Book Report on Communicating for a Change, by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones

As a middle school pastor, the task of putting God’s truths into digestible pieces for 11-14 year olds to understand and apply to their lives can be a little challenging. I’ve read and used both Ken Davis’ book "How to Speak Youth" and Doug Fields & Duffy Robbin's book "Speaking to Teenagers" (Click here to read my review of Doug & Duffy's book). I have recently found another awesome resource called, "Communicating for a Change" by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones. I’m not sure where I heard about the book, but it has been on my “books to read” list for a number of months. I wish I would have read it much earlier. I have two big “takeaways” from the book and one quick thought that I hope to reflect on further at another time.

First, the thought: the opening of this book was more of a “turn off” than a “draw me in” idea. I like that there was an attempt to do something different to make it interesting, as the idea of a preacher learning how to preach from a truck driver was definitely different. But, for me, it just wasn’t a draw. I have to admit that if I hadn’t had some of my local friends recommending the book, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. However, I am very glad that I did. The two things I took away have been huge for me and I started using them immediately when sharing with the middle schoolers.

The first one is the whole idea of “Internalizing the message”- learning my message to the point where I don’t need a lot of notes. Andy stated, “You should be able to sit down at a table and communicate your message to an audience of two in a way that is both conversational and authentic.” I’m a huge note guy – I’ve always had a piece of paper in my hands as I share my thoughts. I have now been challenged by this and hope to be able to put my notes on the music stand and leave them there.

The second thing I took away was from the chapter, “Engage Your Audience”, where Andy and Lane talked about “slowing down around the curbs – the transitions are important”. They shared an important and simple concept for building a message: “ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE”. Interestingly enough, that is how I’ve put together a number of my messages without realizing I was doing it. The one thing I haven’t done a very good job at is helping my audience go from Me to We, We to GOD, etc. I need to “slow down around the curbs” so I don’t lose my audience.

Overall, this book has reinforced what I have been doing right, challenged me to adjust and not get into a rut when putting together a message. I would recommend this book to anyone who teaches.

Book Review - Youth Ministry in the 21st Century by Rick Lawrence

I’ve wanted to read Rick Lawrence’s book “Youth Ministry in the 21st Century. ” for a couple of months now but have been wading through “Desiring God.” But finally I’ve finished Pipers book and got a chance to dive into Rick’s book. Wonderful stuff and the interesting thing to me is that a lot of what Rick talks about is things happening here at NCBC. Here are two things that hit me:
First thing that hit me was the need to have a place that kids can be themselves. “If students know they can stop pretending and be who they actually are, with people who actually want to know them and love them… well, they’re in.” I’m always talking with my sponsors (our adult volunteers) that they need to spend time with the kids outside of our “regular” time together. Rick points to the fact kids need caring adults in their lives. If the adults are willing to share their lives with the kids - real youth ministry happens. Rick said, “At the heart of modeling is a desire to make your life a story worth telling” and I would add hearing. This reminds me of one of Kurt Johnston’s jr hi ministry “formulas” –

Middle school students + caring adults = good ministry

The other key thought that hit me was the huge impact parents have on their kids. There has been so many times in my ministry where I thought parents were the enemy. I was so wrong in thinking that way and Rick really makes a strong point about this. “Parents are, by far, the best faith sharers, evangelizers, and outreachers.” As a dad of a middle schooler I’m starting to understand this even more – my 7th grade daughter does watch my wife & me – like a hawk. This also means the youth ministry needs to poor ourselves into the parents. Rick put it this way, “it’s just as important for you to invest in parents’ spiritual growth as it is to invest in your students’ spiritual growth.” This is probably the weakest part of our ministry – we really need to work on this more.

Book Report - Desiring God by John Piper

I try to get a book recommendation each year from my good friend, brother in Christ, & mentor Mark Forstrom. This year he suggested “Desiring God” by John Piper – oh my! What a recommendation. Ever since I have had the privilege of being the middle school guy here at NCBC my spiritual life has be on a constant growth & I believe that I have matured in my faith more than I have ever in my life. Piper’s book has put me in my place of realizing that I’m really not that mature – at least not as mature as I thought I was.

I didn’t know how to put down my thoughts from the book so this time I’m going to put down a number of key thoughts that John Piper said in his book. The goal is for those thoughts are there for me to reflect, pray, and think on as my life continues:

“The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”

“I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…” quoted from C.S. Lews

“Praise is not an alternative to joy, but the expression of joy.”

“The aim of the Christian Hedonist is to be happy in God, to delight in God, to cherish and enjoy His fellowship and favor.”

“Because God is unique as an all-glorious, totally self-sufficient Being, He must be for Himself if He is to be for us.”

“The first thing we learn is that worship has to with real life.”

“The Word of God is not a trifle; it is a matter of life and death. If you treat the Scriptures as a trifle or as empty words, you forfeit life.”

“God is not looking for people to work for Him, so much as He is looking for people who will let Him work for them.”

“The great encouragement from John 10:16 is that the Lord Himself will do what is impossible for ‘poor and helpless worms’ like us.”

“This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less satisfaction in self and the world.”

“The deep things of life in God are discovered in suffering.”

“If we do not communicate that He is the goal and the ground of our joy in suffering, then the meaning of our suffering will be lost. The meaning is this: God is gain. God is gain. God is gain."

“The proper understanding of everything in life begins with God.”

Book Report - Breath - devotions for the youth worker's soul

This isn't really a book that I'm review but a devotional that GROUP put out for us youth workers. I found it very moving and gave me a lot of the things to reflect on and pray about. Breathe - devotions for the youth worker's soul was exactly what I needed to help with the time the LORD gives me to spend one-on-one with Him. I share my prayers in my last two Prayer and Review post (click here and here to read them) that I lifted up to the Lord this past two months that show how this devotional affected me. I would recommend it to any youth worker or parent who is spending regular time with teenagers. One little note: there is a CD that goes with the book which has some great background sounds/music to go with the devotionals. But some of the songs (like track 3) is used a little too much for my taste.

Book Report - Simply Strategic Volunteers

I've been reading Tony Morgan and Tim Stevens book "Simply Strategic Volunteers" for too long but have gotten some great ideas to use in the ministry God has place me in here at NCBC. As always I will keep this book report down to two specific ideas that I got from the book (though I have about 5 ideas) and I will add in one more thought as well.

Big idea number one - The need for me to always encourage my leaders isn't a new idea but Morgan and Stevens certainly reminded me that this is a huge deal. I have to admit I'm not very good and constantly encouraging people. One of the main reasons I have an admin is for her to keep reminding me (and often she does it) to encourage my volunteers. "Anytime you are given credit publicly or thanked for your leadership, always uses that opportunity to deflect the glory to God and the thanks to your team" is something that was shared in the book and something I need to keep in front of me always.

Big idea number two - I need to stay focused on a small group of volunteers and invest myself into them. I like this statement from the book, "It's about spending focused time with regular companions, and that can happen only if we limit the number of people who are within our direct span of care." I'm not saying that I only want a few sponsors interacting with me - I have an open door policy and I want any sponsors (and kid/parent for that matter) to feel comfortable to talk with me. But I do need to keep myself focused on a few people who I am willing to sacrifice almost any of my time for. This is just a very important reminder.

Final thought - I both like and dislike how this book was put together. It has 99 2-3 page long chapters which I thought I would like when I first started to read it. But since I only allow myself to read one book at a time I found myself spending a lot of time reading this book (I usually only read one or two chapters a night) because of how many short chapters there were.

"God never wastes an experience, no matter how horrific" or how wonderful and this book has been a wonderful read and I would recommend it to my youth ministry friends to read and have as a resource to impact their volunteers.

Book report - Reaching a Generation for Christ part 2

This is my second report on the book “Reaching a Generation for Christ” that I’m slowly reading through since it is a very long text book and I want to glean from it a number of ideas. You can read my first book report here and then come back and read about this one.

I found two key ideas from part 2 “Structures for Youth Ministry” that really stood out to me. Both ideas came from Mark H. Senter III eight axioms of youth ministry.

The first key idea that hit me was the overwhelming importance of adults involved in students lives. “The Christian discipleship of students will not take place without flesh and blood relationships,” is a very powerful thought from the first Axiom. Throughout the different Axioms this idea of relationships with adults are talked about. But another important thought about relationships stood out to me as well. This thought was that we as adults working with students must be careful not rely on our identity to be fulfilled through the students. Mr. Senter put it this way, “adults must be willing to release students when spiritual independence is necessary.”

The second key idea deals with the maturing of the of the youth leader which must happen by letting go slowly of different parts of the ministry to other people. Axiom 12 really talks through this and even shares a three stage process youth leaders must go through to mature and thus have their youth ministries mature. I think these stages are a good outline but there needs to be more meat to these stages to really impact the maturing process. I really like this thought, “As a youth worker grows, the focus of his or her ministry must change from primary ministry to secondary ministry or else the effectiveness of his or her efforts will be severely limited.”

There are two more sections in the book about models of youth ministry that were a good read but didn’t have anything really stand out to me on. I’ll keep reading through this book and see what other insights might jump out at me.

Book report - Green Eggs & Ham

My daughter Lindsey has written a couple of book reports for this blog (you can read them here and here) and now my son Nathaniel is doing one. I've asked him to give me a qick review of Dr. Seuss's great classic "Green Eggs & Ham." So here is a 1st grader's review of this book:

The man who Sam wanted to eat Green Eggs & Ham really liked them and would eat them at all the different places that Sam talked about. Sam had a hand machine that I thought was cool. The most funny part to me was when he started to eat green eggs & ham with a goat.

Book Report – Chasing Daylight by Erwin McManus

Our small group that my wife and I have the privilege of hosting decided to go through the Chasing Daylight video series that BluefishTV.com put out and I decided to read the book, "Chasing Daylight" that drives this series. What a great read but also a very challenging one for me. As always I’m putting down two key thoughts that stood out to me:

1) In Mr. McManus’ chapter on Uncertainty he writes, “the certainty that God has called you and the confidence that he will work his victory out in your life are not guarantees of a safe and secure journey.” This really hit me and prompted me to as two question to my small group: Can we live with less in our life? And should we live that way? It was very interesting the reaction I had from the group. At the first question the small group were all agreeing with me and said yes we can do it. But as soon as I asked the second question the hesitation started to creep in. That hesitation hit me hard because I was hesitating as well. I often say that I want to do whatever it takes to honor and point people to God and yet when I’m confronted with uncertainty I pull back. This whole chapter has challenged me to move ahead even if I’m uncertain of what will happen.

2) In the second to last chapter, Movement, Mr. McManus’ makes this statement, “This is one reason it is critical to seize every divine moment. You can never know at the onset all that God intends to do through your simple act of obedience.” This made me think about our purpose statement for our middle school ministry here at NCBC, “Where every middle school youth is given opportunities to take spiritual steps forward.” We have such a limited time with these wonderful kids and I want our group to help them take these steps forward. Mr. McManus seems to confirm this idea that each of these steps are divine moments that we cannot let slip by. I’ll be sharing this with my adult leaders the next time we meet to keep encouraging them to seize these divine moments.

Overall I enjoyed this book and feel that I’ve got a few good ideas from it to apply to my personal life as well as to the lives of those who I humbly have the chance to minister to and with.

Book report - girls' minstry 101

On the back cover of the book “girls' ministry 101” by Whitney Prosperi 3 facts are shared:
1) Chances are that girls make up half or more of your youth group
2) Ministering to girls presents unique challenges and opportunities.
3) Because of facts 1&2, you need girl’s ministry 101

I’m not sure I could say we need this book but it certainly stood out to me when the first two facts are true of our middle school ministry here at NCBC and one of the main reasons I picked up this book.

My hope was that this book would give me some ideas to put into a job description that we are developing here for a female youth director. We don’t have any plans to actually hire someone but it will happen and when it does I want to have a clear job description ready to present to our church.

A number of things stood out to me but to stay within the guidelines I have put in place with my book reviews I will stick to two key things that stood out to me:

The first thing was right at the beginning of the book. Mrs. Prosperi shares a great list of the benefits of having a girl’s focused ministry:
- Girls have someone to talk to.
- A girls’ minister offers female perspective in planning youth events.
- Having a girl’s minister provides protection for male leadership.
- A girls’ minister can plan girl-only events.
- Discipleship – a girls’ minister can lead all-girl Bible studies and small groups.
- A girls’ minister is a role model to the girls.
I really like lists. I would add to this list – a girls' minister can discipline girls a lot more effectively and meaningfully than their male counter parts.

Another thing that really stood out to me was a key statement a friend of Mrs. Prosperi shared with her. “If you want to be there in the bad times in students’ lives, you have to be there in the fun times first.” I call these fun times “remember when moments…” and they are critical for any ministry to any gender and age.

“girls’ ministry 101” is a great resource for me to turn to when the time comes to hire a female shepherd for our ministry. But until then it will be a book I will suggest to my female sponsors to read and use to create a more comfortable and effect ministry to our young ladies.

Live Bible from Group

Group sent me a couple their new live Bibles to use in my ministry and asked if I would share a little review here on my blog. I didn’t want to just look over these Bibles and then just make a quick comment so I used them during our church wide eXchange series that we just finished part 2 of here at NCBC.

Here are my thoughts:
- The extra comments that are spread all over the live Bible are insightful but yet digestible for youth to read. I feel they help explain or encourage youth to go deeper in their reading.
- I like all the extra inputs throughout the live Bible from youth for youth to read.
- The pictures and “creative space” spatter throughout the live Bible is a great touch thou I would have liked more “creative space” to write in.
- All the little extras that are in it – stickers, poems, dictionary/concordance, etc are great. I would have liked to see some maps spatter in it so that the reader could have a understanding of where some of the actions of the Bible happened.
- I really really liked that there is a place for youth to go to (http://group.com/roughedit) and ask questions, see other youth’s questions, and get some thoughts on all things Bible from a youth’s point of view.

I recommended this live Bible to our monthly youth fellowship we have here in the greater Cedar Rapids, Iowa area first of this month and recommended it to anyone who is looking for a Bible to give to a youth.

Book Report – Soul School by Jeanne Stevens

The book Soul School by Jeanne Stevens sparked many thoughts for me. As I continue on this adventure called life I’m always looking for God’s work around me to mold me into a better Mark Eades for him on this earth. This book is another “work” that I have found that has really sparked some thoughts. There are a couple ideas that really stood out to me in this book but all of it has made me think, has challenged me, and encouraged me.

One of the ideas that really stood out to me was Mrs. Stevens challenged for all of us who are a part of the community of Christ to live life and be real in life together. “The greatest moments of my life are always better when shared with others, and my deepest moments of pain find comfort in community,” says Mrs. Stevens. We all will go through highs and lows but to go through those with Christ’s body is so important. Mrs. Steven goes on to say, “whenever we choose an independence that refuses to allow others to know us as we really are, we miss out on God’s intent for us to live and minister in community with others.” I recently spent some time with a good friend who I had lived life together with for almost 4 years but then he discounted for almost 2 years. As we talked I heard the pain that he has been going through and my heart broke. I wish we could have lived life together through those time of pain but we didn’t. We both agreed that we needed each other and that we won’t let that happen again. Life is hard we need each other.

The other big idea that really stood out to me was her ideas shared in the chapter called, “The Miraculous Middle.” This whole chapter sounded so much like the Romans “eXhange” series we are going through at New Covenant that I had to put it down here as I really feel the Lord is speaking to me. Mrs. Steven’s shared this idea, “For too long, I thought God’s desire was that I dig out all of my junk and try to throw it away through my own human efforts. But I’ve realized that what God really wants is for me to actually embrace my humanity and become aware and honest about my brokenness and sinfulness so that I could then life from a place of authentic deep need for Jesus.” The need for us to be real before Christ no matter where we are is so critical in our spiritual walks.

I would recommend Soul School to anyone who is looking for a spark in their spiritual life, looking to be challenged, and/or looking to have their walk with Christ strengthened. The next time I get to do a long (2-3 day) spiritual Retreat Mrs. Stevens book will be with me to spark more thoughts and I hope to be challenged and encouraged even more.

Book report - generation change

Zach Hunter has been all over the place and I've heard Marko at Youth Specialties highly recommends him a number of times. This book Generation Change was a great recommendation and I've got a chance to finally read it. Here is a couple observations I had about this book:

1) In chapter 9 "Clothes" Zach says, "For many people in our world, it's not about choosing which pair of shoes to wear, it's about having any shoes to wear..." Working with Middle school kids this statement really resonates with me. Our kids really have little to know idea of what the majority of youth their age in this world deal with on a daily bases. I think it is my job to communicate that truth to our kids - and I do.

2) I really really appreciated Zach's thoughts on not separating our need for Jesus and the world's need for us to be like Jesus in it. "I don't think we can separate our call to change the world from our call to share the truth about Jesus and his sacrifice for people. God calls us not to one or the other, but to both." I would change only one part of this statement. We can't separate the two - both must happen or neither will.

I really enjoyed this book and have a number of 8th grade leaders that I will be recommending this book to. I'm also going to share some of the idea that were shared in this book to our group to try and do.

Book Report – Jim & Casper go to Church by Jim Henderson & Matt Casper

I picked up the book "Jim & Casper go to Church" because of a number of recommendations from all the blog reading I do. I have to say that it was basically what I thought it would be. I read this book some time ago but have hesitated to blog a report about it because I’m not too excited about this book and that concerns me. What I share later on in my concern section for this book is the main reason why I’ve waited. I have one concern and two take aways about the book:

Concern – Jim Henderson (the Pastor) was challenged by Matt Casper (the Atheist) when Jim proposed to write this book with Matt. “I’m currently an atheist, Jim. I say currently because I am open to the possibility that I may learn something that will change my point of view. Jim, can you say “I am currently a Christian’ and be as open-minded as me?” Jim said, “I nodded, Yes. Let’s write a book.” My concern -is this a true statement from Jim? Putting this down on my blog concerns me because I can hear many people read in to my thoughts here. I can hear people say “I’m not open minded and not willing to hear other ideas. That I’m calling Jim a liar and that he just wanted to write a book.” This isn’t my heart at all – but I know for myself I couldn’t answer that question the way Jim did. Does that mean I have a closed mind?

Take away 1 – I totally agree with Jim’s thoughts that we need to change our language as a church. “We can’t expect to change the church simply by giving it a new set of clothes; we need a new kind of language, too.” I wonder what that language is? I look forward to hear other people’s ideas of what that language is.

Take away 2 – “Ordinary Christians like me know that when you start defending the faith, you also start losing your friends.” I have often felt like every time I was suppose to share the gospel with my friends I was taking a chance of losing their friendship. I often told myself (and heard others tell me) that this was part of the sacrifice I would have to make when I shared the gospel. I never really liked that and didn’t think that was what God placed me on this earth to do – to lose friends for the gospel. I have “lost friends” who I want nothing more than for them to go to heaven some day and if that means I need to be willing to “share with them” (have an open dialog) instead of “defend what I believe” (have them only listen to what I say) with them I’m all for it.

Again, I hesitate to put this on my blog but since I only have a few people who read it any way I really shouldn’t be too concerned. "Jim & Casper go to Church" certainly made me think and I’m glad I read it.

Book report - Dragons in our Midst (4 book series)

I got a chance to go on a mission trip this last summer with 10 great middle school kids. We went with Groupworkcamps & it was wonderful (you can click here to a blog post of that wonderful trip). One of the “extras” that I got from these kids was a book series almost all of them were reading. Bryan Davis' book series "Dragons in our Midst." It's a four book series that has taken me through a Christian sci/fy experience.

There were two major reasons why I dropped all the book's I have lined up for me to read and started to read this series:
1 - I really enjoy science fiction and these books were in that genre
2 - Many middle school kids reading these books were reading them like there was nothing else to do and that said something to me (I had to scold two of them on the mission trip for reading them when they should have been sleeping).

Here is my short review of this series. To me Bryan Davis’ “Dragons in our Midst” has all the elements of a good sci-fy series: Dragons, swords, young heroes, very evil bad guys, modern day stuff, mid-evil time stuff & much more. I really enjoyed how Mr. Davis created the relationships in the different stories. Bonnie and Billy are two main characters that you can really relate to. Most of these stories made it feel like they were happening in our current world setting and that made it very hard for me to put down.

One key part that really stood out to me was how much Mr. Davis puts out Biblical truths throughout all of the books. In these books Mr. Davis gives voice to God's truth through the main characters. Even the dragons want the readers to know that it isn’t by their strength that different things happen but God working through them. "Dragons in our Midst" is a great series and I would recommend it to anyone to read (my wife and daughter are on book 2 right now and I’ve caught both of them reading later than they should way to often!).

Book Report – Reaching a Generation for Christ – part 1

Wow! It has been a long time since I have written a book report. I’m starting a series of reports on the book “Reaching a Generation for Christ” as it is a very long text book. I’m glad that I’m reading through it and I don’t want to just get through it but I really want to systematically glean more from it than an average read. I’m going to read parts of this book, then read other books and magazines, and then read more of this book.

Part 1 – I found two key ideas and one key statement from part 1 “Framework for Youth Ministry” that really stood out to me.

The first key idea came from Steve Patty’s “A developmental framework for doing Youth ministry.” Mr. Patty looks at the development of adolescents and how that effects a youth ministry. I’m very interested in adolescent development and Mr. Patty’s words really hit home for me. He uses James W. Fowler’s stages of growth to help explain this development. Stage 2 & 3 of adolescent development are the most important to me. Stage 2 is all about concrete/tangible events and Stage 3 is all about relational events. This has caused me to rethink how I evaluate my ministry because currently I’m not considering the development of our kids as much as needs to.

The second key idea came from Dave Rahn’s “A Sociological framework for doing youth ministry.” His figures really didn’t help me much but his thoughts of how to use the different social context kids are in was. Mr. Rahn also shared that students are making the interpretations of the environments they are in. They define how they react to what is happening around them which in turn changes the social landscape they are in and this circle keeps going on. I really liked Mr. Rahn’s starter lists for studying my kid’s social landscape. “All social context is relative” was a key thought to me as I often forget how influenced my kids are by those around them and the different social environments they are in.

One last key statement that really stood out to me was from Mark H. Senter III. He said, “Parental contact took place when the relationship between parent and young person was based on trust and respect. This latter contact many times extended to a circle of the adolescent’s friends.” The reason this stood out to me is the group of volunteers that work with my kids are almost all parents of or former parents of middle school kids. They have so much influence on the kids who come, get involved, and actually get the truth of God’s word and it is important to me to keep equipping them.

I know this book will stretch my thought process greatly and I’m looking forward to that. When I’m done I hope to have some really strong ideas that will influence me and my ministry to help the kids, their parents, and my sponsors take spiritual steps forward.

Book report - Ophie out of Oz!

I've been asking my daughter to give me another book report on the books she has read and we finally did one together. We went on a pre-trip trip for our big summer trips and we got to read this book, "Ophie out of Oz!" Here is my 11 (soon to be 12) year old review of the book:

This book was about a girl name Ophie (short for Ophelia Peeler). She had everything in California - great friends, sunshine, and attention. But because of her dad's job they had to move to Oregon. There she was sad because she would always think about California and Lezzy (her best friend).

On the first day of school she meet Brittany and her sister. Brittany followed Ophie around and they would talk to each other. When they were in the theator they heard two girls singing. She told Brittany that they weren't very good and Robin (another girl in the story) over heard and told the two girls that were singing what Ophie said. It turns out that the two girls are the most popular in the school and they did commercials on T.V. A few days later Brittany tells Ophie that she likes a guy from Sunday School (Troy). Then when they go home Ophie writes a love letter to give Brittany ideas. Then she calls and Tana (Brittany sister) answers. Ophie tells Tana what she wrote and then Tana thinks that Ophie is trying to help Brittany so she accidently sends the message to Troy. Then Troy wouldn't write back to Brittany. So Ophie had to call Troy's mom to tell her it was her fault and after awhile she says, okay.

After a few weeks pass Ophie gets a package from her dad and it has a poster and a calendar about the Bailey Broz and they give Ophie comments on it. So, Ophie decides to bring it for show and tell. When she showed it everyone goes crazy and she turns out to be the new hit of the day. Soon she starts hanging around the T.V. girls and doesn't hang out with Brittany anymore. She didn't like being around them after a while. Shortly after that the class goes on a field trip and they go in to a live theater that talks about the 1860s. Brittany starts asking these weird questions and Ophie joins in. Then Ophie says something that the guy pretends to faint and then Ophie says that Brittany knows and does C.P.R. on the guy. After that the guy let's them sit on the corner of the stage and Ophie apologizes to Brittany for her behavior.

I liked this book because it shows how Ophie got persuaded into something so easily. Also how she fought through that.

Book report - the Power of Nice

The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler & Robin Koval

I think I learned about this book from Kurt's blog. “The Power of Nice” is a short book but I found myself highlighting many different parts of it and I had a hard time narrowing it down to my personal filter of only sharing two thoughts from a book. I was able to do that but would encourage anyone to read this book as there are much more in this book than I will put in this post.

My first thought was more of a reinforcement for me than a new idea. The staff here at NCBC is not only great to work with professionally but also awesome as brothers and sisters in Christ. If someone would happen to walk in on our staff meeting they would hear and see us enjoying each other’s company while getting things done (another great book). The authors of “The Power of Nice” point out that this closeness is a key sign for a good working company. They share a note from Daniel Goleman that points this out, “the most effective corporate humor comes not from canned jokes but from friendly banter and situational humor.” I’m so glad God put me where He did.

My second thought was the focus they had on being sensitive to others. They share time and time again that how we deal with others is extremely important. I’m naturally empathetic and based on this book that is a very good thing. “Empathy has been found to be the most important skill for success in life.” I believe that completely. They have a hole section of a chapter called, “Make Friends – before they become enemies” and that it’s more important to tell people what you’re for instead of what you are against. This sounds so much like Pastor Bob that I almost think they must of got it from him.

This is an excellent book and I’m glad that I read it. I think that anyone who wants or needs to be more sensitive to others and want to know how they can do that should read this book.

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.

Book Report – Eragon by Christopher Paolini

I allow myself to have one “fun read” a year to just enjoy reading for reading sake (last year is was Flags of Our Fathers – click here if you want to see my little report). This year, after seeing the movie, I decided to read Eragon by Christopher Paolini. It was a fun read and I really liked the fact Mr Paolini is a young man himself and he wrote and illustrated this book. I enjoy science fiction and this book took me to a new mid-evil fantasy world that was fun to be at, had a great plot to follow, and enjoyable main characters. I really liked how Eragon (the main character) was developed throughout the book instead of being a super character right at the beginning of the book. Also, Saphira (Eragon’s dragon) also went through a development throughout the book. She wasn’t instantly a big powerful beast that all the bad guys stayed away from. I’m looking forward to having my next “fun read” next year and picking up the next book of this series (Eldest).

Book report - the dip

Seth Godin’s book, “the dip” was an interesting and short read. Usually when I get a recommended good short book I usually get a good idea or two and go from there. With Mr. Godin’s book I also got a couple good ideas but I also got one thing I didn’t agree with.

Good things first – I really like the way he explains the key of the book (the dip). “The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery.” He goes on to share that this dip can be quite long. That in life we have dips & we need to make it through them. Because if we make it through them (the dips) we pull way ahead. As Mr. Godin says, “The fact that it’s difficult and unpredictable works to your advantage.”

The other good thing was some questions he recommends using before quitting anything:
“Am I panicking?”
“Who am I trying to influence?”
“What sort of measurable progress am I making?”
I like the idea of evaluating anything that you are going to quit. This gives me a list to do just that.

Now the thing I completely disagree with. He suggests in the quitting section that there is a time to quit things. Along in this section he says that dead-in relationships will never come around which I totally disagree. I might be wrong in his attention but here is what is written, “…when was the last time you heard about someone who stuck with a dead-end job or a dead-end relationship or a dead-end sales prospect until suddenly, one day, the person at the other end said, ‘Wow, I really admire your persistence; let’s change our relationship for the better?’ It doesn’t happen.” I’m open to other thoughts on this but I totally believe (in relationships) people can have a dead-in relationship revise. There are many examples of this in the Bible and in particular the fact that we are all in a dead-end relationship with God because of our sins. It is only because Jesus never gave up on us and died for us that we can be with God again – a dead-end relationship restored.