Problems are for Solving

It’s true: AIDS is nature’s awful retribution for our tolerance of immoderate and socially irresponsible sexual behavior. The epidemic is the price of our permissive attitudes toward monogamy, chastity, and other forms of extreme sexual conservatism. (the rest at the NY Times web site)

This is an excerpt from a book entitled, More Sex is Safer Sex by Steven E. Landsburg. [I'll note in passing that because of the number of ways my last name was changed by immigrating ancestors, it's entirely possible I'm related to this fool]. I followed a link yesterday morning from a doctor’s blog and was appalled at what I saw there. Continue Reading »

Before I broke my sidebar the other day, over to the right you’d see a link to books I’m reading now. That list hasn’t changed in a while. One of the books is finished (still waiting on a review to be done) and the others are progressing ever so slowly. Lately not at all. I’ll update the list when I get time.

Life being hectic, I finally started examining some things, and with a friend’s help I realized that I had overspent my time. My money was doing fine, but I overspent my time.

So I picked up a new book.

It’s called A Minute of Margin by Richard Swenson, MD. It’s short reflections about making room around your life so that you have breathing room–much like margins on a printed page.

A recent reading, #8, was on financial margin, and I found it encouraging to read in the context of my daily life.

He writes:

In giving, you are ushered into a world where cynicism and hatred have been banished. You are considering others before yourself. You are choosing heaven as the place to put your treasure. You are doing what God asked you to do, and what He did Himself. In giving, you are pleasing Him.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a friend that convicted me about giving. I had been generous from time to time in the past but rarely did I consciously think about how I could give to others in an organized way. His thoughts about others were an encouragement to me that caused our family to think differently about giving. Since then we have steadily increased the giving we do to others and ministries over and above our tithe. And in that I have found what Swenson wrote to be true,

a kind of joy that begins with the thought of giving, with the declaration of freedom in your soul that, indeed, [we] belong to God. And the joy culminates in the act of giving, often a secret except in the spotlight of heaven.

I don’t write this to call attention to the giving I have done (indeed it is God working through my friend who ought to get credit for any good I could do) but to let you know that giving can and does truly bring joy to the giver as well as those who receive. Consider your budget and see if you have margin. Find that margin and then find joy in giving it away. Find the joy in sacrificing what you have for the sake of others and see God bless you time and time again in the sacrifice and His returning of the blessing where “it is more blessed to give than receive.” After all, the One Who said that never lies.

UPDATE: I changed my template and the sidebar now has that link again.

This post may get me into trouble, but it was such a nice event today that I had to share it with friends and family.

Today was a full day, despite only working a half day. We went to Lacon to check out a dog we were thinking about adopting (we didn’t) and came home for supper. While supper was being finished I went out shopping, and was out early enough to make it by Harrington Press before it closed today at 5:30.

First some history. Last year (8/9/05) my wife wanted to get me a trip to Rhodell’s to make my own beer. While I love Rhodell’s and it sounded fun, it was expensive.

After a little research we found out that I could buy the equipment to brew my own ale and beer for about the same price. So that was what she was going to get me.

Long story short . . . it never happened. I did get a book about that time from TC, though, The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian.

A few weeks ago I noticed a local place (Harrington) on Sheridan that sold supplies for beer and winemaking. They were never open, though, when I went by. Finally I called the number on the sign and found out their hours. M-F 3:30-5:30, Saturday 9-1.

So today I found myself in town before 5:30.

I stopped in.

It’s a small shop and the guy was knowledgeable. I wasn’t sure when I walked in, but just his demeanor and knowledge and my waiting for this for a while caused me to decide to leave with equipment and ingredients for one batch.

Tonight I invited some friends (Seth and Jon) to come over and help me start the first batch.

It took longer than I thought–three and a half hours from when they got here to when they left–but right now there is a big bucket of beer fermenting in my basement.

It was a nice evening, talking, stirring, waiting, stirring, talking, mixing, pouring. We had great conversation and I shared my first brewing experience with dear friends. I’m sure they’ll be back to help me drink it, too.

Death By Meeting: A Leadership Fable . . . About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick Lencioni

272 pages

Published by Jossey-Bass

As I said when I reviewed another Lencioni book, I usually avoid management books, but the two books I’m reviewing here by Patrick Lencioni are fantastic. I heard Lencioni speak at a conference a few months ago and he was engaging and extremely practical.

Death By Meeting outlines several problems that plague organizations with regards to meetings. As with his other books, he intertwines his solutions in a compelling fiction story—this one about a CEO struggling with his own organization’s meetings.

One of the biggest problems with corporate meetings is that they have multiple foci, rather than a single focus. Trying to do too much in a single meeting undermines accomplishing anything—and we have found this to be true in the leadership team at my office. After implementing the principles he’s outlined and separating our meetings into the various types (daily check-ins, tactical meetings, strategic meetings and off-site long term planning) we’ve found our meetings going more quickly, being more productive, and leading to more accomplishments inside and outside of the meeting structure. Some of the team members who dreaded meetings are more positive about meetings than ever before!

I recommend the book strongly.

You can get for $14.92 at Amazon.com.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

227 pages

Published by Jossey-Bass

I usually avoid management books. The two books I’m reviewing here by Patrick Lencioni are fantastic.  I heard Lencioni speak at a conference a few months ago and he was engaging and extremely practical.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team outlines five principles of building a team, entrenched in a compelling fiction story of a new CEO who is surrounded with talent, but without teamwork.

Lencioni asserts rightly that the first building block of a team is trust, and that building trust starts with vulnerability of the top leadership. The principles here are not just valuable to managers in the business world, but can be adapted for any team situation including a group of church elders.  On top of trust, he works through four other building blocks to a successful team that are helpful in any environment.  My leadership team at work has found these invaluable as we work to become closer knit and more productive together!

I recommend the book strongly.

You can get for $13.77 at Amazon.com.

Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship

By Joshua Harris

224 pages

Published by Multnomah

I wrote earlier about starting this book and this morning I finally finished it.

Most of the time I pick up a Christian book about a particular topic, especially one that is trying to help somebody embrace a particular practice, it comes off as a “ten easy steps to . . . (fill in the blank)� book.

Sometimes I’m surprised.

Josh Harris has done the Church a great service by writing this book which deals with matters of pre-marriage in principle without becoming the slightest bit legalistic. He tells some real and fictional stories that abundantly illustrate both the benefits and joys as well as the potential pitfalls of courtship relationships.

Josh starts with his own story of the beginning of his courtship with his wife Shannon. It is a beautiful story followed by many others, some ending in marriage—others not. Josh builds the book reminding young men and women that their chief end is not marriage—but glorifying our Father in heaven. He builds the book, talking about romance, physical contact, and community (the Church surrounding the couple) and culminates it all in the consummation, speaking of both the day the couple may be married and the day that the Groom comes for His Bride—and that that day the day Jesus comes for us, is the real focus of all courtship.

And then one day in heaven, when this life is done, you’ll truly be able to see His face. You’ll be able to look into His eyes. Imagine that conversation with Jesus. Do you think that you’’ question His plan for your life? Do you think you’ll have grounds to accuse him of stinginess or unfaithfulness? Do you think you’ll complain that you had to wait so long for a spouse? Or even that you never married?

Jesus is the center of every good courtrship—whether it ends in marriage or not. May He be glorified in each one.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

(Get it for $10.40 at Timeless Texts, but I borrowed it from Seth)

It’s my birthday too –yeah!

See this—it’s a blog post! Most of you probably thought I forgot I had a blog. For the most part . . . I did.

Today is my 37^th birthday. I’m officially in my upper 30’s—still a kid for the most part I’d say. I have been abundantly blessed.

Today my wife gave me a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, which I’ve wanted for a while. You’ll see that it’s been added to my reading list in the sidebar. I’ve got two there that I’ve finished and can add at least one more now.

The children gave me panda themed homemade gifts in honor of the main present. I have wonderful children and we’re looking forward (see countdown in the sidebar) to the arrival of Little Engine in a few months.

News items:

The house on McClure is listed with a realtor. We pray it sells quickly.

The Ben-Ezras are officially in the neighborhood. They have to move one more time to the real house, but we’re enjoying having them two doors down.

Code Enforcement got me a birthday present too! A beautiful bright orange “Notice to Abate� sticker on the door of the McClure house. Crystal pulled it down, but we have limbs to move. Thankfully my friends the Aringtons are going to help out because . . .

I leave town tomorrow (plane @ 5:50 AM) with Moriah for San Antonio. I won’t be back until late Saturday.

TC and I had a date this week for the first time in a while. We saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and I came away with at least one sermon illustration.

Praise God for his abundant blessings. Hopefully now that the McClure house is on the market I’ll have some time to write again.

The Connecting Church

by Randy Frazee

(Pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Ft. Worth, TX)

If you’re like me, you’ve been missing something in your life. It’s only recently that I realized what this is. Community. Authentic, biblical community. This is a hold in the lives of most of the church in the United States today.

American=Rugged Individual. All of us know this. We don’t have neighborhoods anymore but instead subdivisions. Even the name “subDIVISION” implies the separation we all feel from those we live near. America is called by many experts today including George Gallup, Jr. and George Barna the “loneliest nation on the earth.”? But is this individualism and isolationism that has become an integral part of our culture Biblical? Pastor Frazee says that it isn’t. In fact, he states that if the church is going to bring Jesus to the “me”? generation, it must do so by truly becoming what it was intended to be “the ultimate ‘we’? organization”.

Community is about serving something larger than oneself. As Church members we ought to understand community, but most of the time we don’t. We ought to depend upon one other, and we are called to be there for one other. Frazee wants to exhort the church to be a community once again. Our culture is marked by individualism, isolationism, and consumerism. These three marks of our culture present the three barriers to authentic biblical community.

Pastor Frazee writes, I wrote The Connecting Church in order to share the principles I am learning about authentic biblical community, principles gleaned both from my study of the Bible and from my conversations with other people”? Frazee doesn’t want these principles to be just in a book to be read, but to be lived out. He offers three Biblical solutions to the three barriers to community. To free us from individualism, he encourages the Church to find a shared purpose. This purpose needs to go beyond more people in the pews or even small groups, Frazee argues, to measuring our small groups and our church by the evidence of Spiritual growth that authentic community alone can feed. To free us from isolationism, he encourages us to live in a common place. This means that we have to totally rethink our lifestyle in order to find ourselves living near other members of the same Church. This means buying a neighborhood rather than just a house. Finally, to counter consumerism, Frazee encourages us to think as stewards of shared possessions. We need to think of all that we have as belonging to God so that we can use it for His purposes and the good of His Church.

Frazee’s book is a whole new look at what the Church should be. Despite the fact that Frazee is writing from the perspective of a Willow Creek model megachurch–this book can be immensely helpful in calling the church back to a simple, separate, deliberate community. This may just be the best thing to ever come out of Willow Creek.

Whether you’re in a big church or a small one—the principles in The Connecting Church are ones that the Church has lost in the last few generations and one we need to embrace once again. No matter your background, you will find it refreshing, and hopefully God will use this Biblical teaching to renew our sense of need for community in the modern Church.

You can find The Connecting Church at Amazon.com.

You may also want to check out the Connecting Church Association website.

On Monday I was reading in J.C. Ryle’s book Holiness (which I am not finishing as quickly as I’d like—but it is wonderful reading) and I came across the following:

. . . men try to cheat themselves into the belief that sin is not quite so sinful as God says it is, and that they are not so bad as they really are . . . . I fear we do not sufficiently realize the extreme subtlety of our soul’s disease. . . . Sin comes to us like Judas, with a kiss . . .

This is in a section where Ryle is talking about the deceitfulness of our own sin. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. We deceive ourselves into thinking our sin isn’t sin and then we don’t need to repent.

Ryle’s book is a wonderful ‘gut check’ for me as I see my own lack of holiness and my need to constantly cry out to God like the Publican, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!�

Book Review

I recently finished The Law by Frederic Bastiat. It was first published in French in 1850. Bastiat, nearing the end of his life, wrote several polemics against the socialist revolutions that were going on in France.

The copy I had was translated and reprinted in the U.S. by the Foundation for Economic Education, and was given to me a few years ago by my father-in-law. It’s a fairly heavy read, though it’s short so it doesn’t take that long.

Bastiat is arguing against social engineering, or as he puts it, using the law for plunder. Whether it be plunder for this cause or that cause was no matter to him—he believed that man should not be deposed of his property without just cause and the cause of engineering a socialist (or any other) economy was not just.

He uses the United States of that day as an example of how liberty can triumph and a free economy produce better justice over the long term and a greater level of equality. The same economic battles that raged in France in the mid 19^th century have been going on here since FDR.

Who should control resources? Why?

Bastiat makes a great argument for a free economy rather than one that is fascist or socialist and it’s only 75 pages long.