I've Been Thinking About This…

While on vacation, I’ve been working on my reading list – here it is:

• On church growth:
  1. Emerging Worship, by Dan Kimball
  2. Church on the Other Side, by Brian McLaren
  3. Organic Church, by Neil Cole
  4. Elephant in the Boardroom, by Carolyn Weese & J. Russell Crabtree
  5. The Ascent of a Leader, by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol & Ken McElroth
  6. Exiles, by Michael Frost
  7. The Forgotten Ways, by Alan Hirsch

• On management:
  1. It’s not about the Coffee, by Howard Behar
• I thought I’d read this but I haven’t:
  1. Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
• …and a couple of light reads that I picked up yesterday in town here:
  1. Making Money, by Terry Pratchett
  2. The Heart of the Dales, by Gervase Phinn

I’m also going over my church’s current Sunday School curriculum to see if there’s a solid theme and any recommendations, so it’ll be a fun week.

I started reading Emerging Worship yesterday. A little over a third of the way as of this writing, but I’ve stuck to it. What I like about this kind of writing is that it’s such a good summary of different areas that are interconnected. The emerging church gets a solid introduction, of course, and I’ve highlighted quite a number of phrases on that topic. I can’t say I agree with Kimball in every particular; in some areas I think he’s over-pressing his point, while in some areas I entirely disagree – but I’ve been following along and agreeing whole-heartedly most of the time. Agreement stalled out around chapter 5 – “Questions to ask before starting a new worship gathering”. Here he clearly has had a bit of history with senior pastors, which is a shame all around – it rather poisons an otherwise edifying book when it gets used as a bully pulpit for personal feelings, just as John Piper’s books suffer when he rants against Catholics.

Obviously worship is another area with a title like that, and it’s been exciting to read the different areas of the Bible that speak to this topic. Well, duh! A quick check of the Blue Letter Bible shows that the various forms of the word appear 190 times across the KJV (worship=108; worshipped=70; worshippers=7; worshipping=5). It would be interesting to do a study on the word some day…although much of the study has been encapsulated in this book.

I quite like the layout of the book, too. The spaciness of the text, as well as the sidebar Scriptures and references make for an interesting change of pace as I read; little nuggets thrown in for good measure. By contrast, I started Church on the Other Side this morning and the text is densely packed and proportionately less readable. I’m only about 50 pages into that book yet, but I’m seeing one similarity in assumptions between the two that is a bit disappointing – both seem to assume that when people are part of a church, they’re committing to whatever time it takes to do what needs to be done. That sure isn’t a realistic notion in the North East. Having a half-day meeting each month to plan a worship service won’t work here. Having people come out every Saturday night, then Sunday morning, then a couple of other times during the week won’t work either. Folks are very protective of their time, and church is seen as just another extra-curricular activity that must compete with sports and music for the kids, as well as a host of other activities for the adults. Still, that’s the point of outreach, I guess; an adjustment in values to re-center around Jesus.

I also finished Making Money last night – Terry Pratchett’s always good for a chuckle, although his first 5 or 6 were laugh-out-loud funny, while his subsequent ones have been only ’smile’ funny. I guess it’s a bit like a movie sequel – the first one is great because it’s a New Idea. The studios say, ‘let’s build on that success’ and do it again; the public say, ‘we loved the first one, let’s see the next’; but it’s never as good, because the subsequent one(s) build on an idea that everyone is familiar with…Star Wars, Matrix, Shrek, Indiana Jones; you can’t name a single sequel that was as good as the first one. Some book series work; others don’t so much. Finally, I started in on The Heart of the Dales, which is also a fast read.

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