Recent read: Off-Road Disicplines

Finished reading the book, Off-Road Disciplines; Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders at the end of May and I'm nearly finished with my next book (I'll post about it soon). I'm just glad to be getting more books in during the month than I use to. It's a very hard thing for me. I have to force myself to focus the entire time I read, otherwise my brain goes off track and I suddenly find I'm three page down the road without an idea of what I just read. I can read short snippets of things but not for long periods of time or my mind is toast.

We've been giving book reviews regarding the books we're reading in our staff meetings at The Orchard, so thought I throw out a bit about this book and the pieces that seemed to hit us the most as we discussed it.

Here's the premise: being missional is about bringing the culture to Christ. “Leaders with a missional heart find a way, no matter how unconventional, to connect to culture; and this heart is present (and absent) in every conceivable model of ministry. Missional leaders see the world through the eyes of Jesus and see Jesus in the world.” Being missional is about more than sending someone to the mission field but that we live in the mission field.

This book argues that missional leadership is derived not from methods or strategies but through the Holy Spirit’s rearranging of our internal life and thought process. The book is broken into two main sections: personal disciplines (me) and organizational disciplines (we – the staff and the church).

If you want the long version/breakdown of the book, let me know and I'll email you a PDF, but here is what seemed to stick out as key for us: questions. Both questions we ask ourselves as leaders and questions we ask each other as the staff of a church.

One of the chapters in the organizational side of these disciplines talked about what things you measure in ministry. Are we being effective at bringing people into relationship with Jesus? Not everything that needs doing needs measuring (what spiritual issues are we measuring)? Here are some of the other questions he poses on this:

1. What proportion of our church is here because of significant faith experience rather than by transfer?
2. What proportion of our leadership did we develop here by spiritual formation and leadership training?
3. What have we learned about doing ministry in our context within the last month and what have we done about it?
4. How many spiritual conversations have we had this month with unchurched people?
5. If we worked for a missions agency would we still have a job?
6. What are the best stories we can tell about the things God has done among us since our last meeting?
7. Who is growing spiritually among us and how do we know this?

Sometimes we measure the wrong things and think we're doing ok at reaching people for Christ. Are we asking the hard questions and really discovering who it is we're impacting and if those that are impacted are growing in the relationship with Jesus?

Not an easy read for me but a lot of good info.
Peace.

Recent Read: Confessions of a Pastor

Just finished reading this book, Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God by Craig Groeschel. Craig is the lead pastor of Lifechurch.tv - a multi-campus church originating in OK but now with locations in AZ, TX and TN.

I highly recommend it to anyone who has had struggles in their relationship with God. If you've ever felt like you just didn't measure up, either in your own eyes or in how you think others perceive you, you'll enjoy this book.

There's several reasons I liked this book:

1. It's a fast read. For someone who has a low attention span when it comes to reading this is important. Still took me several days but I can only read little bits at a time. My wife will probably finish it within a couple hours.
2. It's encouraging. Here's this pastor of a rather large church, one who has successfully implemented the multiple campus method of ministry, yet he struggles with a lot of the same things that I've struggled with. The honesty is refreshing and positively encouraging.
3. The writing is conversational and about real life. It's like talking with someone who you wouldn't expect to have issues yet having a deep, personal and real conversation. I struggle with some of the same things or have asked the same questions. I almost feel like I know Craig yet I've never met him.

This book also has some great questions for each chapter that would make a great personal study or small group discussion book. Anyway, I don't do this often (mostly because it takes me sooo long to get through a book) but this one was good for me. I hope you enjoy it too.

Peace.