Academic
This list will grow through the year, but here’s what I have for the spring semester of the MAGL:

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
Shaping of Things to Come, The: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost
The Meeting of the Waters: 7 Global Currents That Will Propel the Future Church by Fritz Kling
The Invisible: What the Church Can Do to Find and Serve the Least of These by Arloa Sutter
Public Faith, A: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good by Miroslav VLF

Theology & Spirituality

Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World by Richard Foster by Richard Foster
The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight
Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans
The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder
Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Life, Relationships and Vocation
Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself by Daniel H. Pink
Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question by Po Bronson

Fun
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Tony Moore
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

My major Isolation experience began when my position on a staff at a megachurch in San Antonio ended.  I was out of work for over six months.  I was unable to find a suitable ministry position, and eventually ended up in retail.  I went from having a place of positional leadership and what seemed like a career track to being alone, with no sense of direction and very little hope.

In studying Isolation as part of the MAGL, I read something from Dr. Clinton that basically went like this:

“Don’t try to be finished with your Isolation until you’ve gotten everything out of it that God wants you to get out of it.”

This floored me, because for two years, I’ve been trying to be getting out Isolation.  Unable to find direction, I tried to dive further into spiritual practices.  When I felt adrift in depression, I sought to distract myself, and eventually got into counseling to “fix it.”  I’ve had to learn what it is to do ministry when it’s not my job.  Worst of all, my sense of failure and lack of direction left me unable to even answer the question “what do you want to do?”

But this comment about “getting everything out of Isolation” forced me to reevaluate why I was in such a hurry.  If the perfect opportunity fell in my lap tomorrow, would I know what to do with it?  Am I mature enough to keep from repeating the mistakes I’ve made in the past?  Am I even the kind of person who should be trusted with leadership?

For the first time in almost three years, I am beginning to sense some “movement.”  It may be that some new opportunities are on the horizon.  But what’s the rush?  Maybe I still have something to learn from Isolation.

Another one I visited the preacher began with a joke about how good he was at sex.

Another time I met a girl who off the bat shared about some very unique spiritual gifts.

Happy hour is good.  So is sex.  Spiritual gifts are often genuine manifestations of God’s work in us.  So why are the things dangerous?

In each situation, the speaker didn’t give much thought as to how they would be perceived.  Whether it’s a date or a sermon or a sales call, you have just a few seconds to express who you are and why you are there. What you lead with can make or break the interaction.

A customer walked up to me and introduced herself  by saying “I promise I’m not an overindulgent mother, but…”  I was caught off guard and chuckled a little bit.  The mother went on to explain how her 10 year old daughter had been saving up for months for an expensive electronic device.  She managed to do three things at once:

1) Redirect attention away from the transaction, making the interaction more personal.

2) Compliment her daughter.

3) Establish a positive, humorous rapport for the rest of the conversation.

What you lead with can make or break the interaction. I never went back to either church, but I had a lot of fun meeting the family at the store.  For those of us who can often be outspoken or even contrarian, this is a hard lesson.  In an established relationship, we can get away with that.  But with crowds and strangers, we need to consider what we lead with.

Dumbledore’s death is reminiscent of Obi-Wan’s final salute and parting words to Darth Vader, “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”

Neither Dumbledore and Obi-Wan make it through the end of the series, but both leave a legacy, and inspire others to carry on their own work.  It’s not to different from my favorite non-fictional superhero, Jesus.  In giving up his life, he brought the exile of Israel and mankind from God to an end, and opened up the door for the Holy Spirit and the Church to carry out his mission.

This is a tough lesson to learn.  I want to fight for what I believe is true, no matter what the cost.  If you betray the principles you are fighting for, it doesn’t matter if you are right, and a well aimed defeat can be as strategic as a hard won victory.

It started with the Egyptian he murdered and buried in the desert.  Then there was the whole ten plagues thing.  But Moses really hits his leadership stride while wandering the desert in the book of Numbers.  First Moses is called about by his own brother and sister.  God sends leprosy on Miriam to show that Moses is his man.  Then there’s the rebellion that ends with the ground swallowing up thousands of dissidents.  It seems like almost every other paragraph there is a plague against those who disagree with Moses.

Moses leadership is marked by the failure and death of all those who disagree with him.  But Moses himself, with the exception of the mistake he made in his youth, has no desire to see these people suffer and die.  It is simply a consequence of going up against God’s chosen leader.

Leadership is a sacred responsibility, and we should not take lightly those who God places there.  It could end bad.