This week’s book of the week is Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0.  This book was given to me as a gift.  Within each book is a code that allows the reader to take an online survey which determines the 5 top strengths of the reader.  You then can read more concerning your personal strengths.

The premise of the book is found in the opening pages: “You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are” (9).

After taking the online survey, I was able to print off more pages concerning the complexity of my strengths and learn how to use them better.  Here is a description of what the survey says are my strengths:

Top 5 Strengths:

1.  STRATEGIC: “The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route.  It is not a skill that can be taught.  It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large.  This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity” (165).

2.  FOCUS: “And so each year, each month, and even each week you set goals.  These goals then serve as a compass, helping you determine priorities and make the necessary corrections to get back on course.  Your Focus is powerful because it forces you to filter…your Focus forces you to be efficient.  Naturally, the flip side of this is that it causes you to become impatient with delays, obstacles, and even tangents, no matter how intriguing they appear to be” (101).

3.  LEARNER: “You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence.  The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered – this is the process that entices you” (133).

4.  SELF-ASSURANCE: “When you look at the world, you know that your perspective is unique and distinct.  And because no one sees exactly what you see, you know that no one can make your decisions for you.  No one can tell you what to think.  They can guide.  They can suggest.  But you alone have the authority to form conclusions, make decisions, and act.  This authority, this final accountability for the living of your life, does not intimidate you.  On the contrary, it feels natural to you” (157).

5.  FUTURISTIC: “You are the kind of person who loves to peer over the horizon…You are a dreamer who sees visions of what could be and who cherishes those visions.  When the present proves too frustrating and the people around you too pragmatic, you conjure up your visions of the future and they energize you” (105).

This week’s book of the week is C. J. Mahaney’s Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God.

This short read is full of great scriptural insights into romance within marriage.  What I love about the book is that it is not crass but it is also not fuddy-duddy.  It speaks of marriage, sex, and romance in a practical, engaging manner and gets its boldness from the Word of God.

While it is geared primarily towards men, his wife also provides some chapters at the end.  So practical and so God-glorifying.  A great reclaiming of the joy of romance for Christians living God’s way!  Great read!

Top 5 Ideas:

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This week’s book of the week is The Multi-Site Church Revolution by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird.  Multi-site churches are growing by the day.  That term means a whole lot of different things, but fundamentally, it means being one church in many locations.

Some of these congregations show videos of their preacher in different locations.  Some have campus pastors who all teach the same things but in different locations.  This model tries to utilize resources in order not to reinvent the wheel with a new church start.  This approach starts with concepts, principles, values, resources, and people, and multiplies in a different location.

5 Top Ideas:

1. “A multi-site church is one church meeting in multiple locations…shares a common vision, budget, leadership, and board” (18).
2. “The power of the Word isn’t limited by the medium” (93).
3. “That’s the goal of a multi-site church as it moves from being an organization to being an organism: to accommodate growth without having to reinvent the structure” (138).
4. “Remember that most leaders are already present; they can be raised up from within the congregation” (145).
5. “The future of the multi-site might be a return to the mindset of the first-century believer, when the word church did not refer to a specific building or location but to a group of believers connected to other groups of believers by a common mission. Imagine the power of a church not built around a personality or a facility but instead built around a mission!” (200).

Like many people in the last year, I have read David Platt’s soul-searching book, Radical. Make no mistake, I was a David Platt fan before being a David Platt fan was cool.  I got the privilege to hear him preach years before his name got real big.  Back in the day, he loved Jesus and was committed to his mission.

Here’s a video preview of his book:

Pretty intense stuff.  The book is even more intense.  He unashamedly calls the American church to wake up from their pursuit of the American Dream and live out the gospel in their daily lives.  Russell Moore’s endorsement is right on: “Sometimes people will commend a book by saying, ‘You won’t want to put it down.’  I can’t say that about this book.  You’ll want to put it down, many times.  If you’re like me, as you read David Platt’s Radical, you’ll find yourself uncomfortably targeted by the Holy Spirit.  You’ll see just how acclimated you are to the American dream…”

My problem with the book is this: David Platt is living this out in the context of an existing Southern Baptist church.

And people are forgetting that.

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This week’s book of the week is John Piper’s The Passion of Jesus Christ.  Love me some Piper, but I love me some Jesus even more.  This book’s tag line (and what the 2nd edition was renamed) is 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die.

These 50 small chapters pack so much theological truth into the reasonings Jesus came, died, and conquered sin and death.

So good.  There is no greater love than the love of Jesus Christ.

Top 5 Lines:

1. “If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die.  And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die” (20).
2. “All my reaching and yearning and striving is not to belong to Christ (which has already happened), but to complete what is lacking in my likeness to him…Therefore, we fight against our sin not simply to become perfect, but because we are” (49).
3. “The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy, namely himself” (63).
4. “Our sin ruins us in two ways.  It makes us guilty before God, so that we are under his just condemnation; and it makes us ugly in our behavior, so that we disfigure the image of God we were meant to display” (76).
5. “Our happiest moments have not been self-saturated moments, but self-forgetful moments” (117).