Continuing Education

I first want to thank you for being a church that gives your pastors time to learn more. It is such a blessing to pursue more information and expertise. This year instead of going away to a conference or a retreat I decided to stay home. I looked at my ever-growing stack of ministry, Bible, and devotional books and decided I’d spend a week tackling as many as I could. So, I put together a proposal for Pastor Harrison and the Shepherding team to approve. My goal was to start and finish five books covering a wide range of topics. I got through four books and about two-thirds of the fifth book. Overall, I am very happy with how the week went. I want to share my schedule for that week and then share my thoughts on the books I read.

What is not reflected in the schedule above is that on Sunday I did a secret guest visit at a church in Cedar Falls. I’ll talk about that experience later but for now I want to share the five books I worked through.

The Way of Perfection by Teresa of Avila (Audio)

This book was my pick for devotional reading. Teresa was a nun in the 16th century and was a significant figure during the Catholic Church’s counter reformation. I initially picked this book for three reasons. First, it’s a book on prayer. Second, it’s written by a monastic. And third, it’s outside of my tradition. My hope was that the distance in tradition would bring a fresh approach to prayer. This book was deeply disappointing. I tried so hard to squeeze this book for its pearls of wisdom, but ultimately was unsatisfied. Teresa has a disorganized inner monologue rambling approach that is difficult to follow. It’s almost like she intentionally wrote it to be laborious to read and near impossible to follow. Her meditations on how much the Lord has given us compared to how difficult we find prayer was deeply convicting. This book was unfortunately largely forgettable.

2.5 out of 5

Hospitality Ministry Volunteer Handbook by Greg Atkinson

In some ways this book is great and will help us as a church with our hospitality ministry. In other ways it can trend towards outdated gimmick laden ideas suited for urban mega churches. In its basic form this is a great help, but leaders must discern what are best practices for their local church. It can seem to advocate for an astroturf form of hospitality. It appears real on the surface but lacks depth and organic life. This book has a firm handle of a more market economic approach. I may sound like a curmudgeon that hated this book, but I didn’t. It was a good book, just maybe don’t swallow it whole.

3.5 out of 5

The Essential Guide for Small Group Leaders by Bill Search

This is the definition of practical. The entire book is full of short and easy to read resources covering various topics regarding the leading a small group. I believe this will be a great resource for our church going forward. I would like to place this book in the hands of all our small group leaders.

4 out of 5

Budgeting for a Healthy Church by Jamie Dunlop

This book wasn’t a prescriptive line by line assessment of a church budget. I found this book to provide helpful guardrails and foundational reminders for how a church should approach its budget. It was short and easy to read and still robust in its content. I certainly learned a lot and it has changed the way I will look at the budget categories that I oversee and how I view a church budget more broadly. Using the Great Commission as a key standard for budgeting seems quite sound. The practical realities of how and when to pull funding for line items was helpful. Overall, this was really good and educating book.

4.5 out of 5

Reading Genesis Well by C. John Collins

As of writing this newsletter article I have not finished this book, but I will give you my thoughts as they stand now. This is a scholarly approach that made me reread sentences several times. I like to imagine myself as a pretty smart guy, but it is humbling to engage with scholars. The first four chapters were set up for his methodology for interpreting Genesis. These chapters were slow going, but necessary. After the set-up I got see how Collins reads Genesis. I must say his reading does make a good bit of sense. I still have questions and am nervous about the answers, but its been good up to this point. I’m curious as to how this book will end, but beyond just Genesis I think I will find his methodology helpful in other areas of scripture.

Secret Guest Experience

This is the last piece of the week for me, but one that I was really excited about. Victoria and I picked a church. I looked at its website and we went to the 9:30am service. This was a deeply encouraging experience for us. From the website to the door to the sanctuary to leaving it was all done well. We were even late with a wiggly and noisy baby, but their hospitality did not wane. Often when Victoria and I visit other churches we have had negative experiences. We’ve gotten horrible sermons and bad/phony hospitality. This experience wasn’t negative in the slightest. The sermon was good even if I’d quibble with the Pastor’s interpretation of predestination. The praise team was easy to follow. Overall, it was a really good experience. I filled out a secret guest form I found online to help collect my thoughts. I’m hoping to potentially give this form to someone who would come and secret guest our church. This would be a great data point for us to get perspective on what it is like for visitors to experience our church.

I was away, but I kept myself busy. I am happy with how far I got in the five books that I selected. I really wish that all would have been amazing books, but all except the one was encouraging. Again, thank you for the opportunity to gather more information and expertise.