Reading List

Dec 10 2008

Something Else Good to Read

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I’m a little late with this week’s offerings of interesting things to read in the blogosphere. Nevertheless, here we go.

For those of you who preach, or are interested in the methodologies used by those who do, Peter Mead of Biblical Preaching has a good article for you. Shifting from Passage to Message-Purpose, details well the process that must be considered as expositors are developing sermons.
John Howell, at johndhowell.com, is writing a series on truth. That’s right, truth. The first two posts in his five part series, What is Truth? and How do You Recognize Truth? are good reads.
What keeps your passion alive? Craig Groeschel at Lifechurch.tv has written a post, What Keeps My Passion Alive, outlining what keeps his passion alive. I hope it provokes some thought.

Dec 01 2008

Something Else Good to Read

Even with a lot of writers taking a mini break fro the Thanksgiving Day holiday, there were still a lot of good things to read. Here are just a few. Enjoy.

Michael Spencer over at Internet Monk.com wrote a great post on Christian Community and Abandoning Commitment. In the post Michael deals with the notion that while contemporary forms of evangelicalism have done much for church growth, they have done little to develop a true sense of Christian community. Its a good, thought-provoking post that calls for leaders to rethink our notion of “church”.
If you are a preacher, or even if you’ve only listened to one, I’m sure that you will agree with Peter Mead’s assessment of a temptation that all preachers face–using one text to preach another. Preach It From The Right Passage is a post from Biblical Preaching.
Whether you believe in luck or not (personally, I don’t), you can benefit from the 4 tips in Jon Gordon’s blog post Enhance Your Luck.
Finally, two posts from George Ambler at The Practice of Leadership. Are you living the Leadership Challenge, and The Lesson of the Moth. Both are good reads. If you are familiar with the foundational leadership book The Leadership Challenge, then you will enjoy being reminded of the principles that the book espouses that all extraordinary leaders should exemplify. The second post is just great to me, calling leaders to stop playing it so safe all the time.

Nov 24 2008

Something Else Good to Read

Every Monday I will begin to post some of the more interesting things that I am reading in the Blogosphere or in print. Here it goes for this week. Enjoy! I did!

Over at The Batterson Blog, Mark Batterson wrote an interesting article on how he sees influence being redefined.
In “Is your behavior damaging trust“, George Ambler at The Practice of Leadership highlights an the 25 behaviors that contribute to building mistrust on a team. These are insights George pulled from an article in Management-issues.
“Become a better leader with 30 day experiments” is another good post that George Ambler gleaned from and article in Management-issues. It is well worth the read. It would be interesting to hear what some of you were able to do in 30 days.

Sep 15 2008

Servant Leadership vs. Positional Leadership

I ran across this blog post at Brant Hansen’s Letters from Kamp Krusty (yes, that is the name of the blog). I have to say, these comparisons hit the nail (or out of touch positional leader) on the head. Check out Brant’s original post here.

Servant Leader: Has something to say

LeaderMan: Wants a platform on which to say something

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LeaderMan: You almost feel you know his family, because he’s your Leader

Servant Leader: You allow him to influence you, because you know his family

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LeaderMan: Wants you to know he’s a Leader

Servant Leader: You’re not sure he knows he’s a leader

———–

LeaderMan: Loves the idea of the Gospel, and the idea of The Church

Servant Leader: Loves God and the actual individual people God brings across his path

———–

LeaderMan: A great speaker, but self-described as, “Not really a people person.”

Servant Leader: Makes himself a people person

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LeaderMan: Helps you find where God is leading you in his organization

Servant Leader: Helps you find where God is leading you

———–

LeaderMan: Gets together with you to talk about his vision

Servant Leader: Just gets together with you

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LeaderMan: Resents “sheep stealing”

Servant Leader: Doesn’t get the “stealing” part, since he doesn’t own anyone to begin with

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LeaderMan: Wants the right people on the bus

Servant Leader: Wants to find the right bus for you, and sit next to you on it

———–

Servant Leader: Shows you his whole heart

LeaderMan: Shows you a flow chart

———–

LeaderMan: A visionary who knows what the future looks like

Servant Leader: Knows what your kitchen looks like

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LeaderMan: If it’s worth doing, it worth doing with excellence

Servant Leader: Not exactly sure how to even calculate “worth doing”

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LeaderMan: Talks about confronting one another in love

Servant Leader: Actually confronts you in love

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LeaderMan: Impressed by success and successful people

Servant Leader: Impressed by faithfulness

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LeaderMan: Invests time in you, if you are “key people”

Servant Leader: Wastes time with you

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LeaderMan: Reveals sins of his past

Servant Leader: Reveals sins of his present

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LeaderMan: Gives you things to do

Servant Leader: Gives you freedom

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LeaderMan: Leads because of official position

Servant Leader: Leads in spite of position

———–

LeaderMan: Deep down, threatened by other Leaders

Servant Leader: Has nothing to lose

Unfortunately, I have to admit that there are too many leaders of the ‘LeaderMan’ type in our contemporary churches. What the church needs is a leadership repentance, purging, and revival. We need to repent of our need to have our itching ears tickled and heaping up the kinds of teachers and leaders who were only too eager to oblige us. We need to purge the ranks of church leadership of all of the ‘LeaderMan’ types of leaders; those leaders who saw (or see) church leadership as an easy hustle, or a way toward financial independence on the backs of God’s people. Finally, we need to experience a revival of Bible-based, Christ-centered, servant leadership. This type of leadership is modeled after the ministry of Jesus Christ, and is always other-focused. Remember, Christ deferred all glory to His Father in heaven.

…You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. Matthew 20:25-28

Sep 09 2008

Something Else Good to Read

Like most bloggers, I am also an avid reader of blogs, books, newspapers, websites, and anything that I can get. I recently came across Cerulean Sanctum, a blog written by Dan Edelen. Dan offers some keen, insightful, and well articulated posts on his blog. Of particular interest to me, and possibly you, were a series of posts on the state of the charismatic movement in the Western church. I’m linking to them below. Keep up the great writing Dan!

Cleansing the Charismatic Crackup, Part 1

Cleansing the Charismatic Crackup, Part 2

Cleansing the Charismatic Crackup, Final Thoughts