Vetrean Pastor, Life time Learner, Problem Solver, Servant-Leader and Motivational Speaker.

November and December 2011 Books I am reading....

 

Most of the Books I want to read in 2011 from the 40 Great Leadership Books to Read « Brad Lomenick

40 Great Leadership Books to Read

August 31st, 2011 in Uncategorized. 10 Comments

I love leadership. And I read a lot. So I wanted to provide you with a list of some of the books I recommend.

These are not the only leadership books you should read. There are hundreds of others that are great. But these are just simply 40 of my favorites.

So here you go. And please share this list with your friends, team, and other leaders who might benefit.

40 leadership books to read:

1. Good to Great- Jim Collins

2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership- John Maxwell

3. Courageous Leadership- Bill Hybels

4. The Next Generation Leader- Andy Stanley

5. Now, Discover Your Strengths- Marcus Buckingham

6. Love is the Killer App- Tim Sanders

7. The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell

8. Tribes- Seth Godin

9. It: How Churches and Leaders can Get it and Keep it- Craig Groeschel

10. Integr

via bradlomenick.com

Leading Blog: Maxwell's 5 Levels of Leadership

As shown below, the first level is POSITION. At this level, people follow you because they have to. Your influence comes from your position. While that’s not bad—you probably got the position because of your leadership potential—you don’t want to stay here. Leadership is about relationships and leaders will make it their business to develop them.

The second level is PERMISSION. People follow you because they want to. Permission is about building relationships. It focuses on the value of each person and opens up communication. Connecting with others begins with connecting with and growing yourself. Understanding that the first person I must get along with is me, the first person to cause me problems is me, the first person that must change is me, and the first person that can make a difference is me.

Level three – PRODUCTION – recognizes that relationships alone are not enough. A leader is tasked with getting things done. Production level leaders are followed because of what they have done for the organization. They get things done. Their credibility is based on their example. The ability to get results alone doesn’t make you a leader. Leaders are measured by what the entire group accomplishes and not by the individual efforts of the person in charge. Leaders develop their people into a team to get results. To get to the next level you must develop your people.

The fourth level is PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT. Leaders become great because they empower others. They develop more leaders. “Production may win games, but People Development wins championships.” People development assures that growth can be sustained. Self-centered, insecure leaders neglect this stage in their development.

Maxwell estimates that less than 1 percent of all leaders ever reach Level 5 – THE PINNACLE. Leaders at this level understand that the highest goal of leadership is to develop more leaders, not to gain followers or do work. Level 5 leaders develop Level 4 leaders. Developing leaders that can in turn develop leaders is hard work and takes a great deal of skill, focus, and a lifetime commitment. But those leaders that do create Level 5 organizations. They create opportunities that other leaders don’t. Level 5 leaders leverage their own leadership through others. People follow these leaders because of what they are and what they represent. “When you lead an organization, you can’t be focused on just fulfilling the vision or getting work done.”

via www.leadershipnow.com

Character is not about intelligence-Tim Irvin in an excellent book "Derailed".

We always become who are. It may take time or stress or illness, but what's inside us tends to come out. Our character serves as the wellspring from which our behavior emerges... Os Guinness confirms: Character is the essential "stuff" a person is made of, the inner reality and quality in which thoughts, speech, decision behaviour, and relations are rooted. As such character determines behavior just as behaviour demostrates character""-Tim Irvin in an magnificent excellent book: "Derailed".

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When you stop learning you should stop leading......Here are 40 great leadership book apart from the Bible thanks to Brad Lomenick for this list

40 Great Leadership Books to Read

August 31st, 2011 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

I love leadership. And I read a lot. So I wanted to provide you with a list of some of the books I recommend.

These are not the only leadership books you should read. There are hundreds of others that are great. But these are just simply 40 of my favorites.

So here you go. And please share this list with your friends, team, and other leaders who might benefit.

40 leadership books to read:

1. Good to Great- Jim Collins

2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership- John Maxwell

3. Courageous Leadership- Bill Hybels

4. The Next Generation Leader- Andy Stanley

5. Now, Discover Your Strengths- Marcus Buckingham

6. Love is the Killer App- Tim Sanders

7. The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell

8. Tribes- Seth Godin

9. It: How Churches and Leaders can Get it and Keep it- Craig Groeschel

10. Integrity- Henry Cloud

11.

via bradlomenick.com

If your wife or Husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, hit you last night physically.........Get some help.........

This month I am reading a book called “ Dangerous Marriage”. At the end of Chapter one the writer gives 8 excuses that people give to justify their abuse:

1. “I actually asked for it this time. I shouldn’t have made him mad.

2. He couldn’t help the way he acted because he has been drinking ( or snoting coke or using another drug)

3. He is nice to everyone else. I guess I just do things that upset him.

4. He good to me and the kids mich of the time, so I guses I can handle the times he gets mean.

5. He is really trying to change. He hasn’t lost his temper for a month now.

6. He tells me he’s the only man who would ever put up with me.  He probably right.

7. What would I do if I left him? I could never take care of the kids by myself, and I can’t leave them with him.

8. My husband isn’t as bad as my dad was. I have it a lot easier than Mom did.

DERAILED: An amazing read on the dark side of Leadership......

Wow!!!! This is the kind of book that I would require all my pastors and lay leaders read when I become a Senior Pastor. This book has caused me to revisit my presuppositons about the darkside of leadership and the facade in my own life. I am deeply appereciative to the King of Heaven that in His soverignty, He brought this book across my path. After reading this book, I immediately ordered four copies for  four leaders in life.  If you are a leader who is linchpin in your orangization and deisre a book that will rock your personal space and cause you to access your character. Email me @ jaylabi@gmail.com with your address in the next 24 hours and I will ship in copy in 5 weeks. On the grounds that you will write me a one page paper about this  book by Dr. Tim Irvin. Here are some quotes from :

1. Leaders make mistakes.
2. It cannot be overstated how stress impacts behavior...Stress is one this pressure that squeeze out what really inside us.
3. When arrogance blossoms into hubris, a sense of entitlement results. “This place can’t function without me, and I deserve special perks.”  I’ve seen it in secretaries of mom and pop companies. It’s not a function of the size of the organization or the level of the person in that organization.
4. Some leaders blinded by their own success even begin to treat the company like their personal ATM.
5. We all posses a dark curiosity about the misfortunes of others. Would we rather watch a new program about ten trains arriving at the station on time or a story about a train that derailed, with vivid images of brave rescue workers removing bleeding survivors from the twisted wreckage?
6.  To see clearly we must sometimes look into the darkness. To see what is really there, we must be willing to enter space which appears devoid of the normal light on which we so heavily rely..............Paradoxically looking  into darkness can be remarkably enlightening.
7. A given strength can quickly become a weakness.....Similarly a strength over used can become a weakness.
8. Courage is not being unafraid. It’s about choosing to do the right things under difficult circumstances.
9. We need to be ruthlessly intolerant of this toxic character compromiser when we see it in ourselves.
10.  If humility is having an accurate self image and being other-oriented, then arrogance is it’s mirror opposite. Each executive profiled manifested this debilitating quality.

This book has forced me to access my productivity level as Christian leader and to consider character development. I commend this book to every gifted leader and talented leader.

Grace and Peace

Pastor James Owolabi

 

Flabbergasted with God's generosity towards me and Thoughts from "Biblical Preaching by Haddon Robinson

              
    God has been melting my stony heart with explosions of His love by providing for my needs as recently as this morning during my visit to the gym. I am and will be  continually flabbergasted that His majesty the king of all creation will continually unload gifts into my backpack of life during this hike called “full-time” ministry. While I marvel at my king’s consistent and never ending acts of generosity towards me....I am simply speechless. THANK YOU ABBA FATHER!!!!!!!!!!

 

A community of faith in Portland Oregon has asked me to come and declare the impact of the Resurrection in my life. The resurrection of Jesus Christ sends rumbling across my mind, rumblings that catapult me into a lifestyle that seeks to live a new life daily. Colossians 3 will be my text this lord's day.......Prayers are needed for husbands and wives who hear the truth to allow their hearts and minds to be driven to repentance towards God. To speak with words of affection towards one another in their homes that they children might declare that God is not a joke!!!!!!!. 

This week I got hungry for a good preaching book and took my mind to seek out a book on preaching.  I preach at least twice a week. So I picked up a book from my library by Haddon Robinson titled “Biblical preaching.  Here are some thoughts from this book:

1.  Thinking is difficult, but it stands the essential work of the preacher. Let there be no mistake about the nature of the task. It is often slow, discouraging, overwhelming but when God calls men to preach, He calls them to love Him with their minds. God deserves that kind of love and so do the people to whom we minister.

2.  For some preachers, therefore fads in communication become more stimulating than the message. Multimedia presentations, filmstrips, sharing sessions, blinking lights, and up-to-date music may symptoms of health or disease. Undoubtedly, modern techniques can substitute for the message-the startling and unusual may mask a vacuum.

3.  Paul realized that some ministries simply couldn’t take place apart from face to face contact.

4.  A preacher can proclaim anything in a stained-glass voice, at 11:30 on Sunday morning, following the singing of hymns. Yet when a preacher fails to preach the Scriptures, he abandons his authority. He confronts his hears no longer with a word from God but only with another word from men. Therefore most modern preaching evokes little more than a wide yawn. God is not in it.

5.  Ultimately the authority behind the preaching resides not in the preacher but in the biblical text.   For that reason the expositor deals largely with an explanation of Scripture, so that he focuses the listener’s attention on the Bible.

6.  An expositor may be respected for his exegetical abilities and his diligent preparation, but these qualities do not transform him into a Protestant Pope who speaks ex cathedra. As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It takes two to speak the truth-one to speak and another to hear.”

The sharp wit with which Haddon Robinson writes propels this truth into a dynamic duo: Grace and Truth. I will love to attend the shepherd’s conference this year to ignite in me a passion to speak the word of God with depth and passion. Thank you being a blessing to this African preacher.

Grace and Peace

Pastor James Owolabi

P.S. Grace......good job taking the pictures.......

 

Thoughts from "The Principle of the Path" by Andy Stanley and Personal Ministry Update....

For this month of January 2011, I am reading a book recommended to me by my friend and mentor Adam Workman titled: “The Principle of the Path” by Andy Stanley. Adam is a father of three and husband to a smoking hot blonde bombshell woman of God (Melody). He is the small group pastor at His church In Pennsylvania. We go way back from college in Tennessee. Here are five thoughts from the book:

1. It breaks my heart how many people I speak with who don’t connect the dots between the choices they make and the outcomes they experience. They have come to believe that the popular notion that as long as their intentions are good, as long as their hears are in the right place (whatever that means. It doesn’t really matter what path they take. They believe somehow they will end up in a good place. But life does not work that way.
2. Experience is often a brutal teacher. Experience eats up your most valuable commodity: Time. Learning from experience can eat up your years. It can steal an entire stage of life. Experience can leave scars, inescapable memories, and regret. Sure we all live and learn. But living and learning don’t erase regret. And regret is more than memory.
3. There is no fix to being lost...To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction. There isn’t a quick fix.
4. Direction not intention determines destination. Direction is everything. Direction determines destination. This is why we cannot afford to live disconnected lives.
5. Choosing the wrong path in Life will cost you precious years.

I hope these insights from this book are helpful to you. by the way, I had the best week ever. God has been really kind to express his goodness to me in my moments of weakest faith:

• I am now a paid youth pastor @ North Mason Bible Church Belfair.
• A week ago today I spoke to over 600 high school students in honor of Dr. King’s Birthday. I love Dr. King.
• God spoke to the hearts of my “friends” at immigration and they were merciful to me

  I intend to share more updates with you next week. Thank you for being a blessing and praying for me. I love you all.

Grace and Peace

Pastor James Owolabi

 

Reflections on being " Stunned by God's Grace" and ("forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision") and other insights from Gary Chapman

 I am literally stunned by God’s goodness to me. His mercy and grace keeps slamming into me like a ton of bricks. I find myself aching with speechlessness because I am overwhelmed by his extravagant love for me by his provision for me financially. The fact that I am still in this country still amazes me. Less than a week ago a gentleman in my church approached me and asked if I was struggling financially. I reluctantly answered "Yes" and  was  politely yet honest that I received a bill in the mail that was causing me some concern. The next day he dropped almost a dozen hundred dollars bills in form of a check to assist me with my current difficulties. God has taken care of me without me having to beg. I am amazed that you love me. Thank you Jesus Christ.

          I am still reading the book titled “Things I wish I ‘d Known Before We got Married” by Gary Chapman. Here are five nuggets from this book:

• After spending a lifetime counseling other couples, I am convinced that there are no healthy marriages without apology and forgiveness. I draw this conclusion from the reality that all of us are human and humans sometimes do and say things that are demeaning to other people. These unloving words and actions create emotional barriers between the people involved. Those barriers do not go away without the passing of time. They are removed only when we apologize and the offended party chooses to forgive.
• Looking back on my marriage I wish I had know not only the importance of apology, but how to apologize effectively. It would have saved me many days of silent suffering, hoping in vain that Karolyn would forget my harsh words.
• We are instructed to forgive each other in the same way God forgives us. Thus, forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision. It is the decision to offer grace instead of demanding justice. Forgiveness removes the barrier and opens the possibility for the relationship to grow.
• Forgiveness does not destroy our memory.
• Forgiveness does not remove all the consequences of wrongdoing.
• Forgiveness does not rebuild trust.
• Forgiveness does not always result in reconciliation.
• Forgiveness is the only healthy response to an apology.

G.K.C. said, “Christians don’t need to instructed as much as they need to be reminded. This book has reminded me of many flaws in my basic understanding of how marriage works. I hope I finish this book this week.

Grace and Peace

Pastor James Owolabi