We made it to Greentown

We did make it to Greentown, Indiana Tuesday evening to be greeted by a large number of members from Greentown Wesleyan who got our truck unloaded in no time. We spent most of the day Wednesday unpacking into our temporary apartment here on the Greentown Wesleyan Campus and then both Amanda and I started working in the office on Thursday morning.

For the next couple of months Amanda will stay busy working in the office at Greentown and getting the hang of the daycare operations. I will be filling in as the interim pastor at Kokomo Mt. Zion Wesleyan church which is just a couple of miles from here. At Mt. Zion I am responsible for preaching Sunday Mornings and Sunday Evenings. I am sure this is going to be a fun time and a great learning experience.

Now that we are going to be back to some what of a normal schedule, the blog updates should be coming more regularly.

I may not have a daytime TV show, but I do have a book list!

While my ample free time over the past 9 months has caused more than its share of frustration, it has also provided me with the ability to accomplish something I have never had the opportunity to do before. I am not talking about beating certain XBOX games, but I’ve been doing that too. I am talking about reading every book, blog, magazine and article that seems interesting to me… and I literally mean every!

When I was in elementary school I was diagnosed as being gifted and dyslexic at the same time which meant I was smart enough to hide that fact that I didn’t really start understanding anything I read until I was in the fourth or fifth. I didn’t like reading in middle school because my parents treated it like a chore, and when I was in high school I was preoccupied with too many other things; most of which could be referred to as ‘she’ or ‘her.’ Then in college I was taking a full load of classes, working full time, and spending two hours a day driving from school and back everyday… I didn’t even read all the books I was suppose to, let alone the ones I wanted to.

But for now all that has changed. And I have been reading some great stuff; from architecture to engineering to art to product and graphic design to business and management to theology to you-name-it. I am just praying that God puts me somewhere that I can use all this stuff I’m learning. But either way I thought I would abstract some of my recent favorites here:

Six Thinking Hats, by Edward De Bono.
This is a management book about ‘parallel thinking’ which is a totally different direction in cooperated decision making and running meetings. The idea is that you get people to think in the same direction at the same time to come up with better solutions and game-plans which by design everyone will come to an agreement with together. One of my favorite light-bulb moments in the book was when the author explained that thinking is a skill that can be improved with practice. I highly recommend this book.

The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier
This is a marketing book about what branding is and how it can work best. It is called a “whiteboard overview” which means that it is written in a very engaging layout. It was a symbol read about a very complex subject. I go so many great ideas from this book for how to reorganize a church. It was all about marketing and branding but I saw so much that would be perfect for small groups. My favorite light-bulb moment was the three evaluation questions every organization should ask itself before they try to move forward; Who are we? What do we do? And why does it matter?

The One Minute Manager, by Ken Balnchard
This is another management book about how to be the best manager possible. It is a short book packed with a ton of great information. It is written as an allegory which makes it a super-fast read. It breaks the One Minute Management model into three basic principles; Goal Setting, Praising and Reprimanding. My favorite light-bulb moment was that a good manager is someone that helps people reach their full potential and this is the source of positive results and efficiently. I think if more pastors practiced this we’d have a lot of healthier churches.

Beautiful Evidence, by Edward Tufte
This is a book about the visual communication of statistical data. The book is both visually stunning with more full color images than any over book I’ve ever seen and incredibly well written. I’m not sure if it was written as a text book or not but there is a ton of great insights and concepts here. My favorite light-bulb moment was a chapter about the dangers and downfalls of using slideware programs like PowerPoint in teaching. Tufte talked about how PP lowers the bar on thought and communication by both the presenter and the consumer. He then gave some great solutions for giving presentations without PowerPoint.