New Life Assembly

After You Believe - Book Summary

This week I finally finished a book I'd been looking forward to reading for quite some time - N. T. Wright's After You Believe:  Why Christian Character Matters.  I was looking forward to it for two main reasons.  First, I basically love everything that Bishop Wright writes.  He has a superb intellect, but is capable of writing in a way that engages me on a practical level.  I'd read the first two books in this series (Simply Christian, and Surprised by Hope) and thoroughly enjoyed them, so I knew I'd like this as well.  Secondly, I have adopted the framework for my own pastoral ministry that discipleship really has to focus on the development of character.  I've been working on my own manuscript of a book that focuses on developing character, and I thought I would gain some encouragement, challenge, and new ideas from this book on character.

I wasn't disappointed on either score.  In fact, at one point early in the book, I looked at my wife and said, "I think N. T. Wright stole my book idea."  He was saying some things that I've written and said before, and just the affirmation to come from that was enough to really encourage my own writing and thinking on the subject.  As to the actual content of the book, it was as brilliant as I'd hoped.

His premise seems to be that there are two competing streams of thought when it comes to what we're supposed to do after we become followers of Jesus.  On the one hand you have those who teach that, essentially, there is a strict, fixed set of rules that we are to abide by at all times.  On the other hand you have folks who argue that really Jesus has come to set us free from rules and instead replace the rules with a pursuit of authenticity and "being true to yourself".  Wright argues that both fall short of Jesus' vision for his followers, and that instead we should focus on the development of a virtuous Christian character that would result in us being fully human in the way Jesus desires us to be (and as he himself was).

You can download my summary of the book here:  Download After You Believe - Review

A First Draft You'll Probably Hate

A couple of weeks ago I read a tweet (yes, I just used the word "tweet" in a sentence and still have the audacity to call myself a man) from the writer of the blog,  Stuff Christians Like, which is a great site for people like me who grew up in church culture to laugh at all the things we do without thinking about them.

Anyway, the tweet went like this:

Yesterday I finished up the first draft of a book I've been actively working on for at least a year, and which has been in the idea stage of my mind for at least two years, and probably longer.  I can't really describe how good it felt to send that file off to the copier in my office, the sweet satisfaction of hearing page after page come rolling out of that machine.  I brought it into my office, placed the stack of pages onto my desk, and took a deep breath, amazed that somehow I could have spilled that much ink to share a few ideas.  I wanted to celebrate, so in perfect 21st century fashion, I took a picture of it and posted it to my Facebook wall.

I hole-punched the whole manuscript and put it into a binder so I could have it with me to read through and make notes and edits on the text.  I usually dread editing, but considering how long it's taken me to get to this stage, I'm actually very excited to be out of the draft writing stage and into at least the first stage of self-editing.

I took the binder to bed with me last night, and as Rita was drifting off to sleep I told her that I had finished the first draft, and then said offhandedly that I thought it would probably suck.  Predictably she told me she was sure it wouldn't.  And to my great surprise, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.  It needs a lot of editing to be sure, a lot of tightening up of words and phrases and some work to make sure that the ideas are clear throughout, but it is most certainly not terrible.  I didn't hate it, but I was prepared to.  And maybe that was the victory for last night.  I don't hate what I wrote.  But I don't love it either.  It definitely needs more help to get to the love stage.  So I've got work ahead, but for now, I'm celebrating a big step forward towards something I've had on my "to do" list for quite a while.

Book Summary: 7 Practices of Effective Ministry

I was first introduced to Andy Stanley's work when I picked up the book Visioneering towards the beginning of my work as the pastor of New Life.  That book had a profound impact on the way I thought about ministry, and thought about the development of vision and direction for the church.  When I heard him speak at the Catalyst Conference in the fall of 2001 I was sold on the quality of content that he brought to the table in every message and every book.

I've never heard Andy Stanley give a bad talk, and I've never read one of his books that didn't have a significant impact on the way I approached my work as a pastor (that includes The Next Generation Leader and Communicating for a Change).  So when I started thinking about books I'd like to read to improve my game in the area of leading leaders from an organizational point-of-view, it was almost a no-brainer that I would pick up 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, which is a collaborative effort from three key leaders in the North Point Community Church organization. 

The book itself is extremely easy to read, but the seven principles are anything but breezy.  Even though they are easy to understand, I have a feeling that working through this book is going to take a long time to internalize and then to implement with our leaders here at New Life.  But I'm convinced that it's going to be a fulfilling and worthwhile process.

Here's my 2 page summary of the book:  Download 7 Practices of Effective Ministry - Review

Book Summary - Made to Stick

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I recently purchased a new supply of books to read through in an effort to grow in certain areas of my leadership.  One of the areas I wanted to grow in was my communication - both my public, Sunday communication, as well as the other kinds of communication I do, via the blog, email, etc.

I decided to read the book, Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath.  As I did with the last book, I'm posting my brief summary of the book:  Download Made to Stick - Review.

Book Summary: The Divine Conspiracy

About a month or so ago I finalized a personal growth plan for addressing some different areas of my leadership as a pastor.  One of the commitments I made was to read some books in areas that I felt I could use some focus on, and then to write a simple summary of each book that I read which would help me internalize some of the ideas and give me some accountability for finishing and digesting the books.

There were other elements to the plan I developed, but I thought it might be helpful to post those book summaries here as I complete them.  Perhaps one of them will provoke your interest in one of the books, or even get you thinking about the topic the book addresses.

Here's the list of the areas I wanted to work on, and the books I decided to read in each:

• Spiritual Growth
  • The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard
  • After You Believe:  Why Christian Character Matters, N.T. Wright
• Discipline and Organization
  • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey
• Leadership
  • Seven Practices of Effective Ministry, Andy Stanley, Lane Jones and Reggie Joiner
  • Axiom, Bill Hybels
• Teaching and Writing
  • Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  • On Writing Well, William Zinsser (this will be a re-read for me)

I finished The Divine Conspiracy last week, and, using a basic format provided here, here's my summary: The Divine Conspiracy - Review 

Catalyst Day 1 (Seth Godin)

With apologies to the following speakers (Christine Caine, Beth Moore and Francis Chan), all of whom were excellent in their own rights, I'm just going to post my notes from Seth Godin's session on the first day of Catalyst.  To be honest, with each of the three aforementioned speakers, I felt that their effectiveness in communicating was more a function of their passion and presence than the content they shared - and passion and presence don't necessarily translate into a lot of notes.  So while I had about 3 pages of notes from Seth Godin, I had only about a page from all of the other 3 combined.  If you're looking for their sessions, your best bet would be to either purchase or borrow the cd's of their talks.

Seth Godin (Author, Blogger and Business/Marketing Guru):

*Confession - Seth talks about 800 miles per hour, and I did my best to write down everything he said, so there may not be a lot of flow to these notes....

• We find tension because there is a difference between what is and what you are expecting
• The way our economy works drives our culture - because the economy has shifted, culture has shifted, and as culture has shifted so has spiritual life
• Ford and the Factory
  • Ford's goal seemed to be to build an organization with interchangeable parts, and ultimately interchangeable people - if you don't show up to work, they can replace you
  • Factories led to schools which were invented to train our kids to be obedient, sit in rows and buy the right kinds of stuff to fit in and be part of the crowd
  • The factory wants you to fit in so they can ignore you
  • In our economy and culture, competence is no longer scarce - you can always find someone to do the job who will do it cheaper, cut another corner - it becomes a race to the bottom
• The New revolution is destroying the Industrial Revolution
  • What can you count on in a new economy and culture now?
    • You should make a difference and do work that people will miss if you stopped doing it
    • We will move from being more obedient to being more graceful - be the person people would be sad to see leave the room
  • The factory created a world of compliance (school, work, politics, church)
    •  
      • Now with such a connected world, you can't force compliance because people can just leave and go somewhere else
  • If you want to succeed you must be prepared to fail
    • No one wants to join the boring tribe
    • It's about creating a movement - Apple has created a movement surrounding their products, and the people who buy them buy the movement, not just the product
    • Boring doesn't work, doesn't get people to talk - people will talk about you because you are a genius, a person who knows how to solve interesting problems
  • Without a boss, who sets your agenda? 
    
    • At the heart, it is your Art that sets the agenda
    • Art is a human act that changes someone else and it cannot be sold - at best you can sell the souvenir of the art (the painting, the music, etc.) but art is a gift and the giving of the gift is what changes people
    • In a connection economy you need to create your art, you need to think for yourself and seek understanding rather than just thinking someone else's thoughts
  • Art is emotional labor
    • It is a labor of nuance, of risk and self-exposure but we need original thinkers, provacateurs, people who will risk
    • What are we rewarding?  Are we attracted to just doing what we did last week?  The more change we make the more likely people will join the tribe
  • Change is made by people who stop seeking deniability, take on more responsibility and are not concerned with getting the credit
  • Can we move beyond creating an "us v. them" system in our tribes?  Is it really important to prove that we are better than everyone else?
    • It's the difference between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset - when you believe that there is an abundance you can give gifts rather than fighting over resources

And then, as if to underscore his final point, he gave us resources - a small little book he called "Graceful", with excerpts from his latest book, Linchpin.

Catalyst Day 1 (Andy Stanley and Daniel Pink)

The hardest part of any conference is coming home and trying to sort through what you learned and how you can possibly begin to integrate any of it into what you're facing in your current situation.  I find that sharing what I've learned is a big step in that process for me, so even if no one else is reading, I'm going to think out loud on what I heard at the Catalyst Conference last week.

Initially I intended to blog the whole first day in one post, but then I started typing and realized how massive a task that would be.  So I'll probably post the notes from 2 sessions per day.

Session 1:  Andy Stanley, Pastor and Author

• Everyone has appetites, and the only word an appetite knows is "more"
• Leaders have heightened appetites for, among other things, progress, responsibility, respect, the win, growth, fame or recognition, achievement, and to be envied
• 3 Things to remember about appetites:
  • God created them, but sin has distorted them
  • Appetites are never fully and finally satisfied - they never go away completely
  • Your appetites always whisper "now", and never "later"
• Genesis 25:29 and following
  • Story of Jacob and Esau
  • Who would trade their birthright and their future for a bowl of stew?  You would, and I would if it was the right bowl of stew
  • There was no one standing there with Esau to reframe the appetite for him - he makes the exchange and ends up writing himself out of God's story for generations to come
• Ask yourself where you want to be ten years from now
  • Reframe your appetites in this perspective - will this choice keep me from it?
  • The clearer, bigger and more defined the frame, the less grip your appetites will have on you
• What is your "bowl of stew"?
  • What is it hard to say "no" to?
  • What are you talking yourself into?
  • What are you considering that you know you would warn someone else about?
  • What are you contemplating that your spouse is uncomfortable with?
  • What are you doing that is not illegal or immoral that you wouldn't want everyone to know?
• You have no idea what God wants to accomplish through you, your children, and your grandchildren, but God does, and you are going to want to be there for it!

Session 2:  Daniel Pink - Author, Drive and A Whole New Mind

• Three thoughts about motivation
  • We are more than our biological drives
  • We respond to rewards and punishments
  • We also do things because they are the right thing to do and they will make a contribution to the world
• Many organizations and companies stop at the motivation of reward and punishment and don't ever tap into the third drive
  • If _________, then __________ rewards work well with simple mechanical tasks, but not for creative solutions to complex problems
  • If we are doing creative and complex work of trying to create something new, we need more than just the if, then rewards
• How do you motivate people to do creative work?
  • Autonomy
    • Management is a technology for organizing people into productive capacities - it is designed and built for compliance, but we want engagement not just compliance and people tend to engage better when they get to the result on their own
    • They want autonomy over their (1) Time (2) Task (3) Team, and (4) Technique
    • He mentioned one company that created something called the "FedEx" day in which they would set their employees free to work on any problem or product they wanted from Thursday afternoon through Friday - the only condition was that you must deliver something on Friday afternoon to your team
  • Mastery
    • We have the desire to get better, there is something inherently satisfying about progress
    • Studies show that people are most satisfied on the days they believe they have made significant progress
    • The only way to move towards mastery is through feedback, but it should be more regular and intentional than the annual performance review
    • He suggested a do it yourself performance review where you evaluate how you have progressed towards the goals you set for yourself
  • Purpose
    • There are limits to the profit motive
    • When profit motive detaches from a sense of larger purpose, it can become dangerous all around
    • Great leaders can be summed up in one sentence that describes their purpose - what is your one sentence?

Book Review: Primal

How is it that I have time to write a book review three days before Christmas, you ask?  Well, when I took the Strengthsfinder test several years ago, my top strength assessed out in something called "responsibility".  So when I agreed to receive a free preview copy of the book, Primal:  A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, I signed on to be part of a blog tour in which I would write a review of the book between the 15th and 22nd of December.  The responsibility combined with a knack for procrastination leads me to writing the review here, at the last hour, but absolutely compelled to keep my word.

This is the first book I've read by Mark Batterson, who pastors National Community Church in Washington, D.C.  I've heard a lot about Mark and his church, particularly since he is a pastor in my denomination (Assemblies of God) and his church is often held up as a model of a great church doing a great job connecting with a postmodern culture. 

Batterson's contention is that we as Christians have lost the soul of our faith, and that if we hope to find it again, we need to start with Jesus' great commandment:  that we should love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.  If Jesus identifies this as the greatest command, then it would make sense that we would "spend an inordinate amount of our time and energy trying to understand and obey it."  He'll get no argument from me there, nor when he says that, for the most part, Christians have become more known for what we are against than what we are for.  What we are for, in his mind, is supposed to be great devotion to this great commandment.

The Heart of Christianity - Primal Compassion

Here he describes the ability for us to feel what God feels, to have our hearts broken with the things that break the heart of God.  If we are to genuinely love God, then we must love and care for what he loves and cares for.

I was only marginally engaged with the book until I read the following words that finally grabbed my attention:

What makes you glad or sad or mad?  What puts a holy smile on your face?  What causes your spirit to sob uncontrollably?  What makes you pound your fist on the table out of righteous indignation?  Somewhere in the mixture of that gladness, sadness, and madness is your God-ordained passion.  Or maybe I should say compassion, because you are feeling what God feels.

I believe many Christians simply go through the motions without ever thinking through questions like this.  If you had the chance to read the book only to be challenged with those questions, and allow your spirit to rise to answer them, I think it would be worth it.

The Soul of Christianity - Primal Wonder

If the heart of Christianity is to feel what God feels, then the soul of it is to stand in awe, wonder and worship at the beauty and majesty of what God has done.  He writes that there is something about staring at the stars that is good for your soul, and I felt myself resonate with that.  We live about a mile from the beach, and on a clear winter night I can stand in my driveway and hear the sound of waves on the beach while I stare up into a sky clouded with stars and all I can do is wonder at the creativity of a God who could make all of this.

In the pages of Scripture, Batterson argues, we find the soulful revelation of God's character to us.  And here he encourages us not just to read Scripture, but to allow Scripture to read us.  To get lost in the wonderful story that is the gospel, and allow ourselves to be consumed by its raw power is good for the soul, inspiring truer worship than simply going through the motions.  We must think about its implications not just with our mind, but from the soul.

The Mind of Christianity - Primal Curiosity

But the soul is not the only place for thinking and expanding our understanding of who God is.  Batterson encourages us to use our brains (both hemispheres) to be continual learners in the kingdom of God.  Here he encourages us to pursue logic, humor, imagination and every other aspect of our brains for the purpose of understanding God and the world he has made to a greater degree.

I loved his thought that eventually holy curiosity will drive you past simply looking for things to make sense, or be reasonable, and will eventually push you past what your senses can hold, and past what your brain can make meaning out of.  Eventually holy curiosity will push you past the ideas that are just good ideas, and into a pursuit of a God idea, an idea that would transform you, and others, in its fulfillment.

The Strength of Christianity - Primal Energy

If we have heart and soul and mind, but do not engage our bodies and our strength in the loving of God, then ultimately we will have missed out on perhaps our greatest task.  At some point, our love for God will push out of those inner worlds of heart, soul and mind and will express themselves in actual physical ways on the earth.  Perhaps you could say this is where it begins to cross over from loving God to loving our neighbors as ourselves.

If there is anything that I think speaks loudly to our culture and world it is precisely this.  It will not do for us to contend for theology without the world seeing that our theology drives our service to the world.  If we work with all of the energy that God has given us (and will continue to give us), then what can't we accomplish?

My Thoughts

As I said in the opening paragraph on the heart - I was off to a slow start with the book.  At times I felt like too many examples and illustrations overwhelmed the message the author was conveying.  I can hear the influences of different writers (Erwin McManus and Rick Warren are the two that come to mind) in Mark's writing, and so I felt like a lot of what I read was not new information for me.  That does not, however, take away from the impact of this book on my own spiritual journey.  I see its potential to be a personal catalyst for sparking my imagination at what God could and would do with me and through me if I would devote myself to loving him this way.

I would recommend the book for you if you are seeking a personal, spiritual reformation.  Batterson does a great job opening up the heart, soul, mind and strength avenues to the great command, and provides some strong challenges for you to consider.  If you are willing to engage with the hard questions, and do some soul-searching in the process, I would consider taking your time to go through this book with an open heart and mind (and notebook) to see what God will show you about the road ahead.

Random, Disconnected Thoughts

With no particular order or flow:

• Last night's Red Sox game was depressing.  I hope they can bounce back today and get a win from Beckett.
• Had a great night writing last night with the thunder and rain while listening to the foghorn and the sound of the waves out the window.  I felt inspired.  Hopefully it translates to the writing I did.  Though, truth be told, nothing ever seems as good in the cold light of day (or the cold gray of day, in our case here).
• I've been on a bit of a reading binge lately after reading through a list of top 100 books related to New England (either by topic or author) from the Boston Globe.  Recently finished John Adams' biography by David McCullough, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson and am just about done with Three Junes by Julia Glass. 
• I'm really looking forward to starting a new series this weekend called "The Table".  We're going to explore the connection between meals and spirituality in the Scriptures by focusing on three places where the two cross over:  grace, fellowship and thanksgiving. 
• I'm amazed that while our economy has been in probably the worst state of the years I can remember, that the giving of our church community has been steadily on the rise.  To date we're about 23% over our projected budget for this point in the year.  That's definitely a testimony to God's faithfulness!
• We're in the process of working two major projects that I hope will expand our influence in the community:  (1) A renovation of our garage into a better equipped food pantry which will allow us to expand hours and services that are definitely needed (2) A back to school block party that I hope will help bring our people together around a common, exciting project and will allow us to invite others in the community to see what the people who occupy that strange-looking building on the corner of Post and Tuckertown are all about!
• I'm getting very excited for my missions trip in just over a month.  Pray for me if you think about it, but also particularly pray for Rita and the kids while I'm away.  Our family structure is definitely such that both parents contribute a lot to the managing of the house, so a lot of my burden is going to fall to Rita.  I'm sure she'll handle it superbly, but I know it's going to be a challenge for her.
• Last, but not least, I'm looking forward to a vacation at the end of August like I can't remember looking forward to vacation before.  Usually I don't get that sense of longing to get away until just a couple of days before we leave - at this point I'm already feeling like I need the time away, and we need it as a family.  We're going to visit friends in Baltimore, spend time with Rita's family in West Virginia, and then spend a few nights just the four of us touring D.C. 

Two quotes that guide me...

Yesterday afternoon I cracked open a brand new Moleskine Plain Journal with the heavyweight pages that allow me to use my fine point Sharpies for writing out my sermon notes. This morning I took a few minutes to inscribe the following two quotes into the first two pages, as I have done for the last two books before this one. I genuinely enjoy the process of crafting and delivering a message every week, and these two quotes have served as a beacon for me as I endeavor weekly (and sometimes weakly) to speak a word of hope and life into the hearts of those who sit in need with me on Sunday.

They are both from a beautiful little book on preaching called "Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale" written by a remarkable author I first encountered on a recommendation from my brother: Frederick Buechner.

"Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe even when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have."

"The Gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old term, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy. And yet, so what? So what if even in his sin the slob is loved and forgiven when the very mark and substance of his sin and of his slobbery is that he keeps turning down the love and forgiveness because he either doesn't believe them or doesn't want them or just doesn't give a damn? In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen to him just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen....it is impossible for anyone to leave behind the darkness of the world he carries on his back like a snail, but for God, all things are possible. That is the fairy tale. All together they are the truth."