What Else In On My MindGrapes #14
Here's What I Think I Thought About This Week
MISSIO ALLIANCE CONFERENCE
I spent last week in Chicago at Awakenings Gathering hosted by Missio Alliance. I have been on the Missio board for nearly six years and the content and output of the organization has only gotten better. Wonderfully led by JR Rozko for a decade and now led by Lisa Rodriguez Watson, Missio continues to ask hard questions and resource Christians leaders working in diverse, and often challenging, contexts. I learn more about ministry at a Missio gathering than I do in the full time between Missio gathering.
Again, many thank to Lisa Rodriguez Watson and the Missio team for their hard work putting together our first national gathering since COVID-19.
BOOK WRITING
May 6 marks the 1-Year anniversary of my book Speaking By the Numbers: Enneagram Wisdom for Teachers, Pastors, and Communicators. Friends and readers often as “How is the book doing?” The truth is, I don’t know. I don’t follow sales closely and have a practice of trashing my sales statements before I open them. For me, there is nothing good that can come from knowing my sales numbers. If the book is selling well, I fear growing puffed up. If the book is not selling well, I fear feeling deflated.
A more important question for me is “What is the book doing?” I love hearing the insights communicators gain from their own reflections on the book. I am honored by how women and men are using knowledge of Enneagram Hornevian Groups to further their aims and deepen their community.
If you know a communicator that might be helped by Speaking By The Number, don’t hesitate to grab them a copy.
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After leaving Chicago, I spent the weekend in South Bend, Indiana with my friend, Jason Adam Miller. Jason is, in my opinion, one of America’s best and most thoughtful pastors. He has read EVERYTHING and he thinks deeply about what he’s read. I find conversations with him deep and rich.
Jason is releasing his first book this upcoming August (available for pre-order now): When the World Breaks: The Surprising Hope and Subversive Promises in the Teachings of Jesus. I was honored to endorse this powerful and careful reflection on Jesus’ Beatitudes and I think you will be blessed by it.
Movies
This week I watched a few movies. You can follow my movie viewing over on Letterboxd. This week (remember I was flying) I screened the following:
Sisu
Jerry and Marge Go Large
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Crazy Rich Asians
Bert Kreischer: Razzle Dazzle
I Came By
Nocturnal Animals
Hypnotic
BOOK READING
If you’d like to connect over books, please follow me over at GOODREADS. This week I finished Brad Meltzer’s The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington and am currently enjoying Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot.