LeadershipConneXtions: The Final Failure of our Apologetic

Current Reads

Simon Vibert: Excellence in Preaching: Studying the Craft of Leading Preachers
Sort of a cliff notes summary of great ideas about preaching through the lens of great preachers. It is nice as a refresher.
Al Tizon: Missional Preaching: Engage Embrace Transform
Teaching and sermons together. A nice book.
Alan J. Roxburgh: Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood (Allelon Missional Series)
Good, challenging... He is helpful, but he just doesn't finally convince me that his is the "one right way" to think about these matters.
Leonard Sweet: Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival
A little too optimistic and a little too naive about the Age of Google. But still, very worthwhile and loaded with Sweetisms everywhere. It is always good to read Sweet, just to learn how to write.
Joshua Cooper Ramo: The Age of the Unthinkable (First Edition)
Phenomenally great book.. a true futurist and a strategist.
Alan Roxburgh: Missional Map-Making: Skills for Leading in Times of Transition (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series)
Daniel H. Pink: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
This is an older book that has been around for awhile. It is nice and useful in describing the six qualities of right brain thinking that are needed in today's global economy (and really, these mindsets are useful in everything we do). But his main thesis is just wrong. His main thesis is that since North Americans live in the time where we are no longer competitive as "knowledge workers" since Asia is producing knowledge workers who are just as good in their fields (and a whole lot cheaper in terms of salaries) than North Americans, we must gain the skills in right brain thinking for economic survival. The obvious point is this: Asians will be just as good at right brain thinking as North Americans (and still a whole lot cheaper in terms of their labor). So, it is not a strategy for economic survival. But it is a great book to learn about right brain thinking.
Reid Hoffman: The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career
I read this on the plane ride back from Atlanta to BWI. It helped that I had an hour delay sitting in first class where I was upgraded due to my logging so many miles with Delta. This is a GOOD book, WORTH reading. Hoffman helps you navigate the complexities of work and career in today's world where uncertainty, disruption and transition are the norm. Brand new book. Just out.
Dianna Booher: Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader (BK Life)
A book on communicating by a leading secular writer. Certainly written for a pop audience who is looking for sound bytes to help them grow in their ability to communicate. I will read books like this from time to time, not in the anticipation of learning new things... but as reminders to actually practice the things I have already learned. This one was OKAY, but not great.
N. T. Wright: Christians at the Cross: Finding Hope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus
I read this little devotional (a collection of homilies) as part of my Lenten reading. For those who haven't read the longer, more substantial books of Wright, this is a like a little primer on some of his core beliefs.
James O'Toole: The Executive's Compass: Business and the Good Society
This was a pretty weighty little book. Not what I was expecting. In one sense, it was an introduction to the sweeping history of philosophical writing on social, political and economic values. O'Toole talked about the four major ways of framing these important discussions. I found it very useful in understanding the nature and the intensity of the discord we have today in the political/economic discourse in North America.
Ann Droyd: Goodnight iPad: a Parody for the next generation
An update and a remake. Fun concept, but poor rhyming.
Richard J. Foster: Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer
This is a very nice introduction to the way of meditative prayer. Foster grounds this practice in the teaching of Scripture and illustrates and unfolds it from the spectrum of church history and the spiritual classics. From Quakers to Reformers to Pietists to Contemplatives... they all encourage us in the way of meditative prayer. This is a very accessible (short, well written, encouraging) book.
Parker J. Palmer: The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life
This was pretty good, but also uneven from chapter to chapter. For me, by far, the best was the last essay on teaching and learning. I think Palmer is at his very best when he reflects on the education process.
R. Paul Stevens: Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace
This was pretty good... I liked how they handled the seven deadly sins and the corresponding virtues of the fruit of the Spirit. 17 short chapters. gems in each one. after awhile it seemed a bit of a retread... it is really meant to be done in a reflective way, where you assess your self on each sin and virtue.
Charles H. Spurgeon: Lectures to My Students Volume 1
The delightful, witty and passionate Mr. Spurgeon, giving his homespun wisdom on ministry to a group of students. The chapter on prayer was beautiful. Good words on calling and how to know you are called.
Handley Carr Glyn Moule: Charles Simeon
An old biography of the great Charles Simeon. This edition is a reprint and the footnoting was strange. The text and the footnotes constantly interrupted each other and made for difficult reading. There were gems throughout the book. Simeon is extraordinary. This book on him is okay.
John Piper: Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton
Three stories of God's missional servants and the price they paid to serve the purposes of God in their generation. Plus the story of God's sovereign work in their lives. I was familiar with Tyndale and Judson, but John Paton was new to me. And he was amazing.
John Piper: Contending for Our All: Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the lIves of Athanasius, John Owen and J. Gresham Machen
Probably my least favorite in his series of five books in the Swans Are Not Silent series, but his chapter on John Owen is worth the entire book. What an amazing pastor and theologian. Especially moving was how Owen would live into the experience of a truth before preaching/teaching. Powerful and motivating.
Michael Mangis: Signature Sins: Taming Our Wayward Hearts
Very nice book on vice and virtue... a very helpful summary of the seven deadly sins with careful nuancing of how we experience them... insights on race, gender, biology, family and more on how our "signature" or "besetting" sins develop... and one of the best explanation on how we must put on the "antidote virtue" if we are to overcome our sins.

November 29, 2009

The Final Failure of our Apologetic

Finally, a short post on the church! (At least I think it is going to be short…)

Here is a powerful phrase from Francis Shaeffer via Deep Church, with a slight detour through John Stott.

John Stott (to the left) said evangelicals have a pathological tendency to fragment.

Francis Shaeffer described it as failing at the final apologetic -- which is to love one another (John 13:34-35).

Almost always we do this in the name of truth, or our interpretation of truth. Correct doctrine as the "I" define it means "I" am excused from loving you if you disagree with me. And so we separate and splinter - endlessly.

I wonder if "some" House Churches, in "some" cases, are just the latest example of our failure at the final apologetic. We have so little ability to be in relationship with those we don't like, with those who think differently, that we just leave them. And we move into increasingly smaller communities which are extremely homogeneous in makeup.

Disagreements on doctrine...

Whether it is the Calvinist-Arminian debate, or the Baptist-Pentecostal debate, or the Modern - Postmodern debate... we will always have doctrine and interpretation to divide us. It is an enormous wall of dividing (Ephesians 2:14).

Or even worse...

Not being satisfied when my needs aren't being met…
Can there be any greater, final failure of the love apologetic... I no longer want to be with the church, with church people, because my needs are not being met?

And then there is...

Feeling personally wounded by other followers of Christ... they have hurt me, disappointed me, and so I remove myself from them. Another "final failure" for love above all, begs us to consider the needs of the other as more important than our own, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to carry a cross, to sacrifice for the sake of the other...

Hard things to be sure!

These are our justification for our failure in the final apologetic to love one another.

I know the issue of truth and love and unity around both is a messy, murky matter, but I think it is quite clear that many times we failure in this final apologetic very prematurely.

Let's at least pretend to wrestle with Jesus' command on this:

I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven… If you love those who love you, (big deal, anyone can do that) . . . [slight paraphrase of last phrase]

Matthew 5:44-46

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

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