Book report - the Back of the Napkin

I’m going to keep this report on the book, "The Back of the Napkin" by Dan Roam very simple for two reasons. I’ve taken too long to get this written up and I’ve forgotten a lot about the book. Second is that this book’s ideas is going to be a key resource for me to use at the end of summer to do a large evaluation for my ministry and I hope to blog about the results.

Dan Roam really has introduced to me something that I’ve always wanted to have but didn’t know what it was. The idea of visual thinking is awesome. I really only have one application that I got from the book that I’m already using but I do know as the summer goes by I will be doing a lot more with this book’s ideas.

The one app is to spread things out so that I can have an overall view (through pictures) of my ministry. I hope to not only use this idea for my own eval but also to present it to the sponsor team at our next retreat. I think it will be fresh, different, and a good way for us to work through the ministry for this last year (not to say I hope we can look at a 3 year review as well).

Overall this book is a wonderful tool. I even recommended it to our associate pastor Kim Pagel (here at NCBC) to see if it can be useful for the embracing faith series we have been doing for the last few years.