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Leadership Journal's Best of 2009

Wondering what books to read next? Leadership Journal polled more than 100 Pastors and Leaders to come up with their list of the best books in two categories: The Leader’s Outer Life and the Leader’s Inner Life. Here they are:

Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion

By Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck

Whether you’re committed, disgruntled, hesitant, or disconnected from the body of Christ, this passionate resource will help you renew your love for the church in all its real-life guts, gaffes, and glory. DeYoung and Kluck’s valuable resource provides a solid reminder of the biblical mandate to participate in our local congregations. Relevant and encouraging! 224 pages, softcover from Moody.

The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity

By Soong-Chan Rah

* A bold vision for the future of North American evangelicalism! Urging the Western church to escape the captivity of individualism, consumerism, and racism, Rah provides a keen analysis of the limitations of American evangelicalism and offers alternative models for congregational renewal, including those drawn from African American, Native American, immigrant, and second-generation Christian communities. 180 pages, softcover from InterVarsity.

The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church

By Dave Gibbons

Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches That Reach Them

By Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley & Jason Hayes

Lost and Found presents comprehensive research about and in-depth interviews with young men and women ages twenty-five to thirty-four who have never really been churched. The findings, such as how open this generation is to spiritual things, will surprise church-based readers and break some long established assumptions and opinions.

Expert church culture author Ed Stetzer (Breaking the Missional Code) also examines the congregations that are effectively reaching the younger unchurched and how they are doing it. Any church that is concerned about outreach to this generation will discover principles and methodologies to learn from and adapt into their own ministry.

Longing for God: Seven Paths of Christian Devotion

By Richard J. Foster & Gayle D. Beebe

Is your soul yearning to taste God’s goodness? Offering a classical model of spiritual formation, Foster and Beebe introduce you to seven devotional paths illustrated by Thomas Merton, Blaise Pascal, Julian of Norwich, John Wesley, and other key Christian figures. Discover how to experience the spiritual life as journey, deepen your friendship with Jesus, and more. 350 pages, hardcover from InterVarsity.

Leading on Empty: Discover the Secrets to Renewing Your Energy and Strengthening Your Passion to Serve

By Wayne Cordeiro

Learn from veteran leader Wayne Cordeiro how to replenish yourself from a state of exhaustion in leadership, or, better yet, how to avoid the trap of burnout altogether. Find out how to lead when you just don’t feel like you can do it any longer, and how to navigate the helm of leadership when you’ve lost your spiritual bearings.

Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge

By Dallas Willard

In the tradition of Mere Christianity, author and Renovare staff member Dallas Willard, presents a rational case for the Christian faith in our day. In Knowing Christ Today, he argues that spiritual truths are as a reliable body of knowledge as philosophy or science and form a trustworthy source of wisdom. Each chapter includes discussion questions for group study.

Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional

By Jim Belcher

Deep Church, author Jim Belcher has been both an insider and an outsider to the Emerging Church movement. Now he brings the best insights of all sides to forge a third way. With appreciative critique, he explores the proposals of the emerging church leaders and provides constructive models of what this alternate deep church looks like – a missional church committed to both tradition and culture, valuing innovation in worship, arts, and community but also creeds and confessions. Plumb the depths of Christianity in a way that neither rejects our postmodern context nor capitulates to it. Instead of veering to the left or right, go beyond the extremes and go-deep.

A Praying Life

By Paul Miller

Miller offers a practical real-life approach to prayer for busy families! His honest down-to-earth advice shows you how to practice praying in the midst of daily routine. You’ll learn to pray like a child, live your Father’s story, understand unanswered petitions, and more. Includes tips on using tools such as prayer cards and journaling. 272 pages, softcover from NavPress.

Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community

By Andrew Marin

Marin was stunned when three of his friends came out of the closet. How could he reconcile members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community to his faith? Attempting to wrestle with that, he provides an inside look at the gay community and offers strategies to build bridges between GBLT people, Christians—and the gospel

Posts I'm reading from Ed Stetzer to Ed Young

1. Christian ads at the Super Bowl from Church Marketing Sucks.

2. Churches using Facebook ads to draw in visitors from Church Crunch.

3. A couple of great vids from Ed Stetzer on what a Missional Church is.

4. Ed Young talks about being investigated by a reporter. His response: I have nothing to hide.

5. Michael Hyatt talks about Zoecity which scans hundreds of Christian sites to give you the stories you want.

6. How to keep Momentum going from Monday Morning Insight.

That’s bit of what I’m reading. What captured your attention this week.

Stuck in a Rut?

One of my favorite songs off of U2’s “All that You Can’t Leave Behind” album is “Stuck in a Moment.” They also put out an acoustic version which blows me away each time I hear it. Here’s the chorus:

You’ve got to get yourself together

You got stuck in a moment and now you can’t get out of it

Don’t say that later would be better now you’re stuck in a moment

And now you can’t get out of it

Have you ever been in the place where you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut and will never recover? Has something ever happened to you that took your confidence and you didn’t know if you would ever get it back? It’s a bad place to be. It affects all of our relationships. When we are in a place like that we can be difficult to be around. We lash out at the ones we love and the God we serve because it angers us to feel like we will never recover. Are you in a rut today? Do you feel stuck?

I wish I could tell you that there’s a specific prayer to pray or thing to do that will fix everything like magic. There’s not. It takes time to heal. Time to recover. Time to get back on that horse. That doesn’t mean that we are just supposed to sit there and wait for things to work themselves out. Getting out of the rut requires action. With that in mind, I’ve come up with some things that maybe you haven’t thought of. This obviously isn’t a be all/end all list, but it’s helped me when I was “stuck.”

Forgotten 5 ways to get out of your rut

Put others first
Be accountable for the goals you’ve set for yourself and your family. Haven’t written down any goals, you say? Grab a pen and start dreaming.
Learn to love your job or…
Quit your job and find something you love to do.
Count your blessings instead of your burdens

What’s on your list?

This is the album version. Sadly, the acoustic version is no longer available.

Action Steps for Lion Chasers

Several things have happened in the last week that have compelled me to make some changes in my life. I was tired of being a procrastinator with a messy office whose adult ADD always seemed to be in overdrive. I had been tired of this before but was never moved to action.

A senior in my youth group is doing an internship this semester with me from 8 am-10 am Monday-Friday. This forced the first of many changes as there could be no more dilly dallying around in the morning. Rather, I would need to get my son to the church daycare by 8 am so the intern and I could get to work. This lead to change number 2. Fortunately, the intern is a neat and organized person. We spent her first day cleaning off my desk(I have to pay her $5 if she ever finds it covered and cluttered again) and trying to create a good working environment. I was also faced with the issue of figuring out what she was going to be doing for the next 4 months.

Over the weekend I read two great books(Crush It and the 4 hour work week). They really challenged me in finding the balance between being a youth pastor, husband, father, and blogger. FYI-I sped read both these books with a technique I’ll be sharing some other time. Both of these books talked about the importance of eliminating useless things and focusing on the important tasks at hand. I also looked back on my notes from when I read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for even more direction.

Finally, my wife and I have been enrolled in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. February 1 started our new life on a budget using the envelope system. I told Karen that I felt like February 1 was going to be the first day of the rest of our lives and was running with adrenaline all weekend raring to go only to have a massive snow storm hit that has had us homebound for 3 days and counting.

Without further delay, here is a list of the things I did and am doing to Chase My Lion and catch that sucker.

1. Made a list of everything I have(and want) to do in a given day, week, month, and year.

2. Made a list of all the projects I am currently working on.

3. Made a weekly schedule that gave a specific amount of time to all of these things.

4. Started living on a budget as a family.

5. Made a list of the time wasters in my life like news sites, sports sites, negative blogs, random TV watching, talk radio, logging into Facebook once an hour, google reader, and email.

6. Eliminated some of the above while scheduling a specific amount of time for the rest. Email will get checked twice a day along with Facebook and Google Reader. Drudge Report is out along with other news sites. Information overload is like meth for someone with ADD.

7. Vowed that I would stick to the schedule and started day 1 by sleeping in since it was a snow day. By noon I was caught up and ready for lunch. I vowed I wasn’t going to do any blog/twitter/affiliate marketing/anything computer related between 4 pm and midnight. #epicfail

8. Today is a snow day as well, but I’m on schedule so far. I just need to pencil in “make it up to my wife that I gave my time for her yesterday to Oprah and a domain redirect problem.”

So, what action steps do you need to take?

Lexington gets Extreme!

Last November, I told you about my wife and I going over to see the big reveal for ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover about 8 miles from our house. A quick disclaimer: I’m wearing a Yankees hat in that video because I lost a bet. Last night our local affiliate, ABC 45, had a behind the scenes look at 7 pm with the regular episode airing at 8 pm. I was proud to see my wife’s name listed with all the other great volunteers. The shift she worked ended up being on air for about a second(late night footings being poured). This has always been one of our favorite shows and last night was no exception. From the 2 hours, we learned so much more about the builder, the Creasey’s, and everything that goes into making this miracle happen. All I keep hearing is what an amazing family this is and they will be opening up their home for special tours to raise money for cancer research. While the house has been built and the episode has aired, we still have an opportunity to impact this wonderful family and others like them. So here’s what you can do:

1. Pray for the Creasey’s especially as Tricia continues her cancer treatments.

2. Head over to this site to make a donation to the family and get a behind the scenes DVD.

3. Relay for LIfe

4. Nominate a Family to get an Extreme Home Makeover

5. Buy a ticket to take a tour of their home.

To Save a Life Movie Review and Thoughts

If you need help you can call 1-800-394-HOPE(4693). Also, check out the the official To Save a Life site, the Need Help page, and the Resource page for youth pastors, parents, and students. I believe this movie can be a wake up call to an entire generation. How can we use it in our ministries to bring understanding, awareness, and change. To quote Jake from the movie,”If you’re not going to let this change you then why are you here?” Maybe we should be that on every church door frame in the country. Again, youth pastors, this is a must see movie. After 12 years in youth ministry I can honestly tell you that it’s the real deal. Parents, take your teens to see this movie and instead of riding home in silence you should actually talk about it. Pastors, don’t let the PG-13 rating alarm you. Make your youth pastor take the teens(with parental permission of course) to see it. Better yet, take the teens and parents together. Let me know what you think.