Stuff That Matters in Life

Katy’s Weblog

This book had a big influence on me in shaping my philosophy of ministry. I read this in November, and I can’t believe I didn’t blog it here, so I can remember it.

The introduction starts off with recounting the story of two nice young adults who were raised in the church, both of them identify themselves as Christians, and they are living good moral lives as adults, but have simply stopped showing interest in the Christian life. This story, and countless similar stories that I personally know, causes me to weep. What am I doing as a full time Christian staff whose main job is to make disciples of Jesus, if what I’m doing is not actually making disciples of Jesus?

This book gave me a lot of insight into the nature of salvation, God’s sovereign work, and my role in influencing children in God’s plan.

I got a download of this for free from Crossway, but I wouldn’t mind spending money on it.

 

At my church where I work, we have an indoor basketball gym. As part of my new year resolution to exercise, I was thinking I’ll take breaks throughout the day to shoot some baskets, by myself with hopefully no one watching. I wore my tennis shoes today for that purpose. But there were people in there all day today.

I finished preparing for my message for children worship and did some visioning for the year. Thankful for my friend DW to chat with once in a while.

Oh, also got a slight pay increase 🙂 Thankful for a generous church to give us a little increase once a year.

I’m going to read my new book now, given to me by Pastor HL. I love starting a new book but if it doesn’t hold my interest, it’ll take forever for me to finish it.

A big part of my work is talking to people, mostly about good things, which is why I love my job. We talk about God and life which is what we are all about.

Today, I am thankful for heart conversations with Sharon W and PT.

However, I feel a little under the weather. Not sick but feel tired and susceptible to catching something. I’m not used to going out in temperatures in the 40’s, so I will have to miss prayer meeting, the first one of 2019 where we are dedicating ourselves to the Lord for the year. While I can pray and do that myself, it’s not the same as with the church body. Thankful for the church praying for me.

 

Our tradition is to watch the Rose Parade. I grew up in Pasadena where we went out to Colorado Blvd. every January 1st. I even stayed overnight on the street with my friends one year. If you’ve never done it, I recommend doing it once while you’re young.

So we watched it this morning on KTLA website. Unfortunately, the float depicting the railroad and Chinese American history broke down at the beginning, never got to see it.

Went to see Aquaman as a gift to my husband – it’s not my choice of movie, but I’m ok with superhero movies. I don’t like movies in general. However, I know I need an outlet to be entertained so I don’t take life nor myself too seriously, so I think I may go to the movies more, the family friendly ones only.

Made a quick dinner of chicken stew with carrots, potatoes, and onions. I must say it was pretty good.

Very grateful for time spent with my daughter and son in law at the movies, for an easy day, for good health, for my siblings, and my niece’s engagement today.

Now time to get ready for bed and restart daily reading of Proverbs, Proverbs 1 on the 1st of the  month.

Pastor A recommended this book, so I borrowed it from him, and it took me a long time to finish reading it. It’s not a book I can easily resonant with, so it took me longer to think through as I read. I took notes as I read, and even with that, I can’t tell you specifics of what I read! But I did find the book helpful as I lead volunteers in the church.

Here are a few random takeaways for me, though it may or may not reflect what the author intended. These are things I remember without looking at my notes:

*Organizations should have a moral purpose. *Leaders must keep the organization accountable on its moral purpose, as well as keeping workers/volunteers accountable to that moral purpose. *Leaders must give opportunities and challenges for workers/volunteers to grow. *Risk is necessary for growth.  *Leaders lead by their example, and that requires restraint. *One meaning of equity is to give everyone access to opportunity to grow. *Leaders build trust by taking everyone seriously. *Trust is build by doing what you say you would do. That includes keeping the organization accountable to the vision and moral purpose. *Having an environment where people can grow includes being authentic. *Leaders should define a role but also allow room for creative expression of how their job should be done. *Volunteers want to be challenged because they believe in the moral purpose and want to contribute to that purpose. They would not volunteer otherwise.

I wanted to do a podcast with our family pastor at church, for church people. But we haven’t had time.

So I decided to experiment with my own podcast. Thanks to Aaron for his help whenever I need it.

This was recorded a few weeks ago, and I finally sat down to learn how to host it on Soundcloud. I’ve submitted for iTunes approval, so maybe you can subscribe when that happens.

I’ve held off posting this on my facebook because I’m not sure if I want all my friends to see it. But I probably will after I do a couple of episodes.

 

 

Thom Rainer mentioned this book in one of his podcasts. He didn’t talk about it, he just mentioned that it was a good book. Since it was available at the library, I read it. If it wasn’t free to read, I don’t think I would’ve bought it. Not that it’s not a good book but it’s not a topic that I would’ve wanted to invest money in. I did want to read it though, because much of what we do in life, in fact almost everything, is teamwork.

Read more of “The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni”