Matthew | January 30, 2013
The majority of people have the basic belief that positive relationships within a congregation will dictate a powerful mission. This wisdom seems to make sense. If people are fighting, this force will stagnant the work of the church. This wisdom creates an unhealthy cycle. Congregations will direct attention toward building relationships with little results. Positive [...]
Matthew | January 28, 2013
This was an excellent book. One that is helpful, and you cannot put down. It is a refashioning of the view of sales in this society. People think selling is a dirty business, but as the world changes, we are all salesmen. We might be trying to sell our kids the need to work hard, [...]
Matthew | January 25, 2013
Here are a few Friday random thoughts for the day. 1. Turned in the next edition of the dissertation yesterday. It is really polished now, but still will be commented on by the panel. Hopefully, the changes and additions will be light. I believe the dissertation process is a test of wills. Who will get [...]
Matthew | January 23, 2013
I have noticed that if a blog is too long, I stop reading. This goes for newspaper articles, and other mediums of communication. Most books I always finish, but move on to the next. Reading scholarly material is not for a sound bite mindset. Also, the more hurried I am, the less thoughtful I am. [...]
Matthew | January 21, 2013
All great books tell a great story. The best stories are those that are true. This book is about the man called Dietrich Bonhoeffer who penned some of the famous texts in the 20th century. He wrote “Life Together” and “Discipleship.” These are modern day classics in Christian literature. One of the reasons that these two [...]
Matthew | January 17, 2013
Here is a little thought from the dissertation. It is about churches realizing the need for evangelism, hence will not resist, but if one pushes evangelistic methodology too sharply, it will create resistance. If you are not creating resistance, you are probably not moving missionally forward. Overall, the resistance was little. One reason was the [...]
Matthew | January 16, 2013
Well, the blog has been quiet this week. The reason was that I was in Memphis working on the dissertation. And according to policy, I do not announce when I am gone. It was a great week. I met with Dr. Bland. We discussed the major areas for improvement, and what to do moving forward. Having this [...]
Matthew | January 7, 2013
One of the classic complaints of a congregation is “there is not enough going on.” This complaint can be broken down into various areas. There is not enough teen activities, not enough fellowship for the young couples, there is not enough evangelism (well this one might be true), there is not enough….. This often repeated [...]
Matthew | January 3, 2013
I know that there has to be a minister out there that structures the week by the hour. Someone must do this. But for me, it is never this simple. Most days I have a plan, every week I have a list of tasks, and most times it changes through the week. There are meetings, [...]
Matthew | January 2, 2013
With the evil Alabama playing again in the National Championship game on Monday night, this book review is timed well. I read it a while ago, and mostly forgot to review it. It was one of the nice non-fiction breaks in the year of reading theology. As a serious college football fan, this was an [...]
