Category Archives: Books

A Variety of Values

One of the most profitable parts of The Advantage for me was Lencioni’s distinction of values in the chapter on creating clarity.  He write a good bit about the mission statement fad of a few years ago and how easy … Continue reading →

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A Team by Any Other Name . . .

I mentioned in a post last week about how “lone ranger” teaching can seem.  It’s always interesting (and jarring), then, when you have to work well with others in some broader context.  That’s when words like “team” get thrown around. … Continue reading →

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The Connection Between Healthy and Smart

Somewhere over the course of the last ten years, I found myself interested in systems and the way things work (or don’t work).  I think part of this is rooted in my last two years in college, when an organization … Continue reading →

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Categories of Conversations

I’m about a week into Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.  As is often the case when reading about a given topic, you start to notice it everywhere once it’s on your radar.  So … Continue reading →

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The Joy of Teaching

What started out as a quote about the particular love of teaching turned into a call for something more from pastors.  From VanHoozer and Strachan’s The Pastor as Public Theologian: Stanley Woodworth, my high school French teacher, once described the … Continue reading →

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A Close Reading of David Foster Wallace

Reading non-fiction in a big deal in high school these days.  It’s a large part of what the testing is all about.  And as a child of the 80s and 90s, I’ve always understood that reading was fundamental.  But teaching … Continue reading →

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A Sort Of Wizards Duel

This week some of my students will start to read C. S. Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory.”  Every year I read it with my students, I seem to find something new or just askew enough to strike me deeply.  The … Continue reading →

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Restlessness

Whether you sing it or you say it, Augustine’s thought rings true in life as you live it. Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. … Continue reading →

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Receiving the Martian Signal

Seriously: go read the book first.  Then come back and watch the trailer.   I’m a little surprised at how much this trailer actually gives away.  When I was reading the book (which was an enthralling experience), I was assuming … Continue reading →

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Counting Ordinary Time

This past Sunday Christian churches of the more liturgical bent entered into something known as ordinary time.  Robert Webber explains: The period between Pentecost and the beginning of Advent is called ordinary time.  By contrast the period through Advent, Christmas, … Continue reading →

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