Rating: 
Summary: Just what I always thought!
Review: Making Room for Life absolutely recaptures the way I used to live and the way I want to live. I've been frustrated with the chaotic whirlwind of activties me and my family have let captivate our lives. I've already begun to apply concepts from this book and thank God that Mr. Frazee had the guts to tell it like it is. I feel like I'm just getting started in realigning my life toward simplicity and purpose, but this book is the best map I've found for really living!
Rating:
Summary: This is the life I want to live
Review: The back of this book has some hooks that grab the attention of the modern American rat racer (as someone has well said - "even if you win the rat race, its still a race for rats." The book asks: "What if you could?" get all your work done by 6:00pm?
eat dinner with your family every night?
form deep, satisfying relationships?
naturally blend the world of church with everyday life?
spend hours a week on your hobbies? While all of those questions may not resonate with everyone, they resonate enough because all of us have the feeling that we are overworked and overstressed, that life is out of control. He has an exercise in chapter 1 on managing your relationships where he walks you through all the many disconnected and fragmented relationships we have in our lives. By the time you add your spouse, your extended family, spouse's extended family, your work relationships, your spouse's work relationships, your children and their relationships at school and extracurricular activities, your hobbies, your church involvement and a host of other relationships, most of us have dozens of disconnected and fragmented relationships. The problem is that none of these relationships intersect with each other, so we are pulled in all different directions. This helps explain alot of our frustration in life. We are built for community, but because we are so fragmented, it is impossible to develop deep community in any area of our lives. Having set up the problem, he spends the book trying to solve it. Frankly, most people will see his solutions as undoable at first glance. However, I would highly recommend that you not write his suggestions off as undoable. A friend of mine says that there is a predictable pattern whenever we are given new information. First we reject, it then we consider it, then we embrace it. If you read this book and automatically reject it, please go back and at least consider it, and see if you can't embrace at least some of what he says. One of the keys to "Making Room for Life" is to live life according to the Hebrew Day Planner, which basically follows the clock set down for us in Genesis 1. We work during the day, and relate and sleep during the night. Because we moderns are so work-obsessed we work so much at night that we never have time to relate to one another. He offers some helpful suggestions for those who travel, or have shift work, on how to do this. He also addresses the need for consolidating our relationships - he suggests that we recover the idea of neighborhood - where we spend lots of time working and playing close to home. This will enable us to build relationships with our neighbors. He cites some studies that show that the automobile is the number one detractor from community. The more you drive, the less you can build community. He issues a clarion call to cut down all the driving and going. I also like his emphasis on the dinner table. The dinner table is where community is built in the family and amongst our neighbors. He suggests that we do whatever it takes to have dinner together with your family, or those who are in your community, every night. This is where conversation skills are built, this is where you get to know one another, this is where discipleship takes place. There are a few gaps in the logic here. I find his vision for life very desirable. However, he doesn't prove that it is biblically mandated. To say that Genesis 1 shows that God set up this day/night structure does not prove once and for all that no work should be done at night. However, I think he makes the case that this is a desirable situation. I would like to see a little more exegetical work with some biblical texts in order to strengthen his case. Intuitively, I think he is on to something here, but I think he can shore up his case with some extra biblical data. All in all, a book well worth reading and seeking to apply - I recommend it highly
Rating:
Summary: This is the life I want to live
Review: The back of this book has some hooks that grab the attention of the modern American rat racer (as someone has well said - "even if you win the rat race, its still a race for rats." The book asks: "What if you could?" get all your work done by 6:00pm?
eat dinner with your family every night?
form deep, satisfying relationships?
naturally blend the world of church with everyday life?
spend hours a week on your hobbies? While all of those questions may not resonate with everyone, they resonate enough because all of us have the feeling that we are overworked and overstressed, that life is out of control. He has an exercise in chapter 1 on managing your relationships where he walks you through all the many disconnected and fragmented relationships we have in our lives. By the time you add your spouse, your extended family, spouse's extended family, your work relationships, your spouse's work relationships, your children and their relationships at school and extracurricular activities, your hobbies, your church involvement and a host of other relationships, most of us have dozens of disconnected and fragmented relationships. The problem is that none of these relationships intersect with each other, so we are pulled in all different directions. This helps explain alot of our frustration in life. We are built for community, but because we are so fragmented, it is impossible to develop deep community in any area of our lives. Having set up the problem, he spends the book trying to solve it. Frankly, most people will see his solutions as undoable at first glance. However, I would highly recommend that you not write his suggestions off as undoable. A friend of mine says that there is a predictable pattern whenever we are given new information. First we reject, it then we consider it, then we embrace it. If you read this book and automatically reject it, please go back and at least consider it, and see if you can't embrace at least some of what he says. One of the keys to "Making Room for Life" is to live life according to the Hebrew Day Planner, which basically follows the clock set down for us in Genesis 1. We work during the day, and relate and sleep during the night. Because we moderns are so work-obsessed we work so much at night that we never have time to relate to one another. He offers some helpful suggestions for those who travel, or have shift work, on how to do this. He also addresses the need for consolidating our relationships - he suggests that we recover the idea of neighborhood - where we spend lots of time working and playing close to home. This will enable us to build relationships with our neighbors. He cites some studies that show that the automobile is the number one detractor from community. The more you drive, the less you can build community. He issues a clarion call to cut down all the driving and going. I also like his emphasis on the dinner table. The dinner table is where community is built in the family and amongst our neighbors. He suggests that we do whatever it takes to have dinner together with your family, or those who are in your community, every night. This is where conversation skills are built, this is where you get to know one another, this is where discipleship takes place. There are a few gaps in the logic here. I find his vision for life very desirable. However, he doesn't prove that it is biblically mandated. To say that Genesis 1 shows that God set up this day/night structure does not prove once and for all that no work should be done at night. However, I think he makes the case that this is a desirable situation. I would like to see a little more exegetical work with some biblical texts in order to strengthen his case. Intuitively, I think he is on to something here, but I think he can shore up his case with some extra biblical data. All in all, a book well worth reading and seeking to apply - I recommend it highly
Rating: 
Summary: Helped me make room for my life
Review: The morning I heard Randy Frazee give this sermon at church, I knew that this was the way I wanted to structure my life. That day I started using a daily planner that divided my days according to the Hebrew calendar, with days ending at 6 p.m.
Within 2 days I was already experiencing much more calm and peace in my life and it still continues. This book was enormously helpful. I dont know if it could work for everyone because some people have jobs that they have to work until 8 or 9 p.m. every night, so they'd have to adjust their day a bit. However since I am a teacher, this sort of structure fits my day perfectly. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: let go and let God
Review: this book teaches you how to live your life one day at a time with progress not perfection
Rating:
Summary: Very Encouraged
Review: When my wife and I read Making Room For life, we had one very strong reaction. We felt encouraged that we were reading this book while our kids are young. Our lives are pretty simple right now because of the age of our children and also the fact that we homeschool our oldest two (7 and 5 yrs old). We have an opportunity to order our lives in such a way now (while our kids are so young) to promote the value of community as a part of our lives. The book challenged us to put boundaries on our evenings and on our relationships. Often when we think of boundaries other terms come to mind...like 'restrictions' or 'limitations'. But I would like to suggest that the word 'freedom' is best felt by the boundaries that we can set for our family, as laid out in Randy's book. If we set appropriate boundaries on our time, our work habits, our spending and on our relationships, then we are free to experience a depth of intimacy and closeness that we could not have known otherwise. It's like letting your children play by a steep cliff. You are not at ease to allow them to run with reckless abandon, like most children do. But, if a boundary was set, preventing them from coming close to the edge of the cliff, then you and they are free to run and play within the safety of the boundary lines. That's the way my wife and I see the 'boundaries' that we set as a family. We have more time to spend together because I have ordered my day to be at home at night and on the weekend. We have more frequent times to build relationships with those who live near us and are in our community group and home group. We avoid the helter-skelter lifestyle that many people wake up to 'one morning' and wish they had not gotten themselves into. We live a more simple life which allows us greater financial freedom to use our money for God and His people. We have a vision for reaching our neighbors and we share that vision with our biblical community, who are also part of our 'neighborhood' community. Randy's book is extremely practical and applicable to life. You don't have to do a 180 degree turnaround to make a difference in the way you go about life. You certainly can make the more dramatic changes, and that would make a difference, but you can take simple steps that result in major change as well...like living by the Hebrew Day Planner (as explained in Randy's book). In my opinion, Randy is just sharing his jouney with God as it relates to his own personal life, his family and his community. He never claims to have created this idea. He just desired to find it and live it out. Community has been part of God's design since the creation of man. Randy has decided to do whatever it takes to see God's vision lived out in his life and to use his resources to share that vision with his own congregation, the Church at large and the world around him. I love what I see happening in my family and in my communty. I know that it doesn't come naturally, at least not in American culture. But, it is worth the effort. If anything is worth the effort, this is. But I also believe it is a part of the 'abundant life' that Jesus desires us to experience while we are here on earth.
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