This is my round-up of reviews for this month. I’m only reviewing on this blog what is required to be reviewed here as a condition of the books being provided to me. (Other reviews are on Amazon as The Art of Steering and on websites including The Good BookStall and The Christian Marketplace.) Leonard Sweet, I Am … Continue reading »
When leaders of communities are not reappointed as leaders – when their mandate has come to an end – they may suffer very deeply… They may go through a form of depression… Sometimes they may even have to leave the community, especially if the new leader is young and inexperienced and is afraid of their … Continue reading »
To start with, I am breaking the cardinal rule of having Fridays off because this Friday I have to go to a load of course and exam board meetings for the open learning tutoring I do. On the plus side there, though, I’ve just agreed to be the tutors’ rep: though no one is quite … Continue reading »
I’m reading Craig Groeschel’s It: How churches and leaders can get it and keep it, another of my library acquisitions from last week. I really don’t know what to make of it. I keep thinking that I hate it and then I think I’m over-reacting. It is not, after all, hugely different from any other church … Continue reading »
Tuesday was a good day; I was handed three books to read which had been newly-bought for the college library. Ostensibly, they are potentially relevant as background to my research, although actually we all know that I’d read as many titles about leadership and church as I can get my hands on. (They’re always better … Continue reading »
The barriers and walls around communities, as they lock themselves up in fear or elitism, are the mirrors of those barriers and walls that people put around their own wounded hearts. Jean Vanier in Community and Growth.
I’ve not been reading much of Calvin Miller’s Letters to a Young Pastor lately. That’s probably because, if you are a book in my house, it is very easy to get lost! That said, those of you who have followed me for many months will be pleased to know that there is an update in the … Continue reading »
Here’s something from Wayne Cordeiro in Sifted: it is our unguarded strengths that become our greatest weaknesses…that point of vulnerability will be near to your God-given strength. This resonates with me a lot. More than I would like, in fact. I guess that it is true precisely because it is our God-given strengths which most tempt … Continue reading »
I’ve just done the first of several practices of this week’s preach in preparation for Sunday. There’s nothing quite like reading the notes off the computer screen and, in effect, preaching to the laptop with all the enthusiasm and inflection which I hope will form part of my delivery on Sunday. Mind you, back … Continue reading »
Good listening is a matter of becoming empty before people so as to sense when to speak, when not to, and how. There is a feeling that comes when our words are connecting with others. Mike Mason in Practising the Presence of People. It makes you think, doesn’t it…how many times we really listen to the … Continue reading »
