-Weber has renewed that faith. Its funny, she's waaaaaay more conservative liturgically than I am, but her application of Jesus' teachings are what I aspire to. She talks candidly about her own short comings which makes her very credible as a pastor and easy to apply to my own life. She admits to the same petty things I feel or do and talks about how she dealt with it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a fresh look at 21st (aka 1st) century Christianity. If you want to be challenged to really live your life as Christ did, accept we are all imperfect in our attempts to do so and that God's grace allows you space to get there, this is the book for you."

Product details

Paperback 224 pages
Publisher Convergent Books; Reprint edition (September 27, 2016)
Language English
ISBN-10 1601427565

Read Accidental Saints Finding God in All the Wrong People Nadia BolzWeber 9781601427564 Books

Accidental Saints Finding God in All the Wrong People Nadia BolzWeber 9781601427564 Books Reviews :

Accidental Saints Finding God in All the Wrong People Nadia BolzWeber 9781601427564 Books Reviews

So here's the thing I grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, was baptized, confirmed, and then went to high school and found nothing in the liturgy or the service to make me stay in the church.

And then I went to live in Japan and had to wrestle with a WHOLE COUNTRY of folks with a 1000 year old history that has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.

So I stopped believing the church or Christianity had anything to do with me. I'm a flaming liberal, and a religion that makes outsiders of people is not for me. I wanted religion that was inclusive, and active...and so I left.

But somewhere along the lines, I wanted to sing in a choir again. So I started coming back to church. And somewhere along the lines I realized I could say the words of the Apostles Creed, sing the hymns, and say the Lord's Prayer and it didn't matter one bit whether I believed it or not. It was about doing things that helped me be a better person.

And then I got breast cancer and had to go through chemo and yadda yadda yadda, I couldn't be a strong, independent person anymore, and had to accept help. And somewhere along the lines of accepting help, of being weak, and needing others-- I found friendship. I found a church community.

But my terrible secret remained I'm not sure the God in the ELCA liturgy is the god I believe. I mean, I certainly don't think 1000s of years of Japanese people are condemned to a fiery pits of hell because Jesus happened to live in the Middle East. A God of love would not work that way.

And that's the long way of saying Nadia Bolz-Weber's book speaks strongly to me. She writes about her failures as a person, and as a PASTOR to love the people around her, the very people who show here the most grace when she commits to speaking in Australia instead of officiating at good friends' weddings, or avoids a parishioner with halitosis and boring stories.

And she verbalizes the twin sides of the "blessing" and "neediness" issue that have been a thorn in my mental side since the first time I did volunteer work in high school. If you go out to do mission and give service, it's so very easy to fall into a mental trap. Here, she explains it better than me

"While we as people of God are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, the whole "we're blessed to be a blessing" thing can still be kind of dangerous. It can be dangerous when we self-importantly place ourselves above the world, waiting to descend on those below so we can be a "blessing" they've been waiting for, like it or not. Plus, seeing myself as the blessing can pretty easily obscure the way in which I am actually part of the problem and can hide the ways in which I, too, am poor and needing care."

How do we go about doing service without making a distinction between those who are receiving and those giving? I think part of the answer lies in stop giving into the sin of pride about being strong, or independent or being a go-getter or organizational maven or the one who knows where all the spoons go in the church kitchen. It's about being open to the help we all need. We are all broken in our own ways. And about this other side of the service coin, Nadia writes

"And receiving grace is basically the best shitty feeling in the world. I don't want to need it. Preferably I could just do it all and be it all and never mess up. That may be what I would prefer, but it is never what I need. I need to be broken apart and put back into a different shape by the merging of things human and divine, which is really screwing up and receiving grace and love and forgiveness rather than receiving what I really deserve. I need the very thing that I will do everything I can to avoid needing."

So this is a super-easy book of anecdotes and stories and vignettes about her parishioners and people she's encountered who forced her to confront grace. And I much appreciated the down-to-earth tone.
It is nice to read works of faith by those who views would be deemed unconventional by some. How can you get any more unconventional then a pastor who is described on the back of her own book as a former stand-up comic who is tattooed, angry and profane. Interestingly, I found most of what she had to say to be in line with mainstream Christian thought and found her humility to be saint like.

One of reasons I picked up this book was because of the quote by Fr. Richard Rohr, on this page, in which he says Pastor Nadia thinks like he does only she says what she is thinking so much better and with more humor, living examples, â€œand a conviction that will convict you!â€ I have read a few books by Fr. Rohr and I do see a similarity in that he and Pastor Nadia book seek and find holiness in people and incidents that are often overlooked and ignored by many clergy and many people.

This book is broken into 19 chapters most of which are focused on incidents and people who are part of her congregation the â€œHouse For All Saints And Sinners.â€ She discusses the Blessed Virgin Mary, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and the Church Year. All these are almost Orthodox and while she puts her own unique spin on each story I found her views to be very much in line with main stream Christian thinking.

She takes on serious subjects like the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and how â€œchurch was never meant to be a place for escapism.â€ Church needs to be a place where the evil in this world is discussed. I canâ€™t agree more.

Pastor Nadia admits how early in her tenure at her church she was taken aback by how many â€œsocially awkward peopleâ€showed up at her church and how the church would never have a chance if these were the people who showed up. She eventually realized how important these people are and how we are all socially awkward and imperfect.

I have been so frustrated at times at my parish (I am Catholic) while listening yet again to one more homily at Church about how we are all brothers and sisters in Christ while there are people sitting alone and hurting in the pews all around me. I want a priest to acknowledge that life is hard and people struggle and loneliness and pain are part of this world and there is a good chance there is someone in the pew near me who can use my help and maybe I should tell one of these people we are brothers and sisters in Christ and I want to help. I have a funny feeling people at pastor Nadiaâ€™s church are more comfortable doing this than at my church.

Pastor Nadia reminds us that we are all flawed, including her, yet we all can become accidental saints. I am glad I read this book.
This book is a masterwork. Several other people besides me, I've found, know this book and like it. My favorite Catholic priest recommends this book. He's right. Without ever challenging the reader, Nadia challenges me/us. Without ever preaching, Nadia delivers a message, very effectively. This is the simple true story of one good woman, her quest, how it worked out.

I love this book and recommend it. If you're a person of faith, you'll probably find value here. If you're an anti-Christian skeptic, I doubt this book will change your mind - it isn't intended to. But you might learn something (for example that not all people of faith are idiots).
I am someone who had lost faith in American Christianity. Pastor Bolz-Weber has renewed that faith. Its funny, she's waaaaaay more conservative liturgically than I am, but her application of Jesus' teachings are what I aspire to. She talks candidly about her own short comings which makes her very credible as a pastor and easy to apply to my own life. She admits to the same petty things I feel or do and talks about how she dealt with it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a fresh look at 21st (aka 1st) century Christianity. If you want to be challenged to really live your life as Christ did, accept we are all imperfect in our attempts to do so and that God's grace allows you space to get there, this is the book for you.

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