Resource Review

Books

DeYoung, Kevin. Crazy Busy. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013.

A great book if you want to review the busy-ness of life.  Not about strategies and organizational tools to adjust. All about the foundational reasons we may find ourselves CRAZY.


Lencioni, Patrick. Death by Meeting. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Meetings, the "birthplace of the morale problems....the single point from which confusion, dispassion, and ultimately lethargy emanated throughout the organization."  Pg. 38

I've believed, for years, that meetings should be....fun, productive, strategic, and worth the time they take from everyone involved. I THINK in my previous job that most of the time everyone found this to be true. It was certainly the motivation for everyone on our team.

This is one short, engaging, and useful book about the strategy required to be a GOOD steward of our resources, time and human.  Why is it that we sometimes, in the Christian realm, think that strategy or structure are antithetical to Christianity?  This book has some great ideas for structuring meetings, along with some tools and templates that can easily be adapted. It is written in an exciting narrative, making it even FUN to read!  Anyone that has ever facilitated a meeting, or been to one, should read this book!

Steffen, Tom. The Facilitator Era. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011.

A book that is getting well-worn.  It talks about the history of churches helping to start churches. But then it describes the many ways that we can also support, assist, or....facilitate....others in a location to start their church. I love the diagram on page 36. As people who have a relationship with the Creator God, the God Who is relational and the Father of Jesus Christ, and Who is Spirit....we need to move beyond Dependence but NOT to Independence, but interdependence.  If you are involved with churches, and helping to begin new ones - EVEN "Organic ones" then this is a very timely book and valuable for you, complete with case studies.