You can go wrong reading Leonard Sweet, but you can’t go far wrong. I never know what I’m going to get from this Christian futurist/theologian, but this was a good read.

Post Modern Pilgrims outlines what he’s been saying for years about the need for the church to be EPIC:
Experiential
Participatory
Image-driven
Connected

I’ve heard Sweet speak at several conferences when I was in campus ministry, and the book was like a refresher course. Of all the books he’s written and that I’ve read, this was perhaps the most readable. (Apart from A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Cafe)

About experience, Sweet encourages the church to quit being so heady and to engage people completely. This postmodern generation is thirsty for real, authentic, piston-charging experience.

It’s marked in extreme sports, video games, and reality shows. Sweet notes, however, that one has to be sensitive when creating a church climate of holy experience:

Experiences can become idolic as well as addictive. Postmoderns collect “experiences” like moderns collected “stuff.”

I love how Sweet later affirms that for the believer in Christ, whether modern or postmodern, experience must always submit to obedience.

Saying yes to the moment does not mean letting the moment define the yes.

My dad recommended this book to me. My folks and I have all read all of the Potter books to date. I’ve pre-ordered the newest one to be released this summer.

I didn’t really need a book that set out to defend Harry Potter from well-intentioned Christians. I don’t mind if people don’t want to read the book. I even don’t mind if folks cast stones at those who do.

However, Dad kept harping about it, so I read it… or tried to. This guy is either a LOT smarter than me, or this book was a real snoozer. He deftly takes the Potter series and claims classic status for it, showing how it uses classical Greek and Latin symbolism as do many of the greats of literature. I was a little surprised by that. Perhaps Mark could speak to some of that. I was bewildered by it.

The author also proceeds to demonstrate how the consistent use of imagery, symbolism, names, and plot actually serve to illuminate and consistently reveal Christian themes. Ideas such as atonement, resurrection, good vs. evil, hope, incarnation, sacrfice, and love are consistent in the Potter books. The author claims these themes and their treatment should draw Christian readers to use them as analogies and allegories, much as pastors and churches have found similar themes in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series.

I can’t necessarily recommend the book to you if you already like Harry. It’s a snoozer, and not nearly as entertaining as reading about muggles. However, if you have previously sworn off of Potter for fear of being indiscriminate, I would urge you to give this book a good reading. It might be illuminating for you though I doubt you’ll enroll at Hogwarts anytime soon.

I really had high hopes for this book when i saw its title on Amazon. In fact, a friend graciously bought this for me from my wishlist.

It’s not that the book isn’t good, it’s just that for my own personal discipling strategy, I’ve internalized so much of the book from practice and discipline that I felt like I was reading something I’d written several years ago.

It relies heavily on the Navigators’ discipling techniques, which are great in that they’re intentional and purposeful. Yet, they can become rigid. In many cases, I’ve found that a more fluid, life-on-life approach to discipleship is better than a “I’ll meet you here at 11:00 next week” type of approach.

The most important thing about discipling another person is simply that you’re doing it.

For those of you relatively new to discipleship approaches, I would highly recommend the book. For those of you looking for new helps and ideas for discipling a new generation of people, I would encourage you to look elsewhere.

I have enjoyed White’s books before, but perhaps it’s just that I’ve read so many in this genre by this point that this book just didn’t do it for me.

For the person just picking up a book about why churches do what they do and the desperate need for more evaluation, this book would be a good start.

However, I’ve grown so weary of the church growth mentality that is displayed throughout this book that I ended up skimming large portions of it.

Mark told me in a comment on my review of The Illusionist that if I enjoyed it, I would love The Prestige. He was right. It’s a must see. A little pat on the back for myself… After watching this movie, I was able to make my DVD remote disappear for a full 30 minutes, prompting a late-night couch sweep. After giving up, it reappeared magically in my shoe that I had taken off during the movie. Very cool.

Let me know what powers you get after watching the movie. I think I’m going to go watch Smallville next. The whole flying thing is appealing…

An intensely practical book for those who understand that smaller is better for life change and transformation in ministry.

Stanley and Willits are staffers at North Point Community Church in Atlanta. From the beginning, they desired that the church focus around life transformation by intentionally creating a small groups structure.

They ask three questions that help direct their focus. The questions, I think, are essential to keep one’s ministry focused and help it stay in ministry mindset rather than degenerating to a maintenance mindset:
1. What do we want people to become?
2. What do we want people to do?
3. Where do we want people to go?

The answer to the first, he says is that people need to be a growing disciple of Jesus Christ. The second question is answered in three parts:
• Disciples should pursue intimacy with God.
• Disciples should pursue community with insiders.
• Disciples should pursue influence with outsiders.

They also encourage a church to find their “word.” What one word or idea summarizes your church or ministry? It’s important to be known for something. Before you give the Sunday School answer, and say that you want your “word” to be “Jesus,” consider that many people don’t want to know Jesus at the outset. Northpoint picked the word “relational.”

Northpoint is strategically focused around creating community. They give several reasons and advantages for small groups in their book:
• Groups support their evangelistic strategy of “invest and invite.” They say many irreligious people often want to belong before they believe and groups enable them to process the claims of Christ in a nonthreatening environment with friends.
• Groups decentralize church leadership and care. Groups place pastoral care in the hands of laypeople instead of requiring a professional staff to service an entire congregation.
• Groups enable more people to serve.
• Groups help develop authentic community.
• Groups offer maximum flexibility.
• Groups allow a church to be better stewards. They make the point that small groups enable a church to focus resources on people rather than buildings. By not having to build to accommodate Sunday School or Christian education, money is freed up for ministry and trained personnel.
• Groups remove the primary limits to growth.

One of the interesting findings about North Point in this book was that they have closed groups. That means that once they begin their life cycle (usually 18-24 months), they generally aren’t looking for new people for their groups. Newcomers are assimilated into new groups rather than existing ones. That’s a little different than how we’re doing things at Journey, but it may be more of a necessity for us than a strategy.

Willets also says that they work hard to strategically move people from Point A to Point B spiritually. They use the visual analogy of foyer-living room-kitchen to communicate the progressive steps of community they try to lead people toward. Your foyer is for formal introductions and welcome. Your living room is an environment for visiting and entertaining; however, your kitchen is where intimate conversation and talk often takes place. In fact, it’s around the table that many deep friendships are begun or cultivated.

Willets also says that training is essential for a small groups system, and they have poured the proper resources into this area. They put qualified, visionary personnel over their groups process as well as having small groups leaders go through an application process. He stresses that your small groups ministry must be “real.” It must work in the real world. I can vouch for this, in that we’ve tried many things at Journey that sounded good in conversation but didn’t work out in real life. Your system must fit people’s lives.

As they train their leaders, they focus on six things. (Go read the book.) and continually train their leaders in these six areas. Stressing that less is more, they practice this in their training as well. It’s not important to fill a leader’s notebook with pages of guidelines but to realistically develop their leaders in essential areas.

Finally, they mention the importance of being a small groups ministry, rather than just saying you have a small groups ministry. They do this by financially investing in personnel, training, and childcare. I was very intrigued, especially for the implications for our own church, that they apparently reimburse parents for childcare costs while they are attending small groups. They have a reimbursement form and payment chart even. Interesting.

All in all, it was a fast read for me. Not revolutionary, but supplementary. I can highly recommend it.

This was a nice book. The author is humorous, which I really appreciate, and his suggestions for being a father to your daughter not only are challenging, but they’re also deeply practical.

You can’t go wrong, if you have a daughter. Put at least some thought and time into how you can be a more effective dad.

I’ve always enjoyed Crichton’s work. I mean, the guy who brought us “Jurassic Park” is simply a great storyteller. However, in this work, he pulls back the covers to reveal just how deeply many environmentalist groups have bedded down with political causes.

Not only does he create a page-turning story, but he sheds light with endless documentation on the question of global warming. Turns out, it’s become more politico-science than pure science, and there’s not compelling evidence available to suggest that global warming is caused by the human-industrial factor like the media and lobbyists would leave us to believe.

I appreciated being able to learn while being entertained. Few writers today can pull that one off.

I enjoyed reading McLaren’s emergent thesis book, but it left me with far more questions than the book could answer related to his actual positions on a few things.

Only one chapter in the book earned a standing O from me, while there were a few others that I would say gained a vigorous nod or two.

The thing that disturbed me in particular was his chapter about why he is “green,” or a Christian environmentalist. He seems to have bought into politico-science without doing any collaborative research related to global warming, species extinction, etc. While I agree wholeheartedly that Christians are called to be gentle and good stewards of Creation, I am not at all comfortable with some of his implications that the earth and ants are just as worthy of salvation as humanity is from God’s perspective. I believe that humanity is the pinnacle of God’s creative effort and the target of His salvation effort.

While others have demolished his chapter on being “incarnational,” I think it deserves a second or third read. I think that there’s an unfortunate knee-jerk theological reflex that occurs at first reading for those who are anxious to hear him proclaim Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life” (he does). At first read, I think one’s hackles arise too quickly to some of his truly challenging reflections on how we are called to be a servant to our Buddhist or Muslim neighbor.

Most conservative Christians seem to be too ready to assign the infidels to a far corner of Hell instead of seeking, like Paul, to “become all things to all men so that in all ways possible, I might win some.”

All in all, it’s a book worthy of chewing up. You decide if you want to spit it out.

Many of you will find this hard to believe, but a book about how to effectively organize your church’s leadership structure can breathe fresh life into your church if implemented.

Few folks stop to consider that the way your church is currently structured may actually be hindering its growth and ministry. It may also be suffocating your leaders, without them even being aware of it.

Getz’s book is, indeed, a primer on New Testament church leadership and structure. I’d encourage it for all new church leadership teams as well as traditional churches who desire to experience a more biblical model of church leadership.

Many times, our churches are structured the way they because it’s “always been that way,” or because they’re simply unaware that the New Testament may, in fact, provide more guidelines for leadership and organization than they’ve considered before.

Our leadership team at Journey is currently reading through this book, and I expect it will continue to reap fruit for us as we seek to lead as servants and shepherds.