Scott Fillmer

I wanted to post an update of the books that have made it to my read (or reading) list.  I was planning on reviewing each one but just ran out of time. Over several months prior to my official start of Seminary (a topic I haven’t posted about yet, but will at some point) I tried to get back into the habit of reading, a lot.  In my first two seminary classes I had a combined 8 books for eight weeks of class, so getting into the habit of reading, all the time, has been very helpful.

One of the books I am almost finished with is Craig Groeschel’s book called Confessions of a Pastor.  Published back in 2006, Confessions has a great combination of self deprecating humor of his own sin with real teaching and application of God’s principles for life in general.  What got me interested in reading Craig’s book wasn’t really the topic but meeting Craig and listening to him speak in Atlanta and most recently at Catalyst West Coast in Orange County California.

Here are some images of Craig speaking at Catalyst West Coast I took a week or two ago.

I haven’t made it to the end of Craig’s book yet but one of the last sections in the book, “I’m Afraid of Failure” had one of the best examples of how we condition ourselves for failure before we even begin (read the section called Failure by Numbers).

To avoid potential failure and pain, people abort their dreams.  They stop trying.

Confessions of a Pastor is a great church leadership type book, glad it made it on to my “read” list.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• Review of Killing Cockroaches and Other Scattered Musings
• Are You a Linchpin, Assignment
• Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel Photos at Catalyst
• Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin // Review
• Are You a Linchpin, Answer

I just finished up Killing Cockroaches on the Kindle and started wondering if I was going to be the first Kindle review of Killing Cockroaches?  Of course, you may be wondering why I am holding up a paper copy of Killing Cockroaches but you will just have to wait and read my review of the Kindle coming up for that explanation.

Killing Cockroaches is in a crowded field of church leadership books, written by Tony Morgan from NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC.  At the moment, there are so many books on leadership that I was thrilled to see Tony’s book written and presented in a slightly different format than the traditional chapter by chapter method.  If you love reading blogs like I do, then you will love this book… basically 131 (if I counted correctly) blog posts rolled into one leadership book, all tied together on an overall theme of how not to waste time doing the things you don’t need to be doing in the first place.

Basically we can waste much of our time each day just walking around killing cockroaches (or putting out fires), or we can choose to use the skills and talents we have been given to use in the most efficient way possible.  Tony did several one on one interviews with people in leadership roles in their respective areas which gave you a good sense of how and why other leaders spend their time killing cockroaches as well.

The Little Things about Killing Cockroaches

Some of the other little subtleties I liked about the book were the comic strip of cockroaches running around the book (if you flip through the book like you are trying to make a comic strip move, the cockroaches run around the edges of the book), and the “posts” or chapters were organized in alphabetical order.  I also appreciate the “notes” area in the back, that was very helpful, but I would have loved to have a list of just url’s of all the websites Tony listed throughout the book.  There were tons of them, and somehow I hadn’t been to a good majority of them before now.

Killing Cockroaches: Kindle vs Paper

There actually were a few differences in reading the paper copy of the book and the e-ink version on the Kindle.  Mainly, the thing I liked about the paper version is what I didn’t like about the kindle version.  The cockroaches along the side of the book on the Kindle are translated where they show up in the middle of the page along with Tony’s name and the book name.  This just became an annoyance because it would split a page where there were only a few sentences on one page and then a graphic of the book name, and a cockroach.  This is probably more a Kindle issue than anything else.

Top 10 Highlights from Killing Cockroaches

There were so many little zingers in this book it could be a line by line tweetathon if someone was reading it out loud, but some of the points I took away were:

• Churches that embrace change value some things over others
• change will flow naturally when we empower people to create rather than telling them what to do
• If you’re trying to reach the unreached, remember – your competition isn’t other churches.  Instead it’s everything that’s competing for someone’s time and attention
• Being a bit different is an important ingredient to success
• Your leadership will only go as far as the relationships you’ve built… and no further
• some would note that we are not here for or to entertain but it has to be relevant to their lives and enjoyable
• make sure the guests know, we’re glad you decided to join us, we were expecting you, you matter to us and, more importantly, you matter to God
• competition isn’t the church down the street, it’s any other experience your guests have had
• the sacred cows (like church bulletins): We do it because we’ve always done it… are we worshiping our sacred cows or Jesus?  Does it still add value?
• before you can move others, you must first be moved

If you are intersted in other reviews from other bloggers, Tony has compiled a good list here, Killing Cockroaches Reviews.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel // Catalyst Photos
• Are You a Linchpin, Assignment
• Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin // Review
• Are You a Linchpin, Answer
• Linchpin and the Art of Photography

I am still working through the last part of my edit for Catalyst One Day.  Two of the key speakers at the One Day event were Andy Stanley (North Point Community Church) and Craig Groeschel (LifeChurch.tv) who talked about creating and sustaining momentum.  They had several individual sessions and then one larger session with both Andy and Craig with a great Q&A session which brought out hard questions from attendees.  I only wish I could have mentally recorded everything they said.

What I did record of course were the images of the day.  Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel are always animated, making for great photographic subjects.  Hope you enjoy a few from the day below.  The first photo is back stage with some of the Catalyst staff prepping for the day (that is Brad Lomenick in the middle sporting my very own hair cut).

I still have a few more, one from a session with Lanny Donoho which had everyone on the floor laughing, and then he drops a hand full of Mentos in a 2-liter of Dr Pepper, so stay tuned.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• Maximum Impact from Kevin Carroll to Liz Murry
• Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel // Catalyst Photos
• The Longest Day as Catalyst West Coast Begins
• Catalyst West Coast with Hillsong United, Coming Up
• Catalyst Conference Speakers for Thursday 08 Photos

Today Pastor Fred Winters of First Baptist Church of Maryville was shot to death by a single gunman during their worship service.  Once the gunman started shooting he was “arrested” by the congregation who surrounded him and detained him until the police arrived.  As soon as horrific and evil events like this happen it tends to bring out all the Atheists and Agnostics that scream and yell about how God lets bad things happen, in some sort of “I told you so” way.

One blogger I consider to be much more intelligent on the issues than some normal Atheistic or Agnostic rant who doesn’t really understand the issues of the Christian faith is Unreasonable Faith.  He wrote this post about the shooting, Illinois Pastor Shot to Death at Church, which brought up some very good questions.  Questions I couldn’t possibly address in one blog post, but I love reading Daniel’s blog, it keeps me on my toes and sharpens me more than many Christians I know, even if his ultimate conclusions are wrong.

Why Does God Allow This to Happen?

They pose the typical questions like who would want a God that allows things like this to happen and they try to point out that God doesn’t exist or wasn’t involved because He let this happen (and one can quote scripture totally out of context to prove any point).  Asking these questions is not wrong, or even bad.  As I told a pastor Fred Winters today he reminded me that John Wesley once said, when you go to work, be prepared to preach, pray, and die [for the Truth].

God does listen, He does care, and He does answer all prayer, but the answer could be yes, no, or not right now.  Trying to say we know and understand the mind of God is dangerous, and saying that because evil exists in the world means God doesn’t is just not a good argument.  The Christian antagonist would have you believe that where evil exists, God does not, and therefore God was not with the people in Maryville.  Quite the opposite.

I can not offer intelligent reasons (because I do not have the mind of God) why things like this happen any more than I can really understand why there are those who are so antagonistic to the Christian faith that they themselves bring people away from faith in Christ.  It is one thing to not believe.  I have many friends and family members who do not believe.  They do not take the position of Paul before his conversion on the road to Damascus to purposely bring people away from their own faith in God, but according to scripture, Saul (Paul) did just that.

In the end, you either hold the scriptures to be the inspired Word of God with Jesus as the risen Messiah, or you don’t.  If you do, it doesn’t mean that we as Christians are supposed to sit around in a circle and hold hands and “pray” while we watch someone mow people down in a thunder of bullets and do nothing at all.  It doesn’t mean that we have to understand the ways of God either.

Luke 17:20 says:

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

So does that mean that if I can’t move the Rocky Mountains I have no faith.  Not at all, but some will try to tell you that is certainly the case.  Arguments like these have gone on for thousands of years and I can’t even start to say I am smart enough to understand the why’s about it all.  I can see that I am very much like the flip side of Daniel when I say “Now I’m figuring out what it means to be a Believer and a person of faith.”.

Daniel credits himself as being a skeptic much like Pyrrho who is credited as being the first Skeptic philosopher, and the inspiration for the school known as Pyrrhonism in the 1st century BC.  As there will always be skeptics, there will always be people of faith in Christ.  One thing we can both agree on is that it was a terrible tragedy for Winters to be gunned down in his place of worship in front of his family.  My heart goes out to their family and their church.  God is with you, He loves you, and yes, His will (though we may not understand), will be done.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• Taking God Out of the Box With U2
• Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel Photos at Catalyst
• Separating Our Lives Between Life and Faith in God
• Matthew Butler Killed at Zion Gate in Garland Texas
• Prop 8 Proves Homosexual Lifestyle Acceptable to God

A good friend of mine, Josh Agerton, left early this week for a spiritual getaway with some of his friends from up in Kentucky at Asbury (see Getting Away) and I though I would try and make him a little homesick.  These were from a shoot several weeks ago that I finally got around to editing (sorry it took so long Leslie).  If that photo below wouldn’t make a father homesick I don’t know what would.  To see the other images see The Agerton Gallery here.

Other Posts Related to this Topic

• Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel // Catalyst Photos
• Review of Killing Cockroaches and Other Scattered Musings
• Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel Photos at Catalyst
• Pastor Fred Winters Shot to Death, So Where’s God?
• Sunday Walkthrough at Cornerstone // Video