I’m attracted to books that have fresh points of view, -that try to lift the veil on history and human behavior.  The Tipping Point and 1491 were both NY Times bestsellers that examine something we THINK we know, then bring in new data to challenge that thinking.
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell was a blockbuster book several […]

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Once upon a time, the cost of energy was so cheap churches could afford inefficient thinking and design when it came to their heating and cooling needs at churches. These days, we can’t afford to be dumb, let alone allow ourselves the hubris of waste. 
My former church was a perfect example of poor design. The thermostats for […]

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Your asphalt parking lot is an energy monster.
Anyone who has stood in the church parking lot at noon after worship during the summer knows that black asphalt slabs are energy monsters They store massive amounts of heat, and raise the temperature of the air around your church as much as 20 degrees above what a grassy area […]

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At my former church, I spent a couple of years as a volunteer building and making improvements to their website. (I was also involved in the CE program there too). At the request of the pastor, I took it over from a volunteer who I had actually seen sitting in front of the church’s computer with an […]

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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explodes the Hidden Side of Everything -by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
This 2005 bestseller isn’t about economics. It’s about exploding assumptions and conventional wisdom using some economic principles and investigative techniques.  Frankly, it will blow your mind.
These subjects might seem strange to you, but the glory is in the way […]

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Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who by Frederick Buechner
This is an amazing and wonderful book. Buechner humorously and poignantly goes A to Z through Bible characters -famous and infamous, well-known and unknown, and describes them in such as way as you might imagine they are part of your family, your neighborhood, your church. Or maybe they […]

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Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairytale, by Frederick Buechner.
Go ahead, let this titled PROVOKE you. But it’s not what you think. It’s MUCH BETTER than that!
This is the first Buechner book I ever read and it turned me on to the rest of the man’s works. If I have a “theological God-father” […]

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Wishful Thinking: A theological ABC, by Frederick Buechner
Drool Warning: I love Buechner. When I was in seminary and interviewing for my first pastor job the pastor interviewing me asked me what I was reading in seminary, and I admitted I was reading books not recommended by the professors!  The pastor-interviewer asked me, “Who?” and I said […]

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All good books, including the “Good” book, can change your life in ways big and small.
Here is a short list of some books that came along at just the right time when I was young to move me in a new direction.  You might might to also read my posts about Frederick Buechner’s Gospel as […]

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Hack your office schedule, and hack “the nag” on your computer.
The church office is a tyrant! 
It creates a certain type of work (often busy-work), and turns a pastor (aka “someone who pastors”) into an office troll. I’ve never met a pastor (DCE) worth their salt who wouldn’t rather be leading worship or teaching or being part of […]

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