Making Up Ground

My New Year's resolution was to read one book a month. I started off well, but fell into the black hole of failed resolutions. I have a lot of excuses for Feb through May. Every month, I had a reason why I didn't read. June rolled around and I hit my stride. The past couple months, I've finished five books and started another one a couple days ago. 

LOVE & RESPECT

Our church's small group studied this book by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. It was OK but frankly, we didn't find it that helpful. He did make his point that women need love and men need respect. Unfortunately, his approach is often condescending, especially when talking to the wives. I'd recommending this book with a bunch of conditions. One being that you don't expect to much from it.

THE NAKED ANABAPTIST

Last month, I was listening to a podcast that referenced this book. It sounded interesting especially sense I hadn't ever heard of the Anabaptist. It only took me three days to read this book. Murray does a great job of describing Christendom and the roots of the Anabaptist tradition. I really liked how he shared both the positive and negative sides of the Anabaptist tradition. 

The Essence of Anabaptism

• Jesus is our example, teacher, redeemer and Lord
• Jesus is the focal point of God's revelation
• Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era
• The frequent association of the church with status, wealth, and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness
• Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission
• Spirituality and economics are interconnected
• Peace is at the heart of the gospel

NOT A FAN

I wasn't expecting much from this book, but was pleasantly surprised.  Here are the names of the first few chapters and will give you an idea of where Kyle Idleman is coming from.

• a decision or a commitment?
• knowledge about him or intimacy with him?
• one of many or your one and only?
• following jesus or following the rules?
• self-empowered or spirit-filled?

INTERRUPTED

Jen Hatmaker tells her story of how God interrupted her traditional Christian life and lead her toward a missional life. 
Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

"..my life resembled the basic pursuit of the American dream; it just occurred in a church setting."

"It is hard to hate a rich country that is feeding you, advocating for your orphans, building schools in your villages, championing your human rights, and empowering your leaders."

"I found the descent to be terribly painful, and confronting my own selfishness was excruciating."

"We don't get to opt out of living on mission because we might not be appreciated.


BAREFOOT CHURCH

Brandon Hatmaker titles this book after an experience he and Jen had when they visited a small church and were asked to leave their shoes at the alter. The shoes were given to the homeless the next day. Everyone left that church barefoot.

Brandon describes how they changed their views about community groups. They went from:

• Control to Accountability
• Suspicion to Permission
• Fixed to Flexible
• Majority to Priority

"Each of us has the responsibility to navigate what serving the least looks like in our life, in our context, and in our church."

"Proclamation and incarnation are inseparably linked together. A spoken word can quickly be discredited through our actions, and the in the same way our actions can quickly validate the message we speak."

Departures and Arrivals

The 3gdadnetwork is constantly evolving with guys departing and other guys arriving. 


DEPARTURES

Last year, one of the original 3gdadnetwork guys moved to Ohio. You might ask why anyone would move to OH. Well, Travis grew up in Ohio, and is now in the Marines. He had a chance to move back home, and he jumped on it. We got to know Travis while he was stationed in Monterey, CA attending the Naval Postgraduate School. 

We miss his humor and candid reflections on his strengths and weaknesses. I think Doug is still recovering from the first meeting we had back in 2013 when the three of us met for breakfast.

Travis will always be a part of the 3gdadnetwok story because it all started when Travis and I had breakfast one morning at the Toro Cafe.



ARRIVALS

Initially, the 3gdadnetwork consisted of Travis, Doug and me. We studied a book together and saw God grow us tremendously. We were so excited about the growth we saw in ourselves and wanted other guys to experience this as well. Soon thereafter, our friend Shane joined us. Shane has been a great addition because of his drive to do things well, and willingness to see things for what they are.

In 2014, we added David and Larry. These guys couldn't be more different, which makes it fun to have them around. David's passion for God is contagious and he looks for ways to add humor to any discussion.  Larry is quiet and needs a long pause before he will speak up, but when he does, you know he has been thinking a while about what he says.

Very recently, we added another Mike. Can't have too many of those. We are still getting to know Mike, but it is obvious that he desires to grow and be a part of something bigger than himself.

My 2015 New Year's Resolution

I rarely make a New Year's resolution because I know that the odds are really high that I will not keep it. This year, I decided to break that trend and do it anyhow.

My 2015 resolution is to read a book a month. I read several books a year but decided to step it up this year and do at least 12. That may not sound like a hard thing to do but when you have a wife, 3 kids and their activities, dog, house that is falling apart, 2 cars each with over 180k miles, commute 70 miles each way to work, church, lead a church small group and host a midweek middle school gathering, it can be a stretch.

As goes most New Year's resolutions, I did really well in January. I read "The Pursuit of WOW!" by Tom Peters.  Guess what? It is the 20th of May, and I just started my second book.

My goal is to read a book a month and then journal about what I learned here on the 3gdadnetwork.

Here are 10 things I found interesting in "The Pursuit of WOW!"

Tom Peters

1. "The first 99.9 percent of getting from here to there is the determination to do it and not compromise, no matter what sort of roadblocks those around you (including peers) erect." Page 2

2. "70 percent of lost customers hit the road not because of price or quality issues but because they didn't like the human side of doing business with the prior provider or the product or service." Page 4

3. "Don't forget your thank-you notes! You just read the most important piece of "advice" in this book." Page 28

4. "Appreciation, applause, approval, respect-we all love it! Page 29

5. "I was just in the field-a showstopper of an answer." "This is about logging those miles to increase your stature and credibility as the person who "talked to the real people in the field...yesterday." Page 40

6. "Amaze your peers. Take the rotten little assignment int he boondocks that no one wants. Then do it well. Do it very, very well. Innovate, create, make your mark. Page 50

7. "Take a serious daily break." Page 56

8. "Keeping customers informed may be the premier element of good service." Page 74

9. "Don't waste time making a lot of speeches. Lead by example." Page 257

10. "The three Rs...are not long enough. We must add the three Cs-computing, critical thinking and capacity for change." Page 259

Another Trip Through the Bible

Last May, I wrote about how I had spent the previous six months listening through the Bible. 

The next month, I decided to start over. It took 7 months this time but I finished it on January 30th. Again, I listed to the New Living Translation (NLT). I like how the NLT makes the text easy to read and listen to while maintaining the original meaning. 

What stood out to me
Old Testament

• God is incredibly patient. He frequently would proclaim through a prophet that was about to bring judgement. I expected it to happen right away, but often, His plan would take years or even over a hundred years.
• It isn't random. By going through the Old Testament in a short time, you see how God's plan works out over several centuries.

New Testament

• In the OT, you will hear about how the "Spirit" comes on someone and they are able to do something unordinary like prophesying. In the NT, it appears that the primary way that the Apostles knew that God was taking the Gospel to gentiles was that they also received the "Spirit" and did similar things as was seen in the OT. I'm still unpacking what this means for me today. I may share more of this journey later.

The App
And now a commercial for YouVersion, the Bible application I've used every time I've read or listened through the Bible. They have made a few updates to the application that make it easier to use. That being said, there is one update I'd like to see. The app works great if you follow your reading plan on a daily basis. But it you don't, it makes it tough. I tend to listen 4 days a week and usually listen to 2 to 3 days worth at a time.  Each day, I end up using a feature called "Catch me up", which shifts my reading plan to the current day. It makes that day the current day. I'd like to see a reading plan setting that makes the plan's current day the current day. Would save me a few clicks around the screen every day.

In case you are not familiar with the Bible, here are a few facts:

• There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament
• Much of the New Testament is made up of letters written to individuals or churches
• The majority of the books in the New Testament were written by a guy named Paul. You can read about Paul's conversion to Jesus in the book of Acts, chapter 9.

Give it a try

A couple of the other guys in the 3gdadnetwork have recently read through complete books of the Bible and really liked it. I'll let them tell their own stories.