Over the past several weeks, with the impending launch of Humanitarian Jesus, I have been asked numerous times what the basic point of the book is all about. The question is not always asked the same way, but when you get down to the bottom of it, the person really wants to know the punch-line in a sentence or two.

If you have ever written anything longer than your name, you probably know trying to reduce your writing to a single sentence is a hard and fairly aggravating effort.  My first thought is always that if I could do that, if I could tell you the story of the book in a sentence, I probably should not have written a book.  My second thought is that my one line answer always seems to be changing, so maybe I really don’t know or maybe I am giving a bad answer most of the time.

Church makes an impression on us. Whether it’s four walls, a company of congregants, or a “Turn our way, or Burn” bumper-sticker, church and its fringes cause us to think thoughts and conjure associations with God.

That being said, my sister and her husband aren’t the church-going type. So logically, they aren’t raising their one-year-old as the church-going type either.* And I respect that, and even empathize with the resistance.

Based on the family pattern though, Avery will view Auntie Abbie as “the religious one in the family.” Respectfully speaking, then, what impressions do I hope to lend? How do I hope to bring her to church, without bringing her to a church? What do I hope Avery associates with our time together, or with what characteristics do I hope she interacts? Here’s my current list: