New Book

Well, it didn't take long, did it? I'm halfway through Chasing Daylight and I get another book. This one is called Releasing the Power of Rubber Bands, Lessons in Non-linear leadership by Nancy Ortberg. Nancy was one of my favorite speakers at the Awaken 2008 conference last month.

The book hasn't been published yet, I have an unedited edition. So far I love it. It talks about how leadership is like rubber bands. When you're leading someone, you want to stretch them taught, challenging them. Too much stretching and they could break, or become un-useful. Too little stretching, keeping them limp, really doesn't allow them to be used for the purposes for which they were created. Basically, we need to challenge those under our care. Exercise them to make them strong and growing toward maturity. Basically, discipleship. I think her analogy is a good one, and the title will attract those in the secular world who wouldn't pick up a "Christian" book on discipleship, but are looking for leadership principles. It's the same in either realm. Good leaders know how to develop those under them and around them. It's like parenting, only you have the time to have a strategy before it's needed, where in parenting you're making decisions on how to handle behaviors by the seat of your pants.

If you're interested in Discipleship, there are a couple of links on this page toward the bottom of my two favorite discipleship books, The Disciplemaker's Handbook and Disciples Are Made, Not Born. The links take you to Amazon.com so you can read more about the books.

I had an opportunity to inject a little discipleship into my daughter yesterday. We went to her school to sign her up for driver's ed. On our way out we ran into her English teacher who said she was an excellent writer and that she hadn't turned in her essay to take AP English next year. (She's getting it done this weekend) On the way out, she told me she didn't do it because she was afraid the essay would be too hard. It was on a punctuation mark. After she heard of other students who had written the essay, and after prodding from her teacher, she decided to o it. On the way to the car, the words, "Never let fear rob you of an opportunity" just popped out of my mouth. I know this was a little too wise for me to come up with and wording I wouldn't normally use, so I take no credit for it. But I repeated it to her to make sure she got it and she did. That just might be a phrase that gets repeated around here. I think of the things that fear could have robbed me of in my life, like going to college to get a degree, getting married, having kids, changing jobs, etc. Don't let fear rob you of an opportunity either. Blessings the beautiful day.