What are you Reading? Part 6

In anticipation of summertime reading, we recently asked our faculty to tell us what they have been reading and the answers may surprise you! Throughout March and April we will be sharing their book recommendations on the seminary's blog.

This week's entry comes from Mark Fowler, Associate Professor of Church Leadership, and Mark Teasdale, E. Stanley Jones Assistant Professor of Evangelism.

Dr. Mark Fowler
Associate Professor of Church Leadership

David Goldsmith’s Paid to Think: A Leader’s toolkit for redefining your future.  BenBellaBooks, 2012.

The complaint of many students and clergy is that they are over-worked and overly tired all the time.  So many tasks are laid upon them to complete and they lose a sense of their ministry and calling. The title of Goldsmith’s book intrigued me as it seems to adequately distinguish the role of a leader from the endless tasks of managing the day-to-day operations of the church. It has often been my contention that without adequate leadership we will collapse under the multiplying weight of managerial systems that are offered to fix what only good leadership can hope to provide. Paid to Think is a great guide to the areas in which leaders should involve themselves.

Goldsmith’s approach is entitled Enterprise Thinking and brings together his work across a wide variety of institutions and businesses. The language of the book is not ecclesiastical, but the notion of enterprise is not foreign to the missional thinking of the church. The approach is to meet the current challenges of emerging from the former “silo” thinking and work patterns of former institutions to a missional/enterprise driven capacity. It is a great book of formation for those who are marinated in the scripture, theology, ecclesiology and practical polity of the church and can make the applications. The book is broken into four categories: Strategizing, Learning, Performing and Forecasting. Some of the sub-headings that I found helpful are “Managing Your Priorities,” “Leveraging Technology,” “Enhancing Global Awareness,” “Innovating Everywhere” and “Forecasting the Future.”

Leslie Griffiths’ A View from the Edge.  Abingdon Press, 2010.

This autobiography of Leslie Griffiths is a compelling narrative of a life of faith and hope that is an inspiration to us all. Lord Griffiths is currently the Superintending Minister at Wesley’s Chapel in London and was made a life peer in the House of Lords. Leslie is a tireless good will ambassador for the church and a dedicated missionary for Jesus Christ. Many of us know him from his endless travels to lecture, teach and spread the good news of the gospel in a rooted Wesleyan spirit. And, he is a gracious host to the Mother Church of Methodism.

However, this autobiography reveals a noble and courageous witness to the personal struggles and difficulties that append themselves to a rise out of desperate poverty, the dedication to a tireless commitment to education and the life of the mind, a sacrificial dedication to the missional life in Haiti and throughout the world and a steadfast witness for the Methodist Connexion while pushing its limits and boundaries in many places.  Lord Griffiths is an exemplary figure in the life of world Methodism and this volume is a priceless memoir.

Dr. Mark Teasdale
E. Stanley Jones Assistant Professor of Evangelism

I am currently reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

One of my great joys in studying evangelism through a historical lens is the ability to read literature of the historical era I have under consideration. Since my own era of primary interest is the nineteenth century, Dickens happily falls within my bailiwick. Dickens offers keen insights into the values and patterns of life that pervaded Victorian England, including a quiet and abiding faith in God, a profound respect for the power of women to improve those within their sphere, and the central importance of having an unimpeachable character. Dickens is also a shrewd social critic. Following young Copperfield from a happy home, to the streets, to working man, to successful man, Dickens addresses the troubling irony of the grinding poverty experienced by some concurrent with the creation of vast political and economic machines to enrich the elite and educated.