Pragmatic Perusal...
Here are the 3 things I'm reading and what they're teaching me thus far:
TRIBES by Seth Godin <---click on Seth's head to read his blog. 
Seth Godin delivered a powerful presentation of the Tribes idea at Catalyst 08'. It was exciting and quickly became even more exciting when they announced that he brought over 12,000 books with him to give away to every person attending...free is good, but it's even better when the free thing itself is good.
Tribes has been teaching me that:
* The internet eliminates geography.
* Everyone is a leader of something.
* Leadership is not management.
* People are changing the world, maybe not your world, but changing the world nonetheless.
Approximately 40 pages in so far...
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CREATING COMMUNITY by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits
Part of my job with Vineyard Westside is working with our Life Groups, that is, small groups of people getting together throughout the week to learn, grow, pray, and have fun together. I will admit that I am good at leading groups, discussing things about groups, helping people to make their group better, but I am not very good when it comes to coming up with systems for how to get more people involved in groups and such.
This book is helping me to figure out some systems for our church regarding our Life Groups.
Creating Community is teaching/reminding me that:
* We have more people around us than ever, and yet we are more lonely than ever.
* Groups cannot be an appendage to what we do with our church, they must define our church.
* Man was not created to be alone, in fact, God says it's NOT GOOD.
* Starbucks might have a better understanding of this than most churches.
* A very small majority of homes are built with front porches now...this is a problem.
Approximately 60 pages in so far...
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NEHEMIAH in the Bible <---check out YouVersion. 
I'll be honest with you...I haven't started reading much of this yet. I have however devoted to read it. I've gone through it before, but all I really remember is that Nehemiah pulled off a secret plan to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in a really short period of time.
What I'm hoping to learn about:
* Restoration
* Leadership
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Tell me what you're reading and what it's teaching you.
Pretty please with sugar on top?
25 waggish utterances thus far...:
OH, how I love Andy Stanley. I'm going through a wee "can't find the right church" crisis right now and it makes me ache for North Point and Andy's teaching.
i'm in school so aside from my textbooks which are often B-O-R-I-N-G, i read "fluff" books. i call them fluff only because they are entertaining reads for me, not necessarily chic-lit or real feel good books. as a matter of fact, i tend to gravitate towards murder mysteries/detective type novels.
right now i'm reading jodi picoult's nineteen minutes. often times, the books i read don't really "teach" me anyting; however this one has. it's about a high school boy who is teased and picked on and snaps. he goes into school one morning and starts shooting and several children are dead. there are points of view from a victim's girlfriend and her mother and from the shooter and his mother.
whenever i hear of something tragic like this happening i feel badly for all involved. it saddens me to think how alone and isolated the shooter/killer must be/have been.
so this book has been teaching me to always treat others in a manner in which i want to be treated.
Still working my way through the book too, good stuff, wish I could remember all he said last week :)
Oh, okay, since you're whining so much...
None of those holy books like you are though.
-Sense and Sensibility (this makes me sound very proper)
-Pablo Picasso (amazing and so child-like and not at all grown up)
-tons of books about the election process (I'm learning what I should have learned in school)
-Berenstain Bears collection (my favorite and makes me sound neither artsy nor proper)
The Spirit of the Disciplines ~Dallas Willard
It will turn your whole world right-side up, it did mine.
Say goodbye to Whining, Complaining and bad attitudes ...in you and your kids.~ Scott Turansky & Joanne Miller
Do you know the difference between respect and honor? I sure didn't. Now I do.
Inside the Mysteries of the Bible ~The American Bible Society.
I am still amazed and baffled all at the same time even after all these years.
A New Earth Awakening to your life's prupose. ~Eckhart Tolle
He quotes Jesus specifically almost 3 dozen times and says "You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are"
I'm learning I don't have to believe everything I think.
And finally as a leader of a bible study I attended said once " After all the years of studying we know less now than ever"
Thanks for letting us share.
Can I ask what your point about the importance of front porches is? The reason I ask is that I am building a new home, we move in one month from today. By design (and the design in all of this from beginning to end was all God, I didn't ever want to build and yet here we are at the end of it)...so by design there is an extra large front porch, and I by no means have any idea what to do with it, where do I even begin. I've moved a lot in life due to the military, but we are here for a while, moving so much makes making friends become a chore so I'm hoping my front porch becomes a welcome dwelling for many, but it will begin with just my husband and I and that's okay too, because he isn't in the Army anymore and he is home now and we need to rebuild and refresh our family life and I believe the front porch will be a good place to start...do you have any ideas???
Now what I'm reading or want to be reading is a better way to put it, Can you Drink This Cup by Henri Nouwen
The Book of Matthew
The Magnificat
I can only read one thing at a time. I get totally confused and lose track and get everything muddled up.
I'm reading Facing Your Giant by Max Lucado.
Sometime in the next two months I'll read:
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows.
I also have my daily dose of God's word. I bounce around.
I am reading the Left Behind series. Im only in the first book of like 900 but its good. I dont know much about end times so it was interesting for me to dive into this book. Even though its fiction, it gives me a different perspective of the end times.
Ive also been reading the Case for Christ.
I am reading two books
1. Change your thoughts, change your life by Wayne Dye
2. A new earth by Eckhart Tolle
Both books are kind of new age "fru-fru" and I'm learning that I need to keep searching, and that A new earth is kind of buddist theology, kindasorta.
I'm reading the "Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World." Basically, the author is going to different countries trying to understand what makes them "happy" or not and to define what exactly happiness is. Right now I'm in Bhutan where he says they feed the pig marijuana so they get the munchies, eat more, and get fat. They aren't using it for their own consumption. Just a factoid I found amusing. Really though the book is excellent in it's approach at pointing out that what we may think is happiness or will bring us happiness may not be true, here or around the world.
@ Mom on a coulee - There are so many reasons that we should want a front porch! It is in essence the definition of community.
More and more people are leaving their houses through the garage, get in the car, drive to work, go to cubicle-environment, drive home into garage, get out and never talk to neighbors.
A front porch is like the welcome zone that says, come on over here and talk to us! It's the blending area between the public and the private.
Ryan, that's exactly what our pastor said in his sermon on Sunday. I love how God pulls things together. AMEN.
John Shelby Spong: A new Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying & How a New Faith is Being Born - very interesting look at how current religion is failing us, and what we need to do to make it relevant for today. Only about 30 pages into it, because it's some heavy reading/thinking.
Marcus J. Borg: Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary - As a Christian Formation Leader (Sunday School Teacher) this one is exciting. Among other points, he claims that whether the historical Jesus is accurate or not is irrelevant; what is important is what the stories mean to us in the here and now.
Stephenie Meyer: New Moon. The 2nd book in the "Twilight" series - teenage vampire/love story books. I'm reading because my 16 year old daughter is reading them. They're actually quite good!
More on the front porch comments: Not sure if you can read this without logging in, but here's a great story in the Dallas Morning News about a couple who have been hanging out with neighbors on their front porch for years.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/060808dnmethappyhour.2d548b7.html
I am reading CURE FOR THE COMMON LIFE by Max Lucado. Just started it so I can't report much. An exerpt from the back of the book reads, "He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment." It caught my attention.
After all the reading for school (in my 40's, with kids & a husband & a full time job), I find it difficult to sit still long enough to finish a book. But...I'm reading 1776. We were a rag-tag bunch, but we had a taste of freedom and weren't willing to give it up. And if I answered that who would you invite to dinner question, George Washington would probably be on the list.
I'm also reading Walt Disney's biography by Neal Gabler. I LOVE Disney World. Thanks, Walt. Never, never, never give up. You CAN get there from here.
And I'm making my way through Elizabeth George's books. Good escape.
I'm attempting to read the Bible in a year. Each morning I log onto Crosswalk.com and read my portion of the Bible.
I have to admit it's been eye opening.
I'm reading A Generous Orthoxy by Brian McLaren.
On the front porch comments....we had a large front porch in an old neighborhood when we lived in NY. This was the BEST place to meet people walking down the street, visit with neighbors and share life with one another. Lots of people in our neighborhood had front porches and we were always going to someone's "front porch". When we moved to MN we put a front porch on our house. Now that we've moved again...we are putting another front porch on a house!
The Ultimate Treasure Hunt by Kevin Dedmon
It is teaching me to boldly use the readily available gift of words of knowledge to find buried "treasure" in everyday people who God has prepared for an encounter with Him.
GOOD STUFFS!
I've just read through a German book, "Generation Stupid". It's about what my generation (and the one above me) has lost or unlearned(?) in terms of good behaviour, basic knowledge, how to work properly etc.
What I learned from it.. well there were several examples where I had to admit that they fit on me too.. which I have to change. :/
'Tribes' sounds interesting, I'm gonna go look if I can buy it somewhere around here.
I'm reading Soul Revolution by John Burke. It is totally changing my life. I'm also reading the Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch
UnChristian-What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity...and Why It Matters by David Kinnaman.
The subtitle says it all. It looks at the church through the lens of 16-29 year olds, (based on extensive Barna Group research) especially those "outside" the church. It is really opening my eyes to not just how outsiders see us, but to better understand my college aged kids view of life and faith. Our church is doing a whole series based on the book, apologizing for bad behavior!
TrueFaced: Trusting God and Others With Who You Really Are by Bill Thrall et al.
This book has been teaching me to trust God rather than strive to please Him, and to let God help me tackle my sins rather than try to take them on by myself. The book hs completely turned my world upside down as far as how I think about my relationship with God, and I probably haven't done an adequate job of summarizing just how deep and though-provoking it is.
Reading "The Fallen", by Marc Landas. Learning that horrific atrocities were endured by American POWs during WWII at the hands of not only Japanese soldiers, but Japanese doctors who performed live medical experiments on them. Pretty sad.
Also reading "Eat Fat, Lose Fat", by Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. I'm learning that Coconut Oil, milk, and coconut products in general are awesome for you! I'm also learning that real butter and natural fats (the way God intended) are so much better for us than we've realized.
Last but not least. My Bible. Gods Word and instruction book for life!
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