I would have rated higher if it had been less academic philosophical discussion. Smith should have taken his own point in this book, and spent more time on stories to bring his philosophy across. Instead he discussed the ideas with emphasis on terms familiar to the academic reader. Narrative is what he wants the church to focus on with spiritual formation. ( )

I couldn’t wait for the telos of this book. I found this book to be a tough read although I have enjoyed Smith’s other, purportedly more academic works. This perhaps in part because as much as the idea of this book is to push beyond intellectual frameworks to habit-forming practice, I found the book to be mostly about making an intellectual argument in favor of his mental mode of worship. I found the conceptual arguments to be the strongest (ie, chapter 1) and most engaging, while the least engaging were those that were supposed to flesh out his central argument. The irony of failing to articulate the application of an idea in a book about the importance of moving beyond concept to application is not lost on me. Additionally I found the reliance on ancient orthodoxy as the rule/solution to contemporary culture to be somewhat more rigid than I would have expected. There’s a case to be made for orthodox principles engaging with and transforming ones own cultural practices. It seems Smiths case is more about replacing one practice with another that ultimately seemed... unimaginative. ( )

Our habits of doing form our habits of mind, and habits are more powerful than we give them credit for. Unfortunately most spaces and narratives we interact with reinforce secular values. Worse, religious spaces, in an attempt to be "relevant", have reformed themselves to fit into the secular narratives that people are comfortable with. We should ask people to engage in the same practices, iconography, and liturgy week after week -- especially those practices that have stood the test of time, and which are centered on God rather than on our experience of God.

I'm quite torn on this book. It became gradually apparent that its intended audience is practicing evangelicals who eschew Christian tradition. Personally I think the thesis is clever, correct and well-argued -- probably because of some pre-existing biases in my viewpoint. But I only got the slightest bit more out of reading the entire book than I got from reading a few review paragraphs about it before picking it up. And though I'm trying not to hold it against the book, the reliance on teleology gave me flashbacks to reading Robert Pirsig as an undiscerning young teenager, and the aw-shucks-I'm-just-a-downhome-boy(who-can-smoothly-quote-Pascal-and-Augustine-and-bell-hooks) vibe of the audiobook narration seemed disingenuous at best.

I'd strongly recommend a Cliff's Notes version of this book, but it's hard for me to recommend the whole work. ( )

In this book, James K. A. Smith seems to me to be focusing on 3 main words: love, worship, & liturgy. The main idea I took from this book is that what we love, we worship and it forms us into who we are and what we do. It is not our knowledge & thinking that guide our lives but the liturgies or (in Mr. Smith's use) the habits or practices that we repeat. These subconsciously form our loves. They are all around us not only in our Christian assemblies but in all of our everyday living. The liturgies of our assemblies are thus of utmost importance in regularly recentering us in God's story of reconciling all things to Himself and not letting the liturgies of success in this world become our center.

Você é aquilo que ama. Mas pode ser que você não ame o que pensa que ama. Nosso coração é moldado fundamentalmente por tudo o que adoramos. Talvez sem perceber, somos ensinados a amar deuses rivais em lugar do verdadeiro Deus para o qual fomos criados. Embora tenhamos a intenção de moldar a cultura, nem sempre temos consciência de quanto a cultura nos molda. Em Você é aquilo que ama, James K. A. Smith nos ajuda a reconhecer o poder formador da cultura e as possibilidades transformadoras das práticas cristãs, redirecionando nosso coração para o que de fato merece nossa adoração. Smith explica que a adoração é a “estação da imaginação”, capaz de incubar nossos amores e anseios de tal modo que os nossos engajamentos culturais tenham sempre Deus e o reino como referenciais. É por essa razão que a igreja e o culto em uma comunidade local de crentes devem ser o centro da formação e do discipulado cristãos. O autor engaja o leitor fazendo um uso criativo de filmes, obras de literatura e músicas e trata de temas como casamento, família, ministério de jovens, fé e trabalho. Além de tudo, também sugere práticas individuais e comunitárias para moldar a vida cristã. Livro premiado na categoria de melhor livro de 2016 por The Word Guild Canadian Writing Awards.