Ministry Book Review

Collapse of Distinction by Scott McKain is a helpful business strategy book with practical applications to ministry. McKain cites the recent trend in the business world to duplicate products between competitors, with only minor tweaks or price being the only difference between products. This “collapse of distinction” between products makes the consumer focus on only one difference: price.

McKain challenges the reader to revive the art of distinction between competing products. Distinction is the only way to get noticed these days, and true distinction helps promote innovation. Creating distinction is done by focusing on the four main qualities of distinction: Clarity, Creativity, Communication, and Customer-Experience Focus. Throughout the book, McKain challenges his audience to embrace these four qualities in order to create a truly innovative and distinct product. Continue Reading…

Killing Cockroaches, by Tony Morgan, is the definitive advice book on killing cockroaches in your ministry. And by “killing cockroaches,” I mean solving unimportant but urgent issues that distract you from the important stuff in ministry: making God-sized plans, studying the Word, and communicating with God. Throughout the book, Tony seeks to push the reader from focusing on the “cockroaches” in our ministry (i.e. the menial/unimportant things) to focusing on the big, God-sized parts of our ministry.

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Crazy Love by Francis Chan is one of those books where you cannot fully grasp all that is said upon first read. There is simply too much there. This is very surprising, considering the book is a small paperback consisting of 175 pages. Yet in these 10 chapters, Francis Chan deeply challenges the read to stop, think, and praise God for the amazing opportunity we have as Christians to accept and reciprocate His love.

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I managed to finish one last book before 2008 came to a close: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. I have read (and thoroughly enjoyed) Gladwell’s earlier book The Tipping Point (my review). So as I opened Blink, I had high expectations. To my delight, Gladwell not only met but exceeded my expectations, blowing me away with his meticulous research, delightful storyweaving, and brilliant takeaways.

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I recently read The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Written by Malcolm Gladwell, this book looks at how a minute action, called a “tipping point,” can have a very significant impact. In his words, the “tipping point” is “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point” (p. 12). Essentially, the “tipping point” is when a small, localized event or product turns epidemic, spreading exponentially throughout the masses. Some of these epidemics are bad (like the mid-1990s syphilis outbreak in Baltimore), while others are good (like the dramatic lowering of the crime rate in NYC in the 90s). In the book, Gladwell identifies small but key components of an epidemic: leaders, message, and context. Essentially, he argues that a tipping point needs dedicated leaders, a dedicated message, and the proper setting. Continue Reading…