I have a confession to make. I never read the predecessors to this book:SoulTsunami or AquaChurch. Leonard Sweet has even written an article for Next-Wave. Did I read that? No. Are there any good explanations as to why I haven’t done my homework? Ugh, teacher… "My dog ate it!" Maybe, if I had a dog. OK… to the review. My gut reaction to SoulSalsa is run, don’t walk to you nearest computer and click to Jeff Bezos’ (www.amazon.com) site and order this book (or… I guess you could go to your local bookstore and buy the book… but that’s not as fun). Two words that I would use to describe this book: practical and real.

In the introduction to SoulSalsa, Dr. Sweet wrote that this book was "written as an exercise in sandals spirituality, a faith that tracks." He went on to describe it as:

"…a guidebook for individuals and communities who want to add traction and depth to an everyday spirituality through the integration of ritual, ceremony, and art. Its silhouette of changes to live by is dedicated to all who are struggling to be faithful to the gospel while making the transition from modern to postmodern."

That’s what "real" is to me: struggling to be faithful to the gospel. Me, a postmodern, 28 year old, who with every two steps forward, seems to take one step back. If you read this book, you might find (as I did) that there are situations that you will be able to step into and relate to.

As is mentioned in the title, SoulSalsa is broken into 17 different "surprising steps." I already mentioned two above. A couple of my favorites are "Brush Your Tongue: Soul artists take care with information" and "Build a Compost Heap: Soul artists transform and reuse all kinds of ‘waste.’" Inside each chapter, you’ll find great quotes from a myriad of sources (my day planner became the collection place of a pile of sticky notes with different quotes written on them). At the end of the chapters, there is a section entitled, "Spiritual Practices and Web Interactives." This was the fun part. There would always be at least one tough question that needed to be answered or one really interesting website that needed to be looked at.

Truth be told, I knew I was going to like SoulSalsa even before I bought it. I was excited about reading it from the start. I would recommend this book to anybody. Since the preface to the title is actually "Learn to Dance the SoulSalsa", I’ll leave you with these words from Dr. Sweet: "God’s people deserve to dance. And God deserves dancing people. You are a gift to life, and life is a gift to you. Rejoice and be glad in it." Amen.

Check out a Next-Wave article written by Dr. Sweet.

Leslie Ramusack is currently the Community and Outreach Liaison for Next-Wave magazine. Currently, she lives in Columbus, Ohio and attends the Vineyard Christian Fellowship and Joshua House. Her music picks of the month are Mars Hill Worship Volume One and Audible Sigh by Bill Mallonee & Vigilantes of Love. She loves receiving email…so write her at leslie@next-wave.org if you have any cool ministry stories or really good lasagna recipes.