About the Books - Overviews & Reviews
Navigating Your Change Mazes
How do you react to change—especially those changes that surprise or trouble you? The author likens change to entering a maze where you don’t know what’s around the corner or which way to turn. These pages show you how to think about change. When you realize that God often uses changes to shape you to fit His plan, you’ll have a whole new perspective as you face your change mazes.
This book is for the individual who is confronted with change and is seeking to understand change, navigate through personal change mazes, and achieve stability in a dynamic, unpredictable, confusing, sometimes inspiring, but always changing world.
Reviews – What readers are saying!
“When life suddenly gets complicated and familiar people, places, and patterns are nowhere to be found, you know you are in a “change maze.” What you need is a friendly and experienced guide who can come alongside to offer perspective and wisdom.
Tom Lutz is such a guide, and his book Navigating Your Change Maze is just the perspective and wisdom you may be looking for. The impact it had on me was to alter the way I think about change and about myself as I walk through changes. In Lutz’s view, change is to be embraced, not feared or avoided. As I read his book, my faith was bolstered and I saw how God really is the best guide through any maze, since the true picture of whatever I’m going through on earth can only be seen from a higher perspective.”
- Tracey Finck, Editor, Communications Café (www.traceyfinck.com)
“Tom Lutz is the ‘navigator’ every ‘pilot’ wants as part of his flight crew. As the leader of a growing church, I have greatly benefited from Tom’s practical wisdom and encouragement as we seek to fly to new heights and new destinations in pursuit of our vision. Tom has helped us identify and overcome the obstacles that caught us in the change mazes, and he does so in a way that positively engages and wins over those who are wary of change. Navigating Your Change Mazes is a practical guide for finding your way through real-life obstacles to change that hold churches and other organizations back from achieving their goals and fulfilling their vision. I highly recommend this book for you and those in leadership with you!”
- Daniel Werthman, M.Div., J.D., Senior Pastor, Lakewood Evangelical Free Church
“I really like the whole maze comparison from beginning to end.”
“This book is powerful and will grip your soul as you read, study, and experience the thought-provoking lessons and questions on the value of change.”
“The PonderPoints (stories) are excellent and caused me to think through the change experiences in my life.”
A Taste of Freedom—Adventures of a Small Town Boy
This book contains 29 short stories about a time almost 60 years ago and a place called North Freedom. Some of the stories are humorous, others exciting, and still others serious. They make for relaxing and stimulating reading.
But don’t get lulled into thinking that these adventures are just about a kid living in a small Wisconsin town with Freedom in its name during the late 1940s and early ’50s as the nation emerged from World War II. A Taste of Freedom is more than entertaining
Beneath the words on these pages are buried a host of freedoms: freedom to think new thoughts, freedom to dream, freedom to travel outside a small Wisconsin town, freedom to meet people of all walks of life—some famous and successful and others poor and struggling, freedom to experiment, freedom to challenge rules and norms, freedom to fail, freedom to be a kid one minute and then think like a man another, and then switch back again.
Most important was the freedom to follow God in transforming a child’s faith into an ever maturing child-like faith.
Reviews – What readers are saying!
“What a memorable book! With a warm, engaging style, Tom Lutz has penned a poignant recollection of his American boyhood after World War II in the Depression-shadowed rural landscape of Wisconsin. Each chapter makes you eager to read the next one. You will be grateful to this gifted writer who, in sharing his own childhood, invites you to revisit the experiences of your own. Pulitzer Prize winning author Russell Baker’s 1982 Growing Up introduced me to books of this kind, and I have read many— A Taste of Freedom—The Adventures of a Small Town Boy is definitely among the best.”
- Dr. Barbara Russell Chesser, New York Times bestselling author, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Golden Soul, and more. (www.barbararussellchesser.com)
“Good Read! I feel like we’ve grown up together. Very much like my own life experiences. A Taste of Freedom—The Adventures of a Small Town Boy is all that the title conveys. This book gives unique insights into the molding of a young man in his early, impressionable years. Many will find its heartfelt, humorous stories encouraging and entertaining.”
- Greg Brezina, Former all-pro NFL linebacker for the Atlanta Falcons, and co-founder and CEO of Christian Families Today (www.Christianfamiliestoday.org)
“I just loved reading A Taste of Freedom. My husband so enjoyed hearing the story of the corn shocks because he grew up on an Ohio farm which raised corn among other crops. He thought it hilarious. I must admit I shed a few tears along the course of reading, especially the chapter about Crime and Punishment. What a treasure of stories this is for us.”
“I received your book today. I had to work so was not able to start reading it until I got home this evening at about 11:30. It was so good that I could not put it down. I have already finished it. It is priceless, I enjoyed it immensely.”
“My husband and I just spent a few days with our good friends at their Minnesota cabin. Your newest book, A Taste of Freedom, was on the kitchen counter. Between swimming, sitting on the deck, watching the loons and sitting in the screened porch, I read your book. I would like to order 3. One for my parents, one for my husband’s parents, and one for my Stephen's Ministry group. They will all be blessed and enjoy your storytelling.”
A Taste of Christmas Past
Christmas! A marvelous time of giving and getting and wishes missed and wishes realized and hope and peace on earth and believing in Santa Claus and fun and mistletoe and lighted trees and wreaths and . . .
These four Christmas Stories are selected from a collection of short stories entitled A Taste of Freedom released in the spring of 2011. The setting is a small Wisconsin town. The time is the late 1940’s to the mid-1950’s when the nation was emerging from a terrible war where the cost of victory made Christmas lonely and sad for some and full of promise for others. My dad, a Baptist preacher, focused on the Christ Child and the hope and peace He brought to our world.
This special Christmas edition is to celebrate the splendor and majesty of those Christmases Past.
Reviews - What readers are saying!
“A priceless treasury of uplifting stories straight from real life. Kindness, caring, and hope will fill the heart of every reader. What a magnificent reminder of the true meaning of Christmas!”
- Dr. Barbara Russell Chesser, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author (www.barbararussellchesser.com)
“As someone who usually celebrates Hanukkah, I thoroughly enjoyed these four delightful Christmas stories from Tom’s early life. The warmth, caring and love in each story tells us the true meaning of the Holiday. This book will bring tears to your eyes as they did mine and laughs as well as you read of antics from his childhood memories. No matter how you celebrate Christmas of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or . . . these pages will be meaningful to you. "
- Joan Elder, Life-long Teacher and Education Staff Developer
“Brought back so many wonderful memories of Christmas. For a brief time, I was a kid again.”
“Send me ten more. This little book is a marvelous stocking stuffer for people who love Christmas as much as I do.”
“Now I know why grandpa gets tears in his eyes when he comes to visit us at Christmas. Can’t wait to read your book filled with stories about ‘when you were a kid.’”
“Suggestion: Package these in a box and sell them as Christmas cards. They sure say a whole lot about the Christ of Christmas.”