Book #15 The Death of Ivan Illych

The Death...Illych is a fictional Russian classic by Leo Tolstoy.

The premise is a young man spends his life climbing the social ladder. When he appears to be secure in all the right circles, having the right friends and earning the right salary he comes down with a painful terminal disease.

He then embarks on an internal journey that fluctuates between bitterness and wondering if his live had any meaning.

My analysis: Clearly great literature. Truly engaging. Depressing.

It is worth the read but make sure you read it on a sunny day with a roomful of cooing babies. Otherwise it just drags you down emotionally.

Michelle

On March 12th @ 4;20 am my sister Michelle suddenly passed away.

She had been chronically ill w/ acute diabetes but there had been no out of the ordinary decline or warning signs. The best we can ascertain is she had a heart attack @ home.

She was 44.

Things I am trying to learn/have learned in the last 4 days:

(1)My theology has not changed. Pain has a way of magnifying cracks in our belief systems if they aren't sufficiently rooted.

(2)Do the hardest things so others don't have to. During the whole ordeal I wanted to find ways to shield and run interference for my parents. So, there were difficult phone calls and tough decisions that I tried to make for them when possible.

(3)John 11 is different now.

(4)My toughest moments to date have been: (A)Telling my Dad that Shell had died.
I got half way through that and Lisa had to finish it. (B)Being consoled by Zak. (C)Thinking how good the Gospel is. I Cor 15.

(5)The importance of people. By nature I am somewhat of a loner and introvert. I thought that when tragedy hit I would want to be alone. The opposite was true. This actually surprised me.

Sometime I'll attach a pic to this post for reference.

Book #14 Dream Manager

The premise is the fictional account of Admiral Cleaning Co fighting turnover by hiring a Dream Manager.

The DM is tasked to help the employees meet their dreams and thus add value to their lives and a sense of meaning to their jobs.

I am not a big fan of the parable business book genre. But all in all it has a good premise and is worth the time it takes to read this short work.

DVD Reviews

Two of the latest movies I have watched...
Sicko: Not a Moore fan. He clearly was biased in what he was going for America health care is bad, European is good.

In spite of knowing his bias he made a case.


Forbidden Kingdom...ZZZzzzzzzzzz.

Exciting changes...

Some things that have been modified around the church is exciting.

Without over-hyping I really believe we'll find ourselves in new territory in regards to connecting and growing as a church as well as seeing people come to faith in Christ.

I specifically refer to the implementation of growth (small) groups.

With this new system in place we should be able to exceed our Wed gatherings and thus won't be meeting as a church body on Wed nights. Clearly this leaves the Wed Children & Youth Ministry to roll into Sun PM which is fine.

The other modification is that as 3-22-09 we will be starting evening church @ 5pm. This will help with some extra time needed for the Children/Youth ministries. We are hoping this allows us to not feel so rushed to get home, get the kids in the tub etc.

All great moves. Very pumped at how AFBC is going to step up and embrace the much needed adjustments.

Ohhh baby...

It has been pointed out to me that I don't have a commitment to anyone genre of music. This is true. As is the case with most people I like what I like w/o giving it a lot of thought.

This rendition of Nothing Else Matters by Apocalyptica is in-cred-ible.

I am no fan of Metallica but when M. is done this way I could get into it.

Enjoy.

Books 12 & 13

Since the last post I have been working through a couple of different books. Both these are by Ed Stetzer.

The first is Planting Missional Churches


The second book is Breaking the Missional Code



Both books focus on the understanding of your particular context (building a church in Alexandria KY is different than building one in NYC).

In addition building a church that understands reaching out to see others truly saved and also serving in the world. The dangers have been liberal churches are strong on serving but weak on Gospel. Fundamental churches are weak on serving but strong on the Gospel. Missional churches want to be right on both.

Stetzer is a solid thinker and able author. These two books are strong contributions to the continued understanding of the shifting spiritual landscape America is experiencing.