wild goose chase review
i have been given the disctinct honor of reviewing mark batterson’s new book and i am excited to tell you all about it!
brief history: my staff team has been going through a period of transition and reorganization as we strive to be more effective in caring for the poor and needy in orange county and around the world. our team has grown over the past few years and our infrastructure has not kept pace with our ministry, so we determined to build the structure to hold up our current ministry and extend our ability to grow even more in the future! part of this has been a time of fear and uncertainty as we have all had to hold very loosely how we have always operated… and we have always operated very well… but we believe we can go from good to great. part of our process was as a team we read through mark’s first book “In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day”. We broke up into small groups to discuss and process as a part of our organizational changes. we fell in love with the book and the concepts that mark teaches about. when I heard that mark was writing another book I got excited to read and delve further into his unique teachings.
i was not disappointed!
mark’s style is engaging and approachable. i was able to read this book in just a few short sittings (the add kicked in a little… but 2 days is good for me… i have some books on my nightstand for months!). mark extends his teaching from the first book and presents the readers with some new challenges to live a life of surrender and abandon. I don’t want to give too much of the book away… you need to go and purchase a copy right now… seriously… click here and buy one for yourself and your team.
you’re back? did you buy a copy? okay… then I will share some of my favorite quotes.
There are some things you don’t need to pray about. You don’t need to pray about whether you should love your neighbor. You don’t need to pray about whether you should give generously or serve sacrificially. You don’t need to pray whether you should bless someone when it is within your power to do so. God has already spoken. What you need to do is quit praying and start acting.
Guilt has a shrinking effect. It shrinks our dreams. It shrinks our relationships. It shrinks our hearts. It shrinks our lives to the size of our greatest failure. Grace has the opposite effect. It expands our dreams. It expands our relationships. It expands our hearts. And it gives us the courage to chase the Wild Goose all the way to the ends of the earth.
So thank you mark for writing this important book. thank you for reminding us that GOD wants us to be men and women of action. that GOD wants us to surrender completely to him. for the simple message that we have to come out of our cage and CHASE THE WILD GOOSE!
now the legal stuff…
be sure to check out the website www.chasethegoose.com for resources and downloads.
book summary
Most of us have no idea where we’re going most of the time. Perfect.
“Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to follow the Spirit through life. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something….
Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.” –from the introduction.
Author Bio:
Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of Washington, DC’s National Community Church, widely recognized as one of America’s most innovative churches. NCC meets in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the city, as well as in a church-owned coffee house near Union Station. More than seventy percent of NCC’ers are single twentysomethings who live or work on Capitol Hill. Mark is the author of the best-selling In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and a widely read blogger (www.markbatterson.com). He lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Lora, and their three children.
crazy christians.
saw this on another blog today and thought it might provide an interesting conversation starter.
hey church… here is an idea… let’s don’t defend ourselves or boycott, or call mr. maher crazy… let’s just show love the way to Jesus commanded!
Pop!
To be exact… Pop Goes The Church, or so Tim Stevens would have us believe. Over the past few days I have had the distinct honor of reviewing this amazing new book. While I am duty bound to not give up too much on the upcoming release, it is fair to say that this book will challenge anyone involved in church communications or service planning to stop and rethink how we engage our culture to change lives! The book is incredibly practical and engaging.
Okay… I feel like I have already said too much. I am afraid that Ninjas from Tim Stevens writing lair may now be on their way to silence me, so I shall stop. When this book is released… GET IT!
//blair
How do you use your superpowers?
What is the difference between a superhero and a villain? In most cases it is that superheroes use their powers for good and not evil. To use real churchy sounding language, they leverage their God given gifts and talents to glorify God. Well I am not sure if anyone would call blogging a spiritual gift, but I believe that the ability to connect with people and influence them is. It then seems like blogs become a tool to express that God given gift.
Several influential bloggers have been debating lately how they can be superheroes, that is to say, using their blog powers for good. One answer was revealed this morning by none other than Carlos Whittaker. You can read about it here.
I wish Carlos and the crew a safe journey full of lifechange! One of the joys I have in working here at Mariners is that we have the chance to see this in action every day. We have decided that Child Sponsorship is more powerful when it is part of an intentional investment in a community. As such, we stopped doing traditional child sponsorship through outside organizations in favor of working through our partners in the areas of the world where we are invested. The outcome of that has been that we are now sending people on trips to parts of the world like Uganda and Peru, where people are able to meet and interact with the children they sponsor. Obviously, most churches are not able to create or sustain a program like this, so there is a huge need for organizations like Compassion and others, but for us the investment in relationship is huge! We have a team in the air right now on their way to Uganda. While there they will train pastors, run a VBS and setup business training and microfinance opportunities. We also have a new missionary living in Uganda for a year. Her charge… setup the tracking database for child sponsorships with our partner church in Uganda. We have a huge investment there! It is exciting to see.
So to Carlos and the rest of the team… you are all SUPERHEROES for Jesus. Keep on making a difference. To everyone else… what are you going to do to make a difference?
Posted in Linux
[geek] So I may be a bit of a geek, and so I decided for fun to load up Ubuntu Linux and try it out for awhile to see what all the hype about Linux was about. I would have to say that I am impressed, not only with how easy it was to load, but how complete the install was. On one CD I was able to burn an image that then loaded the core OS, a complete version of Open Office, Firefox, Email and much more. I have been playing with it for a few days and continue to be amazed at how easy and powerful it really is.. [/geek]
The Value of a Blog…
I love to read blogs. I have a list of about 10 blogs a day I go to and read. I love to hear about church leadership stuff, what excites people, what they are doing in ministry and in life. I am super disappointed when sometimes they don’t post for a few days. I truly feel like I am a part of their lives and ministry from a distance. It is one of the oddities of the blogosphere… you can feel connected to a person or ministry and talk about them as if they are a friend, and never have met them in your life. When Scott Hodge pulled his April Fools joke it took me a few minutes to realize it was a joke, and in those few minutes I was genuinely disappointed.
So you may be thinking to yourself…. “Self, what is the point of this now rambling post?” and the answer is simple. I feel like a blog leach. I take a lot, but do not give. So my resolution for this week is to post something everyday. My request is that you, gentle reader, would comment when you read what I have posted. Say something funny, or witty… just say something. A blog can be about a conversation, if one is engaged. So here is to a post for today.
