I have followed Amy online for a couple years and have loved all her rich theological content. When I found out she was writing a book, I knew it would be good. Her new book, Fix Your Eyes: How Our Study of God Shapes Our Worship of Him, is a fantastic assessable systematic theology book. I love how the book helps readers to understand core doctrines so that leads to more worship. I often meet women that want to know more about God and doctrine but do not know where to start. This will be such a great resource to give them. I recommend this book to all to stir their affections for God more.

I was blessed to receive an electronic copy of this book as part of the launch team. All my opinions are my own.

“We don’t have to go on an academic excursion to grow as theologians; we simply have to open the Word of God and read everything he wants us to know about himself.“
Quote from book.

When we think of worship, we mostly think of singing hymns and songs of praise, and that is a form of worship, but that’s not all worship is. In Fix Your Eyes, Amy goes through several different ways we worship God and how it is done. With examples from her own life and what she has learned in her own studies.
This is definitely a great resource to have if you are looking to start reading a book on worship.

I graciously received an advance e-copy from Netgalley for review. All opinions are my own.

I truly love the way Amy writes this book to portray theology and doxology. So many times we can miss the mark, and focus too heavily on one or the other. I loved every chapter, but my favorite had to be chapter 8. The imagery of rehearsing and enjoying will be forever etched into my heart, until Christs' return. What a beautiful book!

Did you know that YOU are a theologian? Fix Your Eyes by Amy Gannett begins with this declaration. We are all theologians because we all believe something about God. And what we believe about God matters deeply because it affects the way we live our day-to-day lives. With this in mind, Amy Gannett walks the reader through core doctrines of the Christian faith, including the Incarnation, Ecclesiology (the church), and Eschatology (end times). If those theological terms intimidate you, have no fear! The author writes with love and grace that brings theory and application together beautifully. If you’ve “been there, done that” with theological education, I encourage you to read this anyway. This book reminds us that right doctrine begets right worship—put another way, when we consider what the Scriptures tell us about God, our affections for him are stirred and we are driven to worship.
A fantastic book. Definitely going to be one of my favorites of the year.

What a privilege to get to read an advanced release copy of Amy Gannett’s Fix Your Eyes​. Amy does such a wonderful job of covering the basic core doctrines of the Christian faith. She approaches the subject in a conversational manner that is easy to grasp while at the same time not “dumbing down” the material. This book is such a great entry into studying and understanding deeper theological matters without being intimidating or dry.

First sentence: “You are a theologian,” he spoke calmly into the silent classroom. Something about the thin, round glasses hanging on the end of the professor’s nose and the bow tie neatly tucked beneath his white collar made him feel all the more believable, and made my eyes widen in surprise. “You already are a theologian,” he continued to insist, “. . . but are you a good one?”

I loved, loved, loved the premise of this one. Our worship is shaped by our view of God--our beliefs about God. To worship truly--genuinely, heart-soul-mind-body--we need to know God truly. And to know God truly, we must seek Him as He is. We must read the book He authored. Not just know in a head-knowledge sense. But KNOW in a loving, saving, trusting relationship. What we believe about God matters precisely because it relates to how we worship and glorify God. To clarify, this book isn't about a checklist of right beliefs, a practical guide to getting everything right giving you permission to be smug. No, this book is about the whole of Christian experience--heart, mind, body, soul. We are to love God with everything we are and everything we have. He is to be the center of our focus. HIM. Not his gifts. Not his blessings. Not his works. But HIM. Our seeking is to be a life-long seeking. Our knowledge should lead to MORE thanksgiving, MORE praise, MORE delight and adoration, MORE worship.

She writes, "The whole of the Christian life is worship of God. To be a Christian is to put a stake in the ground in terms of our highest affections, letting the God of the Bible lay claim on our hearts and lives in such a way that everything we are and everything we do wraps around our worship of him. Worship is what happens when what we love shapes us—when we submit our character, choices, wills, and ways to God out of love and reverence for him. Worship is love for God that seeks to obey, honor, praise, and adore him; it is setting the eyes of our hearts on him in love and responsively lifting our faces toward him in awe and affection."

The book is an overview of the basics, a brief overview of theology as a whole.
Introduction: The Necessary Marriage of Theology and Worship
Chapter 1: Theology Proper: Worshiping the God Who Is
Chapter 2: The Trinity: Worshiping God Triune
Chapter 3: Christology: Worshiping God Incarnate
Chapter 4: Pneumatalogy: Worshiping God the Spirit
Chapter 5: Soteriology: Worshiping the God Who Saves
Chapter 6: Bibliology: Worshiping the God of the Word
Chapter 7: Ecclesiology: Worshiping the God of His Body
Chapter 8: Eschatology: Worshiping the Coming King
I found it a thought-provoking read.

I'll leave you with this as food for thought:

Imagine with me a woman is single and craves all the benefits of having a husband. Living alone, she is reminded every time she changes a high-perched light bulb or carries groceries up three flights of steps to her apartment that the ample help her married friends enjoy is absent in her life. She files her taxes in April and wishes for the tax break a spouse would afford her. She budgets her income each month with a distant desire for someone else to add to the monthly bank account as well. And so she does something that seems altogether reasonable: she marries. She meets and marries a man who will provide to her all the things she longs for. He will help around the house, he will supplement the income, he will walk the dog when it’s raining and start her car when it’s cold. He’ll take three of six grocery bags up the apartment complex stairs and his very status in her life will save her a few dollars the next time April rolls around. It’s everything she wanted—except him. She doesn’t want him or love him. There is nothing about who he is in his person that is desirable to her. His work is what interested her. His person she could take or leave. Here’s the question in front of us in this chapter: Is that marriage? Is that a holy union? But sometimes the way we talk about the gospel is just as disjointed as our hypothetical woman’s faux marriage.

We cannot love someone that we do not know. In the same way, how could we worship someone we do not know? Thus, just as our love for God is linked to our knowledge of God, the more we know God, the better we will be in worshiping Him in our minds and hearts. Author Amy Gannett shares her theological insights in this book that connects worship with our knowledge of God. She affirms this as follows: "Worship is what happens when what we love shapes us—when we submit our character, choices, wills, and ways to God out of love and reverence for him." With the marriage of theology and worship, she launches into a fascinating theological journey to show us that worship is about fixing our eyes on Jesus, for He is the shape of what we need to know about theology. Chapter by chapter, Gannett demonstrates to us how the various head-based knowledge of God and His attributes to heartfelt realities. Readers might be curious to know how this could be done. Let me give one example from the book. The doctrine of the Trinity can be one of the most difficult or mysterious areas to study. In the chapter on this foundational doctrine, readers are invited into the author's househunting experience, where a house inspection report turns up a serious problem in the house foundation. Without this foundation, everything else in the house is in danger of collapse. Yet, in the mystery of unknowing, in the midst of analogies that fall short, we are motivated to learn more. More importantly, we are ushered into a realm where the only possible response is worship. Gannett takes us through the major branches of theological studies such as Christology, Pneumatology, Soteriology, Bibliology, Ecclesiology, and Eschatology, giving us not only a primer on these theological branches but how we can worship God in His spirit and in his Truth. A knowledge of Christology reminds us of the physical witness we have in Jesus. Pneumatology enables us to invite the Holy Spirit into our midst to worship with awareness of the Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity. Soteriology raises our heart of gratitude to the God who saves us. Bibliology anchors our worship based on the Word of God. Ecclesiology teaches us to worship as a Body of Christ. Eschatology prepares our hearts to worship the Coming King.

My Thoughts
==============
This is a marvelous work of theology and worship bundled together as one. Sometimes, we study theology in such a discrete manner that after deconstructing our theological curriculum, we find it difficult to connect them all together into a form that we could teach or apply in our Christian life. We often need help to marry theological truths with spiritual practices such as worship. Right from the start, the author shares her inspiration from a late theologian, Dr. J.I. Packer, that theology should lead to doxology. With this overriding emphasis, Gannett helps us reconstruct the major theological branches to point us toward the worship of God. This is an excellent orientation that we often miss in our study of theology or the practice of worship. Readers learn from every chapter how to go about doing it.

Gannet condenses difficult concepts into relatable stories, and in particular, how we can take what we learn and apply that toward worship. This is the single biggest reason to buy this book. In this manner, this book is essentially theology in action. Within the pages are many illustrations of how theology has influenced the author's lifestyle. Readers can sense how comfortable Gannett is to allow the knowledge of theology is weaved not only in the ministry of worship but also the impact on our regular lives. With a theological primer and insights of worship, all rolled into one, we get a book that enables regular believers to learn what it means to worship and love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul.

The title of the book is instructive too. Whatever we read or do, remember that all theology leads to doxology, and doxology is essentially fixing our eyes on the Triune God.

Amy Gannett (M.Div, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary), is a speaker, writer, and Bible teacher. She is the author of several exegetical Bible studies. Her teaching and writing have been featured on Christian outlets like Well-Watered Women, The Gospel Coalition, JourneyWomen, Risen Motherhood, and Christ and Pop Culture.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of B&H Publishing and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

Hopping off the boat onto a wobbling dock, my son shouts, "Hey mom, look!" He points to a bird in flight. We watch as it perches atop a nearby tree. We talk about what kind of bird we each think it could be, but in order to figure that out, we need to examine it for awhile. So, while the others carry off the towels, we sit down together gazing into the trees, studying this new-to-us bird.

Intently watching this bird helped us get a good picture of its qualities, but only until we could compare our findings with our reference book could we really know with some certainty. The bird book shows us what to look for, the shape and colour of the beak, the colour and pattern of the feathers, the size and wingspan, the differences in the silhouette as it flies or hovers; there are so many aspects to consider, as novice bird watchers, we're only beginning to discover.

Our study of God and his ways also has a reference book. As we read his holy scriptures, we're growing our knowledge of him, our theology.

In this upcoming book, Fix Your Eyes: How Our Study of God Shapes Our Worship of Him by Amy Gannett, she writes to help us understand how our theology (our study and knowledge of God) leads us to doxology (our worship of him).

In each of the 8 chapters she walks us a doctrinal topic, such as Christology (the study of Christ), soteriology (the doctrine of salvation), and bibliology (the doctrine of scripture), to engage what we know about God and how this knowledge propels us toward worship as we daily fix our eyes on him.

This book would be a basic introduction to theology. If that's an intimidating topic for you, just remember it's about what we know and believe about God. The jargon can be technical, but some of it, hopefully much of it, will be familiar, just framed in an organized way by topic. I think she does a great job of making these concepts understandable to the average reader. I also appreciate how she centres around the theme of the gospel.

If you're struggling to worship, with your feelings about God, maybe it's time to grow your familiarity with his character. Maybe you're ready to go a little deeper and brave the theological terminology. This book is a great place to start that journey.

Quick Stats
# of pages: 224
Level of Difficulty: Moderate-for theological concepts
My Rating: 4 stars!

*A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

I really needed this book and it reminded me what is important in the daily study! I hope this book reaches the masses because the message is so important!

"Fix Your Eyes: How Our Study of God Shapes Our Worship of Him", by Amy Gannett, starts with this premise: We are all theologians. The question is, are you a good one? Gannett does a great job of explaining theology and how we choose what we believe about God. By using personal anecdotes and object lessons, she shows that the more time we spend with God, the more we will love Him.

I thought this was a very good book! There were parts that weren't as easy to read, but overall I felt that the author did a good job of explaining some more difficult topics. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.