The NET Bible website just got an overhaul and it is awesome. Check it out (be sure to mouse over the footnotes). And they seem to have renamed the web portion of their project NEXT Bible: http://nextbible.org
Category: Resources & Reviews
5 Rare Gems for Reaching High School and College Students
I just finished Donny Roberson’s 5 Rare Gems for Reaching High School and College Students. It’s an excellent (and brief) guide to campus ministry.
You should especially read this if you are in college ministry and are a male over 30 — he makes some insightful observations you won’t find anywhere else.
His “5 Gems” are really just musings on five big topics: understanding your students’ families, being creative, building quality relationships, being persistent, and listening effectively.
From every gem save one I learned something that I’m looking forward to trying this year — and the book only cost me $3.
So go order it already.
Suckerpunched…
I was bitterly disappointed at the reference section at Berean Christian Store in San Jose. I had gone in with a coupon figuring I’d pick up a sweet and expensive commentary at reduced rate. After scouring the commentary section I concluded that there was not one single commentary in the store worth owning.
It made me very, very sad. I hate to be one of those ministers who is always whining about how Christian book stores are dumbing down the faith, but I was almost sick inside at the low quality of the books on offer.
As I was on my way out, I noticed Breaking The Missional Code was for sale. Since I had a coupon and the book had been recommended to me by several friends and I didn’t want to leave bitter at the store, I picked it up.
It’s an easy read and I was generally appreciative of their thoughts (especially their warning to the rapidly swelling missional networks to not neglect traditional missions in favor of church planting), and I was almost done with it when I got suckerpunched at the end.
A recent development in church planting is that of planting churches on or near college campuses. Leaders are discovering that when churches are planted on campus they are more strategic at reaching unreached and disconnected people on the college campus. They represent a shift from college and campus ministries that focus on those who already embrace the faith to that of planting the gospel among those who have never or seldom heard.
Breaking The Missional Code, Ed Stetzer & David Putman p. 232
emphasis added
I feel vaguely slandered…
I think perhaps the authors misunderstand what campus ministries do. And they also overestimate the ability of churches to thrive on the college campus — some campuses are very reachable that way and others are not. It’s a tool in our toolbox for reaching collegians, not a replacement toolbox.
Overall, it’s a good book if you haven’t read anything about leading your church to engage the culture before. Otherwise you might find it repetitious. And libelous. 🙂
Richard Mouw rocks
I just finished reading Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport by Richard Mouw (president of Fuller Theological Seminary). It was great. I’ve read one other book of his, Consulting the Faithful: What Christian Intellectuals Can Learn from Popular Religion, and I loved it as well. I’d have to say he’s one of my favorite low-volume authors.
Dog the Bounty Hunter
Dog the Bounty Hunter has to be one of the most fascinating individuals I’ve ever seen on television. If you ever get a chance to watch the show, I highly recommend it.
Our Staff Reading Selections
These are the books our ministry team selected for our reading group.
We’re starting with the Nicomachean Ethics first. Paula and I spent some time looking at different translations (like the Bible, you can get Aristostle in King James through CEV flavoring). We settled on Terence Irwin’s translation as the most readable.
Einstein Endorsement
Courtesy of the cool Einstein dynamic chalkboard generator.
Dialectic
One of my students (stage name Dialectic) just released a rap album. You can preview it at MySpace. Or as we hip-hoppers like to call it, MySchizzle.
How Not To Be Holy
I just read a great little meditation on holiness called Whack-a-mole and Sin Management in Leadership Journal. When I checked to see if it was online I discovered that the author has a blog.
Staff Reading Cohort
Our staff team is going to begin a reading program together. We’re picking our books now, and I thought some of you might be interested in the guidelines we’re using. I sort of made these up and modified them based on the feedback I received.
Frequency
Let’s start off with a book every two months. This will give us plenty of time to pursue our own reading without shortchanging our staff reads. We can always adjust the time later if we need to.Selection
We make our list up two full cycles in advance (one whole year). We each get to propose 4 books, and then we each rank the resulting list of 12. We tally the votes using an internet script (Condorcet method for any voting geeks out there). The top six books win. We’ll decide the order in which the winners will be read informally, trying to alternate older books with newer books.Guidelines
- We have to propose books that we have not read yet. Don’t pick something you loved and think it will be good for everyone else. The point of this exercise is personal growth.
- Having said that, it’s okay if someone else proposes a book that you have already read and the team selects it. In that case, you don’t have to reread it–skimming will do.
- Don’t try to impress anyone. No need to pick academic philosophy or anything like that–unless you really want to read it.
- Let’s try to alternate between new books and books older than we are. This isn’t a rigid rule, but an aspiration.
- Freshness is good when we’re talking about something based on research, and age is good when we’re talking about something based on reflection. If you want us to think about science or culture get a new book. If you want us to think about God or life get an older book. Unless you really don’t want to–these are guidelines and not rules. 😉
- The books can be about anything, but let’s keep fiction to a minimum.
- Nothing over 500 pages without first clearing it with everyone else.
- Nothing over $30 without clearing it first with everyone else.
- If you want, you can propose multiple short books as a single recommendation (less than 200 pages total).
After Reading
Following the reading of the book, by a specified deadline, the chooser will compose a few (3–5) questions for group discussion either in person, over the phone or online.
Anyway, it’s not too elegant but it looks as though it will serve us well. We’ve each made our suggestions and here’s the list we’re going to be voting on:
- The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
- Prayer by George Buttrick
- Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great by Jim Collins
- College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What to Do About It by Richard D. Kadison and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
- Creative Ministry by Henri Nouwen
- In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen
- Pensees by Blaise Pascal
- Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading by Eugene Peterson
- Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon
- The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective by R. Paul Stevens
- Margin by Richard Swenson
Once we have the results I’ll let you know what we wind up reading.