I am just getting into the book Sin and Salvation from Lesslie Newbigin. It’s not one of his more famous books but I recently heard it described as the most important book that he’s written. He actually wrote in response to a need when he was a missionary in India. He wrote it for “village teachers of elementary grade who – although without training – have to bear a heavy share of the responsibility for the pastoral care of several thousand village congregations in the Tamil country.” Upon hearing that, I decided I needed to read it. Also, it’s an old book, written in 1956. (The copy i am reading looks about that old). So you know its good (be sure to read that last sentence...Read More →
Category: Book Reviews
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October 9, 2009
This is Salvation.
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May 23, 2009
Pastors in their Offices
“The initial locus and primary focus of [pastors] work is in their offices. Time-management studies again and again have confirmed that pastors invest a large percentage of their time in their offices – in meetings, in doing administrative work, and in taking care of administrative details…Pastors continue to spend so much time their offices because it is a familiar and habitual behavior pattern that has been nurtured and reinforced for many, many years. And the foundation underlying that behavior pattern is an understanding of the nature of leadership that is no longer helpful.” - Kennon Callahan, Effective Church Leadership Of course. I wrote this post from my office (which is actually a starbucks).
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May 21, 2009
The Furious Longing of God
I’m almost embrassed to say that I have never actually read a book by Brennan Manning. From what I gather a lot of his books are the same lyrics but just to a different tune. If that’s true, its just fine with me because he’s writing about something that seeminly takes a lifetime to grasp. And, if I can summarize this book (The Furious Longing of God) in one sentance, its this: God loves you like crazy. To me, that’s one message that we just can’t hear enough and can’t be reminded of enough. Someone, i forget who, once said that “Sometimes we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed.” Brennan Manning seems to take this advice and I’m thankful. God....Read More →
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May 21, 2009
What Role Does Confession Play in Your Life?
I’ve been working with someone in our church to take a long hard look at the culture and practices of we’ve developed in our church around the issue of spiritual formation, spiritual direction and discipleship. In this, I’ve been doign some reading about how other denominations and traditions have approached this topic throughout the history of the church. One book that has been immensely helpful is Gary Moon and David Benner’s book Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls. In this book, they give an overview of how spiritual direction is approached from different traditions. One thing that has surprised me has been how almost every tradition has a strong emphasis on some form of confession. Now, this probably shouldn’t have surprised me. But, its no secret...Read More →
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April 25, 2009
Surprised by Scripture
Eugene Peterson is one of those writers who has the uncanny knack to take my deepest struggles with leadership, faith, spirituality and speak at directly at them. One of those books is called Working the Angles. That’s one of those books I read at least once a year. Each time I do, I end up with a knot in my stomach because I am so convicted. I’ve been slowly working through his recent book, Eat This Book and I’m really enjoying it. He writes, “Barth insists that we do not read this book and the subsequent writings that are shaped by it in order to find how how to get God into our lives, get him to participate in our lives. No. We open this...Read More →
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April 21, 2009
Sway by Ori and Rom Brafman
Some of you might know the Ori Brafman from the very good book, The Starfish and the Spider.” Since I loved that book so much I figured I would give this one a try. This did not disappoint. Sway is subtitled “the irresistible pull of irrational behavior.” You could rephrase that as, “why smart people do stupid things.” Not only was this book was as readable as a Malcolm Gladwell book (that’s very readable if you don’t know who Malcolm Gladwell is), but it was extremely helpful and insightful. Telling lots of stories, they gave me some language and perspective to understand why I and other church leaders often make dumb decisions. One thing he writes struck a significant chord with me, “The more meaningful...Read More →
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March 24, 2009
Three Questions that Become Answers (2)
I’m working through three questions from Dave Gibbons from the book the Monkey and the Fish (I posted question #1 on Sunday night) “What is my pain” is the second question that Gibbons suggests that we ask as we seek direction for our lives and for our church. He writes about how some of the most important moments in our lives come through pain. The easiest example is that of Jesus. Salvation came through brutal death on the cross. Our world of comfort however, seems to not like or value pain so much and we would do well to consider it more carefully. He writes, “I think South American and Easter countries can help us with our theology and lifestyle. They not only think of resurrection day...Read More →
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March 23, 2009
Pastor, How Do You Spend Your Week?
We’re interacting with Ken Callahan’s book, “Effective Church Leadership” here. I’ve done him the favor of re-titling it Organizational Leadership for Missional Churches without asking him. He’s talks a bit about re-imagining the way pastors spend their time. In a churched culture, we were taught that most of our time could be spent studying, parsing verbs and keeping track of the inside workings of the church. he writes, ” [In interviews of pastors I learn that] The initial locus and primary focus of their work is in their offices. TIme-management studies again and again have confirmed that pastors invest a large percentage of their time in their offices – in meetings, in doing administrative work, and in taking care of administrative details… I am not...Read More →
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March 21, 2009
Three Questions that Become Answers (1)
Been really enjoying the book The Monkey and the Fish by Dave Gibbons. It’s one of those books that I will pass on to a few people and simply say “see, this is what I’ve been trying to talk about.” In chapter 5 he goes through three questions that are helpful for pastors and leaders (and churches) to ask as they look for answers to the mission and vision of their church. The first question is: “Where is Nazarath?” Now, this might seem like a strange question (it did to me at first). But when you begin to answer it, its very insightful. In the Bible, the question is asked about Jesus, “Can anything good come from Nazarath?” Dave gives another way of asking this...Read More →
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March 19, 2009
Missional Organizational Leadership
Over the last few weeks during my travels I’ve been devouring the book, Effective Church Leadership by Ken Callahan. Now, in the circles of pastors that I run, this isn’t typically on the top of anyone’s reading list. But, it should be. I’ve come to the conclusion that this book needs to be reedited and reprinted and retitled as: Organizational Leadership for Missional Churches” (I’m convinced this book is so important and helpful I am in the midst of seeking to convince the author to do just that). Dr. Callahan is able to do something that is, unfortunately, rare. He’s able to give helpful organizational leadership principles, guidance and advice to churches and pastors who are trying to understand how to lead communities of faith in our...Read More →
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February 2, 2009
The Rule of Benedict and the Suburban Christian
In my recent post on “The Mob” I tried to bring out the idea that we need to always be aware and thinking thinking critically about our way of life. We need to constantly be allowing God, mostly through the scriptures and through prayer, reorient and reconvert our way of life. I believe this is especially true for those of us who live in Suburban America. We live extremely individualized, consumerized, busy and disconnected lives (just to name a few). Without paying attention to our way of life, we’ll more than likely just go about our culture’s default life without even realizing it. With this in mind, I’ve been reading around the topic of the Rule of St. Benedict. I’m curious about the connection between...Read More →
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January 15, 2009
ReJesus by Alan Hirsch & Michael Frost
I just finished reading ReJesus by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost (doesn’t Michael have a blog?!). Overall it was a really good read that I really enjoyed. It was a great call for the Church/christians to actually act like Jesus. They do good job of showing that if we really were to “act like Jesus” a lot of things would have to change. One of my favorite quotes they used was one that my friend Chris Marlow used as well in his excellent blog post this morning. They write, The process of reJesusing the church will begin with a rediscovery of the fierce and outrageous life of Jesus. Too many people have become turned off to the church because the object of our...Read More →
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January 12, 2009
Finished Reading: Resident Aliens & The Tangible Kindgom
One of the things I have been trying to do more of in the evenings is read more. I can all too easily slip into the: put the kids to bed -> turn on the TV -> Turn on the computer routine. Next thing I know its 11:30 and I’ve wasted the evening watching bad television and aimlessly surfing the web and refreshing twitter like a helpless addict (not that I am addicted, I can stop whenever I want). While some nights I do need to just veg in front of the TV and hang out with my wife, I’d rather make that the exception rather than the rule. So far I’ve done well and, i’ll be honest, it feels really good to get some into...Read More →
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December 27, 2008
Books of 2008 – Leadership
Last year I listed out the books I read in 2007. It was fun to look back over the year and see what books influenced me and shaped my thinking. You can see the list for 2007 here. So, without further waiting, here are the books that I read in 2007 along with my response to each one. This first section is on General Leadership. A follow-up post with books on Theology will be coming soon. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quickfix – Edwin Freiedman This might be the most helpful book I read this year. As you can tell from the list, I ended up reading a lot of leadership type books. I’ll confess that I am kind of...Read More →
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December 7, 2008
Metavista: The Bible and Culture
I’m reading a new book called,Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination by Colin Greene & Martin Robinson that I received to review. This isn’t really my official review but I’ve really enjoyed it so far. What I like most is that they don’t pull any punches when talking about how the church has interacted with culture. In the chapter I am reading now (chapter 5), they are talking about how the church has read the Bible during the age of Christendom. They make a rather bold statement with this one: “To put the issue baldly and somewhat simplistically: with all possible exception of the early Reformation period, the fact is that the Bible has enver been central to the life ad witness of...Read More →
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December 6, 2008
Coffeehouse Theology
Give me a living room, with the lights down low, a glowing Christmas tree, a french-press of coffee and a few good books and I’m a happy man. Tonight I was finally able to finish Ed Cyzewski’s book, Coffeehouse Theology. Ed and I started seminary at the same time so I’ve been excited to get into his book for a while now (and that’s really not just because my name is in the acknowledgements!). I think that Ed does a great job of giving a great introduction to theology for the person who doesn’t tend to consider themselves a theologian or doesn’t get a chance to read a bunch of really big thick theological books. The sub-title really says it all, “reflecting on God in everyday...Read More →
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November 19, 2008
Working Through the Pain
Still reading the book Failure of Nerve. He’s writing about how leadership is affected by the way people and people groups in our society want the quickest relief possible even if it isn’t the best way forward. Friedman writes, For there is no way out of a chronic condition unless one is willing to go through an acute, temporarily more painful, phase….we will naturally choose or revert to chronic conditions of bearable pain rather than face the temporarily more intense anguish of acute conditions that are the gateway to becoming free. But what is also universally true is that over time, chronic conditions, precisely because they are more bearable, also tend to be more withering. This is very, very true for most of us....Read More →
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November 14, 2008
Leader: It’s Your Fault / Responsibility
Last week I wrote a little bit about how leaders need to take reponsibiltiy when things go wrong in their communities or organizations. Far too often we are quick to blame it on those we are trying to lead. Seth Godin says it in his book Tribes better than I did and clearer than Edwin Friedman did. He writes, If you hear my idea but don’t believe it, that’s not your fault; its mine. If you see my new product but don’t buy it, that’s my fault, not yours. If you attend my presentation and you’re bored, that’s my fault too. If I fail to persuade you to implement a policy that supports my tribe, that’s due to my lack of passion or skill, not...Read More →
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November 12, 2008
Amazing People
Been loving Seth Godin’s little book called Tribes. It’s full of some amazing one liners and is the kind of book that makes you want to get up off the couch and change the world. Here’s a good one: “When you have amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff.” Seth Godin, Tribes If you are a leader, this begs the question: Do you trust the people you work with?
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November 7, 2008
The Church: Shaped by Prayer?
This month (Nov. 16th) we are meeting as a community at The Well for our quarterly discussion on issues that are important to our mission together. We call these meetings Midrash meetings. This month we’ll be addressing the issue of prayer in our community life. Our mission statement reads “…a community shaped my scripture and by prayer…” We’ve got some big time room to improve in being a community that is actually shaped by prayer. In preparation for this gathering, I’ve been doing some reading on the subject and picked up the late Stanley Grenz’s book on prayer called “Prayer: A Cry for the Kingdom.” It’s really a great book and here is a collection of short excerpts from the introduction. The greatest challenge facing the...Read More →
