Currently Reading . . .


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 518
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Currently I'm reading "All you ever wanted to know from his holiness the Dali Lama on happiness, life, living. and much more"

conversations with Rajiv Mehrotra

I always enjoys reading stuff about or from the Dali Lama

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Yesterday I started reading "what bothers me most about Christianity" honest reflections from an openminded Christ follower by Ed Gungor and picked up a copy of 'The Sacredness of Questioning Everything" by David Dark and "Natural Wakefulness" discovering the wisdom we were born with by Gaylon Ferguson.

Going to give my legs a rest from hiking until I go on vacation in August and read a bunch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

The Upanishads Translated by Juan Mascaro

The Hermetica Translated by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

The Baghavad Gita Translated by Juan Mascaro

The Rig Veda: an Anthology of One Hundred and Eight Hymns Translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty

and...

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brad Sanderson :thumbu:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Upanishads Translated by Juan Mascaro

The Hermetica Translated by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

The Baghavad Gita Translated by Juan Mascaro

The Rig Veda: an Anthology of One Hundred and Eight Hymns Translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty

and...

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brad Sanderson thumbsup(1).gif

I'm rereading my copy of the Upanishads as well, which I left at work tonight after the power outtage and I got the chance to tear outta there and go hiking early.

So far everything I read seems to confirm what Luis relates to us about Hinduism and I'm wondering what Vedic literature dattaswami is basing his belief system on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I just finished reading The Edge of Evolution" The Search for the limits of Darwinism which I found very very very enjoyable and informative.

I am almost done "Eyes Open Wide" cultivating discernment on the spiritual path by Mariana Caplan PHd which has opened my eyes to some of my own foibles.

I also just got 'The Confessions of St. Augustine" today which if its half as good as the other two should be enjoyable as well.

Edited by Fawzo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've now started on A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich. We're going to be in Crete for the Eid hols, and I don't know very much about the Eastern Church.

JJ Norwich describes how the Eastern and Western Churches fell out...

In 484 there was a synod in Constantinople where Pope Felix III (head of the western Church, and still nominally head of the whole shebang) got so enraged over the Monophysite debate that he decided to excommunicate the Patriarch of Constantinople (head of the Eastern Church).

As they were in Constantinople at the time, nobody dared tell the Patriarch to his face.

SO...

the anathama was written on a bit of parchment and it was pinned on the back of the Patriarch's cope during a service at Santa Sophia.

This has been making me laugh all morning.

I've just patented a new game called Schism! or, Pin the Anathama on the Patriarch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World

Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

2006. 219 pp., hardback. $23.95

Fred Romanuk and Alan J. Roxburgh have written this book to engage the change in leadership style that is required by the church in order to be effective in the new and changing culture that defines America today. Fred Romanuk is an organizational psychologist, and Alan J. Roxburgh has 30 years pastoral experience in church leadership and is a faculty member of several seminaries.

This book accurately describes the church culture as it exists today: church members having become consumers of religious goods and services instead of being chaplains and ambassadors from the Kingdom of God to our culture and society. These authors claim that instead of the individual being at the center of their own world, God must be at the center through the indwelling of the biblical narratives, prayer, silence, acts of hospitality and listening. Instead of the church being a place that people come and get their needs met until their needs are no longer met and then move on, the church needs to be the Kingdom of God that people come to transform into and become part of its work.

I was excited by this book and felt a connection right away with the content. These authors put in perspective how many in the church use Jesus, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and prayer as a means to help them with their struggles. They reiterated strongly that the main point is God and His Kingdom, and we are here to fit ourselves into that.

They stressed the importance of listening and insist that the answers are not going to come from the top down, but are going to come from within the church, and how the responsibility of the leaders is to cultivate an environment of missional imagination that is to come from the church members.

The Missional Change Model that they suggested: awareness, understanding, evaluation, experimentation, and commitment along with indwelling the Scripture, prayer, listening to the church and the culture makes more sense than any approach that I have heard to this crisis. This return to the basics of Christianity is the answer to the restlessness and groaning that have been coming from the church in the recent decades.

This book should be a requirement for anybody in Christian leadership. The practical principles outlined in the book have increased my leadership understanding and I have already benefited from the insight of these authors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The Purpose Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message & Mission

Rick Warren

Grand Rapids: Zondervan

1995. 399 pp., hardback.

Rick Warren is the pastor of Saddleback Community Church. He holds a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. He has been involved in ministry since the mid-1970s.

In this book Rick outlined the beginning of the mega-church of which he is the senior pastor. He detailed the philosophy of ministry that has kept this church growing and maintaining its membership. He noted that it is paramount to keep the needs of the people in mind, and to choose a ministry target group on which to focus, no one church can reach everyone. This is how the purpose of the church is determined, and then everything the church does needs be designed around its purpose, as it meets the needs of the targeted ministry group. His main point was that churches need to be driven by purpose in order to succeed.

I got a lot out of this book and discovered many useful tools to implement in my own ministry settings. I thought it was interesting how Rick does things almost exactly backwards to most churches I have been involved with. Most churches start with a core group and disciple them, then use this core group to build the membership through evangelism. Rick argued that once this core group becomes disciple, they no longer think like the unchurched and therefore are out of touch with the unchurched and are ineffective in evangelism. His method is to focus on the new believers, and having them reach the unchurched by inviting them to church.

He pointed out that after people have been in church for a while they forget what it was like to walk into church for the first time. Rick has carefully surveyed and discovered lists of things that church members say and do which make visitors uncomfortable. He covered many issues that I will admit I was not even aware of that now seem obvious that hinder church growth.

This is an excellent book for anyone who is going into ministry or who is in ministry and is troubled by a lack of ministry growth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just got my copy of Bart D Erhman's latest and greatest book "Jesus, Interrupted" revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them)

I wish this was mandatory reading material in all high schools.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Amulet locked and unpinned this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share