November Books

I started reading two new books yesterday, but not just because it was the first day of November. I have one other book to finish reading that I started some time ago but got distracted. I quite often dip into several books and maybe read one more carefully than the others. I've never really found it hard to keep them separated. Perhaps it was all that reading I did at college!

The first of the new book is Organic Leadership by Neil Cole. Having read Organic Church, I was very interested in getting his book on leadership when it came out. I even pre-ordered it, but never got started. Over the years I've come to realise the value of a good introduction in a book and Neil Cole's introduction to Organic Leadership certainly helps you understand both his perspective and the principles that will guide the chapters that follow.

As someone who wonders what else they could possibly do having spent 20 years in ministry, I immediately find myself connected to the image of needing the institution and yet wondering what is wrong with how we do what we presently do. I certainly recognise the dichotomy between the way the church has professionalised the ministry of the church and effectively taken it out of the hands of the church body and the Biblical principle of the priesthood of all believers. I'm frustrated by the abdication of ministry from the people to the professionals that this has caused.

It will be interesting to see how the book develops.

The second book is Tim Chester's The Ordinary Hero. The subtitle is Living the cross and resurrection. And I guess that pretty well sums up the intention of the book. It is a discipleship book. The style makes it an easy book to read, but it's not light-weight in terms of the subject matter.

So that's my November reading. I used to read far more than I currently do, and I used to read it far more quickly! If I finish the other book that I carry around with me and these two, plus the usual crop articles, both printed and web based, probably means that I still read quite a lot!