I finished reading It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It last night.  It was an excellent book.  I like Craig Groeschel’s writing style and, more importantly, his honesty.

In the book, Groeschel defines having “it” as experiencing God moving.  For instance, some churches seem to have “it” while others don’t.  He goes to great lengths to say that having “it” isn’t about having a certain theology, facility, methodology, program or philosophy of ministry.  In fact, he busts through a few myths about why God seems to be moving in some churches and not in others.

As I said, I appreciate the honesty of the book, as well as the humor!  (I laughed out loud a few times.) Groeschel hits the nail on the head about how easy it is to drift off of passion for God into other things and lose focus…and “it.”

After defining what “it” is and what “it” isn’t, he talks about some common characteristics of churches that seem to have it working for them.  Specifically, he says that churches with “it” tend to have:

• A clear vision
• A divine focus
• A staff with unmistakable camaraderie
• An innovative attitude set on doing whatever it takes
• A willingness to fail and take risks (to eventually succeed)
• Outwardly focused hearts
• Kingdom-mindedness

I wholeheartedly agree with everything he listed.  I simply can’t imagine God NOT blessing any church that had all these dynamic elements in place!

As good as the book is, I would recommend it solely based on the last two chapters if forced to.  These chapters deal with how to regain “it” and how to guard “it” in your life.  They seem like some sort of compelling sermon being shared by Groeschel.  He also shares his own story of coming back to loving God and putting Him first, even over church.  It all really moved me.

Pastors, check this little book out.  I’m sure you’ll get a lot of out IT.

I read Sticky Church by Larry Osborne last Friday and I must say that I really enjoyed it.  I knew the book was going to be good because I enjoy Larry Osborne’s stuff a great.  His candor and common sense are always refreshing.  This book, however, exceed my expectations.  It just hit me at the right time and I got a ton out of it. 

The book basically covers two topics.  First, it talks about the need to close the back door of the church and why that’s more important than you might think.  Second, it talks about sermon-based growth groups and how they are the most effective means of closing that back door.

We’ve been using the free-market small group model for a few years now at Fusion but earlier this year I became convinced that it didn’t meet our needs anymore.  There’s nothing wrong with that model but as a church grows some models just stop being effective.  That was the case for us so last quarter we switched over to sermon-based groups and the response of people in those groups has been outstanding.

This book wasn’t out when we made the switch but I wish it had been.  While we still have some work to do in getting more people involved in groups, this book reinforced for me the effectiveness of sermon-based groups and gave me some more nuts and bolts ideas on how to best implement them.

There’s a lot more to this little book too.  I like how Osborne details a subtle shift in focus as his church.  That resonated with me and with some of the things God has been speaking to me lately.

If you’re a pastor, I recommend this little book.  It will probably challenge you, and the way you look at groups, in a lot of good ways.

For the past week or so, we’ve been watching John Adams as a family.  I’ve always been a big fan of the work of David McCullough and, when I heard that HBO had made a mini-series of his book, I knew I had to see it.

The mini-series is amazing.  The scope of it all is jaw-dropping, not to mention the sets and costumes.  The attention to detail and historical accuracy are both incredible.

As wonderful as it is, it’s not as good as the book.  I read the book a long time ago and there’s just so much in the book that they couldn’t possibly put it all on screen.  Still, as an introduction to the topic, the mini-series is in a class all by itself.

Paul Giamatti, who won an emmy for this role, and Laura Linney are both stunning and bring the story to life.  McCullough always writes his books in such a way that you hardly feel that you’re getting a history lesson.  It feels more like great literature and this mini-series does this same thing.  This isn’t just a documentary.  It’s a sweeping, epic story that educates as it entertains.

We made our older kids watch it with us at first to “edumacate” them but they got hooked early on.  (We had to skip some scenes.)  It provoked a lot of good discussions with the kids after each section (our goal) as well as sparking an interest in American history in general.  Now, we really want to take a road trip to Boston, Philadelphia, and Virginia. 

I highly recommend this mini-series as well as the book.   Both are available from the public library.

(BTW, another McCullough book, Truman, is one of my favorite books of all time and I highly recommend it too!)

For the past 100 days, I’ve been starting each day with a little lesson from the Bishop.  The Bishop is, of course, Bishop T. D. Jakes and I’ve been reading his devotional guide, Repositioning Yourself Reflections.

I’ve really enjoyed this little book.  It’s sort of a motivational devotional that’s based off another book by the Bishop called Reposition Yourself.  Truthfully, I think I enjoyed this devotional better than the original book.

I’ve actually been reading from three different devotional every day so, in a way, it’s sort of nice to finish this one but in another way I’m kind of sad it’s over.  Progressing through the book has been a good experience for me and it has promoted a lot of thought in my life.

Here’s one of Microsoft’s new ads.  Much mo better in my opinion.

HT:  Robby Roberts

Here’s the new Seinfeld/Gates/Vista ad.  I have to admit that they’re getting funnier to me.

I’m still not sure this helps Vista but maybe the series of ads as a whole will have some impact.  Only time will tell.

Amy and I watched I Am Legend last Friday.  I’ve just got to say that while some scenes in the movie where amazing, for the most part, I found the film just plain boring.  I’m not quite sure how you can spend so much money and have such talent on the screen and still be boring but they accomplished it.

Beyond the bore factor, I also truly hated the ending in a major way.  It defied simple logic and left me with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” feeling.  I then watched the “controversial” alternate ending which was awful too.  I’m not sure what was “controversial” about it except perhaps a debate arose over which ending was worse.

I usually really dig Will Smith but this is a movie to skip.

I got to go see Hancock with a bunch of great guys from the church last night.  We had a good time and we all really enjoyed the movie despite a slew of bad reviews from critics.  I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to just hang out with guys.

Regarding the movie, don’t listen to the critics.  Go see this movie.  You’ll like it.  Just don’t take any kids to see it.

I’ll be honest.  Before I read The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham, I guess I just really didn’t know much about Billy Graham.  I obviously knew who he was and I knew a little bit about his story but I didn’t know many of the details.  I knew that he was a powerful evangelist but I never gave much thought to his leadership skills.  Well, this book changed all that for me.  I now appreciate and respect Billy Graham on a whole new level.

I don’t know if it’s just where I’m at in my life right now or what but this book spoke to me in many powerful ways.  It’s very well researched and it’s filled with references to lots of other works on leadership.   I think it’s quite possibly the best book on leadership I’ve read in a long, long time. I would put it up there with Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels.

I was highlighting so much in this book on my kindle that I discovered that kindles have clipping limits to prevent piracy.  I exceeded my clipping limit because I found myself highlighting so much on virtually every page.

If you’re interested in leadership (on any level) and you’re also interested in leading for the long haul (Billy led his same team for over 50 years), do yourself a favor and get a copy of this book.

Battlestar Galatica finally regained some of it’s mojo last Friday.  Let’s see if they can keep it up.