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Earlier this summer I had a great lunch at John’s Place with Randy Hein, a new friend here in Victoria, at the end of the lunch this local pastor also took me to a local bookstore where he bought me a book! Nice guy.

Randy either has great taste in books, or he very quickly and accurately evaluated what I would find compelling reading. Here is my review of that book

Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan

Donovans account of his missionary work amongst the tribal Masai of Kenya is a beautiful description of attempting the enculturalization of the Jesus Story in the lives of others. Although it is foremost a first-person reflection of his work in the African context, his ability to separate his faith from his culture speaks loudly to many who would attempt to live the way of Christ in their own culture today. This book is important for any person who desires to find Christ in their own specific cultural context.

I am sure that this book would have been somewhat inflammatory when it was first written as it attempts to dramatically change accepted missionary practice. Donovan describes his belief that Christianity has too often been simplified into; bringing development, bringing God to a godless people, or bringing in a ‘newer better philosophy’. He suggests that the original founders of our faith determined to bring only one thing – Christ – into the culture and philosophy of actual communities. Once they did so (EG Paul) they left. The problem with this simple understanding is that depending on your prior perspective, the phrase ‘bringing Christ’ is to easily reduced into a long held debate – what is the point of the Gospel? Social work or evangelism? Donovan suggests that the question at debate is the fault, both sides are making a gross assumption. Christianity is NOT social work, but neither is it creating versions of its western self in other nations. A true Christianity (the way of grace and shalom as revealed by the man Jesus) will take root within the prayer customs, morality, celebrations, rites and rituals, of any culture it finds itself within… exactly like it did in the western world for us! God is at work in creation in all places at all times.

Although dated in terms of modern politically-correct terms (phrases such as Natives and Pagans abound), I found Donovan’s obvious deep respect for the people he is in contact with, more than make up for any issues one might hold with his choice of language.

The careful Protestant reader will make sure to find Donovan’s perspective on Roman Catholic deficiencies in process very similar in nature to our own … only the specifics of our own Ecclesiological cultural blinders differ.

This is a book in which I will return to again, the simple story, and bright reflection was truly engaging.

In case you are interested, I keep a list of my book reviews on my facebook page, here is the link …

Facebook | Visual Bookshelf

Mark Crocker

I have recetnly been reading Ethan Watters book, Urban Tribes.

It is a very easy read, but attempts to deconstruct the North American culture of the ‘never-married’, very interesting in it’s take on the importance of communities. It tends to ask the question, what if Gen. X is not a slacker generation at all, what if they have merely re-defined community outside of the previous norms.

Here Ethan attempts to look at his own particular culture from an outsiders perspective, although the term ‘tribe’ is often the new cool to define community, I think Ethan does attempt to look a little deeper than his own feelings on the subject.

This may be a good recommendation for those engaged with this group of people … enjoy!

I just finished putting together a bibliography of the resources I am going to use for the Intercultural Studies class I am teaching at Vanguard College this winter session. It is a rather long list, but you may be interested in looking at it.

They say that, “Leaders are Readers“. So hit the ‘read more’ link to find the titles of some books I recommend.

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I am reading some great books on leadership at the moment, I just finished Good to Great, and I am just starting The one thing you should know

One great big theme that jumps out of both books for me is the suggested concept that perhaps we should study greatness in order to discover how to be great. Now this is so self-evident that it almost sounds foolish, yet a good point can be made here.

I think that we often study failure in order to avoid failure (ie Saul’s leadership style), this can help us to a point; we avoid mistakes, we improve our competencies. Yet, to study failure in order to understand greatness can also bring us to wrong conclusions. Specifically, the thought that if we simply choose the opposite actions from failure, then we will undoubtedly find success. This at first sounds right, but if I think for a moment, I realise that success is not merely the opposite of failure, rather it is a proactive addition or striving to something else.

The illustration given in The one thing involves marriage. (how apropos to me as a newlywed – anyways.) There was a study done on great marriages, and consistently they found out that the reason for great marriages do not fit many common categorisations. A great marriage does not merely have the opposite of a poor marriage. The couple may not have incredible communication, or equality in roles; all common factors in vogue today as formula to how to have a great marriage. Instead for a great marriage there consistently and simply needed to be a simple self-delusion. Every trait of the other needed to be seen in a positive light (sort of like when you first start dating), there needed to be a optimistic sense that the other person was better than they were. If they ignored you when they were typing on a computer (for example), then they were not ‘rude and insensitive’ – rather they were ‘focused’. This delusion leads to an upward spiral, and the marriage is tighter.

I wonder if we can look for the ‘one thing’ for cross-cultural work that defines greatness.

How about this� The one thing that makes a team much greater than another is perhaps, a desire for the best for everyone that the team touches, both the people outside as well as inside the team. It is not which training manual you use, which team building game you choose, what focus you look towards while overseas, but simply that all on the team feel that the best for everyone involved is an achievable goal. The best – seems to me to be something that God desires for us.

I throw that out there for your consideration