October 10, 2008

The One Minute Manager

With all of this talk and thinking about training and education - bringing people to a point where they can learn things and then teach others the same thing - I thought I should probably do some reading on it.

I happened to be skimming through Dave Ramsey’s recommended reading list, and I wrote down several books that I thought would be a great help (which were most of the ones on his list).  Then I searched the catalog of our local library to see if they had any of them.  They actually had several.

So on my way to band practice at church last night, I stopped at the Amelia branch, signed up for a library card (which I had been meaning to do anyway), and searched for some of the books.

I walked out with two books.  One of them was The One Minute Manager by Dr. Kenneth Blanchard and Dr. Spencer Johnson.  It was a small paperback - only about 110 pages.

I read the book in under one hour, and I have to say, it was better than I could have expected. It was very simple, and it was written in the style of a narrated story (which I wasn’t expecting), but it was chock full of some very practical methods of managing people and getting great results.

I won’t spoil the three secrets in the book for you.  I HIGHLY suggest you pick up a copy and give it a read.  It is definitely worth turning off the TV for an hour to read (which I need to do more of anyway).  This book is great whether you manage a home, a business, a family, or a life.

I’m definitely going to apply the things that I learned in this book, and I can already tell you that they are going to work.

On to the next book!

Have any of you read anything like this (or this one specifically)?  Any thoughts?

October 2, 2008

Training

Gee.  Where has the time gone?

Life is happening.  And my blog has fallen by the wayside.

I have a few thoughts stirring around at the moment, so I’ll probably start posting them on here.

One Word: Training.

I’m beginning to lay out a plan to train some people and bring them up to do some of the things that I do so that I can focus on the bigger things.  I haven’t done a very good job on this lately, and it’s starting to catch up with me.

Be ready for me to pick your brains about it.

March 26, 2008

The Other Son

unleash_2008.jpg

I’m watching the videos of the main sessions from the 2008 Unleash Conference at NewSpring Church, and Perry Noble just said something that really hit me hard.

He was talking about the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, but he didn’t talk about the lost son. He talked about the other son.

Basically, his point was that the older son was so busy out in the field working for his father, that he didn’t know his father’s heart. He drew the parallel that we as the church can get so caught up in “doing the Father’s work” that they don’t spend any time with him to know his heart.

It’s not that we do the “wrong” things or that we’re not doing it for the right reason or in God’s name, but a lot of times we end up making it “our work” instead of the Father’s work. And we don’t spend any time with Him in the process.

I think this is one of the biggest things I can be guilty of. A lot of times I get so caught up in doing the Father’s work that I neglect spending time with him.

I really believe if we’re able to reconcile these two things, God will move in powerful ways in our lives and in our church.

Let’s spend more time with the Father while we’re doing His work.

August 17, 2007

Death by Ministry

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church has been posting several video portions of a talk he gave called Death by Ministry (via TheResurgence). Every one of them is full of great stuff. He talks about leadership methods, stress, burnout, health, etc.

Below are links to all eleven parts of the video. If you’re in church leadership (or any sort of leadership for that matter), these are a must watch. Each one is around 10 minutes long, and they’re totally worth every minute of your time.