Love & Respect - Book Review

I recently finished reading the Book Love & Respect. I found it to be incredibly insightful and foundational to the life of a marriage. More than anything women want to feel loved. While we can feel love in different ways, all women want the same thing. A personal touch, an intimate conversation, a sense of security and protection, are always that we feel love from our husbands. As much as we want to feel loved, our husbands want to feel respected. When we respect them, they believe that they con conquer the world. The warrior in them awakens. We give them confidence to face the battle, gain the spoil, and provide for their loved ones.

What makes these two concepts of Love & Respect so critical is that one feeds off the other. The more the husband loves the wife, the more she wants to show him respect. The more she respects him, the more he wants to love her. The cycle goes around and around. When two selfish people exist in a relationship nothing good happens. Marriage does not begin to work until both parties understand the value of unconditional love. I highly recommend that you read the book!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Beyond the First Visit by Gary McIntosh

I recently finished a book that was focused on best strategies for assimilating new people into the church. Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church had some wonderful insights into how to work with guests in our current culture. The book really challenges you to see your church with "guest eyes." There are many things that we take for granted as members of a church. We know all of the inside jokes, best places to park, which building the Sunday School classes are in, and what pews to not sit in as to not make some older members mad.

This Sunday go to your church as if it was the first Sunday you have ever been there. I promise you that you will notice something different. Maybe the sign that has some words missing. The way that the weeds have over taken the landscaping beside the church or the lack of signage for visitor parking.

Another interesting inside in the book was the follow strategy that was mentioned. Many people today, especially in big cities, are leary of people showing up unannounced at their home. He invites you to think about forming a welcoming party that calls ahead of time and lets the guest know that you are going to drop of a welcome basket and that you will not be staying. You just wanted to let them know that you appreciate their visit. This is very different from church days gone by where people would try to get in their homes in order to better get to know people.

Overall, I found the book to be an easy read with many new ideas that I had not considered before. You can easily take a book like this and start implementing the tips and strategies very easily. Sometimes the little things make the biggest differences.

Book Review: Plan B by Pete Wilson

I read an awesome book recently that has really helped me greatly. Pete Wilson, who I had not heard of before, wrote a book about handling the "Plan B" of life. In fact, it poses this question "What do you do when God doesn't show up the way you thought He would?"

One of the first principles that I learned was about the illusion of control. We try to control our lives when they do not go our way. The truth is that we really are not in control. Rest comes into our life when we discover that God is in control. I also learned the value of waiting on God. We need to learn to trust God's timing and depend on him when He is at work. Also, many times, God is working behind the scenes even though we cannot see what He is up to.

What I most appreciated from this author is that he doesn't paint a "everything is okay approach." He is real in the fact that many times we are left confused, but that is okay becuase we can fully trust in God.

Fusion: Turning First-time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church by Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is the founding pastor of a church in New York City called The Journey Church. The church was started in 2002 and today has more then 1,000 members. What I most enjoyed about his assimilation strategy was how methodical his approach was. Nelson has an engineering background and when it comes to assimilation he has applied his strengths. He really has broken everything down to a process.

He also teaches a very personalized approach to handling guests. He believes strongly in hand-written notes and giving guests the "wow" factor. He has a specific process that every guest goes through once they visit their church. Nelson also has several other books and seminars that are related to the different strategies that his church uses.

I would highly recommend that you take a look at the book and see if you can apply any of the strategies to your church.