Category Archives: Books worth reading
#WorthReading – Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life
I first learned of the Soma movement like most everyone else, through this video that was widely shared 4 years ago. Jeff Vanderstelt & his church embodied the refreshing approach & rhythm that many of us were looking for in this new age of ministry engagement. Missional Communities. Later that year I got to hear him speak at Exponential in Orlando, FL & then at the Verge Conference in Austin, TX. Our church plant has utilized the Soma resources on Storying called the Story Formed Way, the Story of God for Kids curriculum, & followed the movement as we’ve sought new ways to engage the unreached in our communities. And now, Jeff Vanderstelt has finally given us the full story in this book. The content is great of course, but the thing I’ve come to appreciate most about Vanderstelt & the Soma story is that you come away believing that EVERYBODY can do this. This is ministry that’s real, raw, & DOABLE. More than techniques, Saturate helps you see the open doors in your current everyday life to begin making disciples & bringing glory to Jesus. Simple. Reproducible. Inspiring. Read it & jump in to life on mission. This book is going to stay close by my desk for awhile. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
God’s intent was never to have us define church merely as an event on Sunday. We don’t go to church. We are the church sent out into the world.- Jesus didn’t live, serve, suffer, and die so we could just attend a Christian event. He lived and died so we could become his people who are sent into every part of the world on his behalf.
- out on mission, the need for grace and power from God will never be more clearly manifested. We have to get out on mission to fulfill the mission of being disciples who make disciples.
- Through our lives, Jesus is showing the world the kind of king he is and the nature of the kingdom he rules. As his servants, we point forward with our acts of service to a far better world where Jesus’s rule will be experienced everywhere. Every one we serve experiences a taste of life in the kingdom.
- If you are a child of God and a servant of King Jesus, you have been sent into the world as his missionary with the same spirit that sent and empowered Jesus.
- life is the program, because people need to see what it means to follow Jesus in the everyday stuff of life.
- if it isn’t messy here and there, you are likely not yet on mission.
- everyday stuff, done with gospel intentionality in the name of Jesus, changes lives.
More Thursday….
Worth Reading: 5 Recommendations from My Recently Read List
Updating my Recently Read, Currently Reading, or Will Soon Read list today. Here’s my recent favs that I’d highly recommend to you if you enjoy church leadership, history, good guy stories:
- Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team Six Operator Adam Brown by Eric Blehm. Aw man!!!! This was an incredible story!!! Supposed to be a movie being written now. Can’t wait to see it! Adam Brown’s story of overcoming incredible circumstances (drug addiction, loss of an eye, loss of part of his hand) to become one of the world’s elite soldiers. You will not want to put this book down!
- Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis by Tim Townsend. Now this book will make you think! How should we treat the worst of the worst? And this chaplain demonstrated great resolve to share the gospel & give grace a chance with the top Nazi’s who faced the world at the Nuremburg trials. Incredible story!!!! Can’t wait til it comes out on Audio.
- How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity by Rodney Stark. Love Rodney Stark! A lot of myth busters & history nuggets that defy modern conventional wisdom on why things are the way they are globally. Helped me see the world differently.
- Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life by Jeff Vanderstelt. Great book to get you thinking on missional church strategy. Real about the struggles of missional life & discipling new believers. I’ll definitely share more about this book soon. This ones gonna tag along with me for a while.
- Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. I’ve not been a huge runner since the late 90’s. Now trying to get back into it & came across this book because I’m more concerned about injuries & frankly, disability now that I’m in my 40’s :). Very inspirational. Great stories of ancient people groups, how God made humans for endurance & why (though the author does not come from a Christian perspective), & a race for the centuries that no cameras caught. Added fuel to my current desire to get back to running & gave me some tips on doing it without injury. Supposed to be a movie coming out in the future with Matthew McConaughey. Will be a must see.
Any good books to recommend?
Worth Reading: The Rise of the Nones
A lot has been said & will be said about the recent Pew Report on Religion in America, but it confirms the premise behind the book The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated by James Emery White. I posted one of my best take aways from the book earlier. It also makes the book that much more important for the church leader that’s serious about reaching the unreached in our day. Here’s a few quotes from the book that have stuck with me:
- The nones now make up the nation’s fastest growing and second largest religious category.
- this trend is only an American phenomenon, not a global one.
- The nones are NOT made up of seekers who are looking for a spiritual home but simply haven’t found it yet
- Until we think about conversion growth as the way to grow our churches, we won’t make a dent in the fastest growing religious demographic of our day.
- Most churches have as their primary focus reaching and then serving the already convinced. So the mission isn’t making disciples but rather caring for them.
- When it comes to evangelism, the efforts of the church need to be like an incubator. Every approach, every program, every service furnishes a particular environment that will either serve the evangelistic process or hinder it.
- Church is often like “a fishing expedition in which people put bait on a hook, place it in the middle of the boat’s deck, and then join hands to pray for the fish to jump in and grab the hook.”
- If you are going to reach the nones, they are going to come to you as a none. That means they will come as couples living together, as gay couples, pregnant outside of marriage, addicted, skeptical.
- If nones ever come to your church uninvited, it will probably be for the sake of their kids.
- This is no time for cross-town church competitions for transfer growth and then patting ourselves on the back for reaching the already convinced as if we somehow made a dent in hell.
- This is no time to cave to spiritual narcissism, in which the primary concern is whether people are fed, are ministered to, or “get anything out of the worship experience,” as though the mission is caring for believers as consumers instead of dying to ourselves to reach a lost world.
How Ready is Your Church for the Fastest Growing Religious Demographic in the US
Recently read a great book called The Rise of the Nones by James Emery White. It’s about the fastest growing religious affiliation in the U.S., which is the NON-affiliated. In St. Tammany Parish, where I live, best research shows that we have 116,000+ in that number (http://ow.ly/Ll3D0) or about 50% of our population. And in Louisiana, best research indicates that at least 1.8 million people are in that number.
As Christians, this is an UBER important thing for us to consider, since our mission from Jesus is “to seek & save the lost.”
White talks about how most churches that grow, grow by BIOLOGICAL (natural family growth) or by TRANSFER (Christians swapping churches) or by PRODIGAL growth (Church goers returning to church after years away) & NOT by CONVERSION (reaching nonbelievers with the Gospel). And he says there are 6 kinds of churches in regard to the Nones:
- Hostile – openly antagonistic toward the nones who venture in.
- Indifferent – not hostile, but apathetic and unwilling to answer the nones’ questions.
- Hopeful – want to see the nones reached for Christ, but unwilling to change their environment to do so.
- Sensitive – want to reach the nones for Christ, willing to change their environment, but still primarily catering to the already convinced.
- Targeted – high priority placed on the needs of the nones and make every effort to remove all barriers that made impede their exploring life in Christ.
No Man’s Land – not being targeted enough to reach the unchurched, but being too targeted to the unchurched for the churched.
A few questions:
- Where would you say your church is on this list?
- How many none’s do you know?
- What do you think it would take for a church to reach them?
Small is Big. Slow is Fast. And #Multiplication Always Wins.
In the book Small is Big Slow is Fast: Living and Leading Your Family and Community on God’s Mission, Ceasar Kalinowski paints a picture of the kingdom of God that makes you believe anybody can be a part of expanding it. That’s the belief we need to go viral in the church today if we’re going to see a movement of evangelism & discipleship in North America, so I want to highly recommend this book to you. The book challenges popular notions that have slowed multiplication including church has to be made up of big crowds & buildings to be real, discipleship should be scheduled in the midst of the busyness of everyday life, & only a few highly trained people should develop the skills to lead churches. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes:
- A disciple is someone who has reoriented his or her life around another to become, in essence, who that person is.
- We don’t live on mission because we are supposed to. It is our birthright. We get to do this.
- We will never lead another group of friends or anyone else father and deeper into discipleship and mission than our own family.
- If we are not careful, we can end up being the nicest, friendliest people in the neighborhood but fail to lead anyone one step closer to walking in the ways of Jesus.
- multiplication doesn’t just happen accidentally. Everything we do must be intentionally simple, scalable, and reproducible.
- the secret to increasingly living our lives together on God’s mission is to move away from seeing discipleship as something that needs to be tacked onto an already busy schedule, toward seeing all the normal stuff of life as full of opportunity for discipleship and growth in the gospel.
- This is not a call to life plus mission, rather, it is a call to life on mission.
- When looking to develop leaders, we initially have to identify who wants to lead. We do this by looking at who is ready first to be a follower.
- Some days are packed with very obvious kingdom activity, while others feel like nothing special… until you look back.
- Not everything happens as quickly as or in the way we want it to. People drop off the radar and out of community. This is messy stuff! On this journey, you must trust that God is filling your lives with opportunities for discipleship and kingdom expansion every day. Some you will notice; others you may not.
- Do we need to have larger gatherings… No. But you get to.
- Our identity is found in Christ, not the frequency of size of our gatherings.
- The mission of the church is discipleship, not creating church services.
The book also includes a very helpful chapter outlining what life on mission may look like in the typical week & a great appendix outlining the first 3 years or so of steps to launching a missional community movement, as well as a great list of tools & resources for multiplication of groups. Great resource for anyone looking to simply multiply & bear fruit for God’s kingdom.
Not Life PLUS Mission, Life ON Mission
the secret to increasingly living our lives together on God’s mission is to move away from seeing discipleship as something that needs to be tacked onto an already busy schedule, toward seeing all of the normal stuff of life as full of opportunity for discipleship and growth in the gospel.
This is not a call to life plus mission; rather, it is a call to life on mission.
If life on mission, a life of discipleship, is too hard, or seems impossible with your schedule… Choose a different rhythm.
Ceasar Kalinowski, in Small is Big Slow is Fast: Living and Leading Your Family and Community on God’s MissionLoving this book!
Worth Reading: Missional Essentials
This past summer I worked through a 12 lesson study by Brad Brisco & Lance Ford called Missional Essentials. This is a great primer for discovering life on mission right where you are and understanding basic missiology. It would be great for small groups, discipleship groups, or personal use. Deals with issues like the nature of God & the church, consumerism & mission, rest & time management, biblical hospitality, & more. Check it out here:
A few of my favorite quotes:
- in the church, we have focused almost exclusively on the idea of sending rather than being sent. We think primarily of sending and supporting missionaries in faraway places rather than seeing ourselves, both individually and collectively as being sent.
- We should be sending people in the church out among people of the world rather than attempting to attract people of the world in among the people of the church.
- We in the church often wrongly assume that the primary activity of God is in the church, rather than recognizing that God’s primary activity is in the world, and the church is God’s instrument sent into the world to participate in his redemptive mission.
- Instead of thinking of the church as an entity that simply sends missionaries, we should instead view the church as the missionary.
- God has sent you on assignment as a participant in his mission to the world. Your locale is no accident.
- Hospitality involves living life in a way that places a higher value on relationships and community than on consumption and productivity.
- Our families and our homes should be places where people experience a foretaste of heaven.
- LIGHT: Listen to the Holy Spirit, Invite others to share a meal, Give a Blessing, Hear from the Gospels, Take Inventory of the day.
Successful? In Ministry?
Success in ministry can be a tough thing to pin down. If you say success means a big church, then 82% of churches in American are unsuccessful because they have less than 100 people. And the lives of some of those with “big churches” are wrought with frustration & burnout & worse. Shawn Lovejoy’s book The Measure of our Success is a helpful tool to remind us about what really matters in ministry & church life. And the questions at the end of each chapter are a great way to recalibrate your current health as a leader & what you’re measuring in your ministry. Adding this one to my annual review list. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes.
- the greatest temptation that I face is substituting what I do for God, with who I am with God.
- If our attendance growth comes at the expense of our ability to disciple people, we have not been successful.
- Jesus didn’t say, “Go and grow large,” he said, “Go and make disciples.”
- Your responsibility is to be faithful. Not to be God.
- is your family on your schedule? You will schedule what’s important to you.
- We don’t use people to get tasks or ministry done; we use tasks and ministry to get people done
- TEAM: Together Everyone Accomplishes More
- The only way we can escape criticism is to say nothing, do nothing, & be nothing.
- Jesus experienced highs & lows. So will we.
- Do you trust God enough to take him at his word when he says resting every six days is best for you?
- Filling our auditoriums is good. Filling heaven is better.
- Christian community that is not reaching unchurched people is not Christian community; it’s consumerism.
- The Church is not the hope of the world. Jesus is the hope of the world. He has simply chosen to extend hope through his people, the church.
Here’s a few of the questions at the end of each chapter that I haven’t been able to forget:
- What would it look like for your church to measure more by the story than by the number? How could you express this shift in your church?
- Is there a specific courageous conversation you need to have or decision you need to make? If so, what do you need to do?
- What are some ways your church could heighten your capacity for making disciples?
- How do you think your church could make Jesus and his gospel more central to everything you are and do?
Pick up The Measure of Our Success for someone you know in ministry. We’ll be giving this book away at our Basic Trainings for Church Planters in Louisiana over the next year.
What I’m Reading
- A Dude’s Guide to Manhood: Finding True Manliness in a World of Counterfeits by Darrin Patrick.
- The Measure of Our Success by Shawn Lovejoy. Very helpful book for those in full time ministry.
- Multiplying Missional Leaders: From half-hearted volunteers to a mobilized Kingdom Force by Mike Breen
- Sentness: 6 Postures of a Missional Christian by Kim Hammond
- Twice a Slave by Sammy Tippit – story of Joseph Willis, one of the first church planters in Louisiana, way back in the early 1800′s.
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hildebrand – Listening back through this incredible story in anticipation of the movie coming out later this year! See the Trailer.
- Follow Me: A Call to Live, A Call to Die by David Platt – Bridge Church Spring Bible Study.
- Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God by Scott Thomas. Got to attend the seminar last month. This book will stay close to my desk for the foreseeable future.
- The Sending Church: The Church Must Leave the Building by Pat Hood
- Bold as Love: What Can Happen When We See People the Way God Does by Bob Roberts
- Jesus Hates Religion: Finding Grace in A Works Driven Culture by Alex Himaya
- How to Read the Bible Book by Book by Gordon Fee – going back through the prophets right now. Always have this at my side when I do.
Why Read?
How to Plant a Church Without Losing Your Family
Great list for anyone in ministry or not, by Brian & Amy Bloye in their new book It’s Personal: Surviving and Thriving on the Journey of Church Planting.
- Do what is important, not what is urgent. “If you try to make everyone happy, the ones who lose out will be the ones your know will forgive you: your spouse and your children.”
- Bring fun and adventure into your relationship. “when wives of pastors get involved in extra-marital affairs, it tends to be because the other man was someone who was fun to be with.”
- Take time off every week. “Sometimes it appears that you can’t afford a day off; the truth is, it’s the other way around. You can’t afford not to take a day off.”
- Keep intimacy a priority.
- Focus on being a team.
- Find your significance & security in Christ. “We were created, as human beings, to find our meaning not in what we do but in what God has done for us.”
- Make time for meaningful communication. “Get the conversation rolling…keep your ears unclogged – listen attentively.”
- Help your spouse go as far as he or she can go. Don’t put extra weights on him or her. Help him feel light and fast in the race of life.
- Share your spiritual lives with each other. The pastor shares his spiritual journey from the stage. Do it at home as well.
- Make your spouse your project. Get to know her strengths and weaknesses, love languages, keep a prayer list of her needs. etc.
- Set meaningful boundaries. “people come and go, and even staff come and go, the only constants are God and the two of us; to lose us is to lose everything…”
This book is really helpful. Looking forward to sharing it with church planting friends.
Lane Corley 