I apologize for the lack of activity in the past several days. I had limited internet access during a trip to visit my grandparents and have not been feeling well the past few days. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things in the next day or so. So, stay tuned.

Today I would like to offer a quick look at another book I have recently read: Vital Signs: A Pathway to Congregational Wholeness by Dan R. Dick.

Vital Signs takes a close look at over 700 United Methodist congregations and offers a way to categorize congregations in one of 4 ways: Decaying, Dystrophic, Retrogressive, and Vital. The book discusses the attributes and characteristics of each type of congregation and offers a diagnostic tool to help church leaders determine where their congregation fits in this typology. The goal of the book is to help move churches towards vitality.

The book is organized logically and it is a pretty quick read. It is primarily useful for helping people to first see where the United Methodist Church in general, actually is at. (Only 9.6% of the churches surveyed were identified as vital congregations.) Vital Signs, secondly, will help leaders take a realistic look at where their particular congregation is at in terms of vitality.

This is a book I wish I had read at the beginning of my first appointment, as I think it would have helped me to begin to get a handle on where we are at and it would have provided guidance on helpful strategies to move forward. I would, as a result, recommend it to any pastor or church leader who would like to have a tool for assessing the vitality of their congregation.

I am really enjoying the feedback and conversation from these book recommendations. So, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I thought I would try another one.

What one book on discipleship would you recommend? Again, there are a few different ways you could go with this, but I will leave that up to you.

This is the hardest question for me to answer yet. So, with the caveat that my answer may change as I think about this more throughout the day, I am going to say the one book I would recommend on discipleship would be The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. It is not a fast read, but I remember it being profound. It is one of those rare books I want to read again. Willard really lifted up the depth of what discipleship truly is meant to look like, instead of what we so often settle for.

Ok, your turn.

Edit: I forgot to add links to the previous “If You Could Only Read One Book…” posts, If You Could Only Read One Book on Emergent… and If You Could Only Read One Book on Methodism…

I came across this quote from Thomas Merton in Brian Mahan’s book Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition:

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for” (153).

What are you living for? What is keeping you from living fully for the thing that you want to live for? What would it take for you to start living for what you think God wants you to live for?

Last night my wife and I got to hang out with two of the coolest people in Oklahoma, Libby and Gerardo.  We had a great meal together and followed it up with coffee and wonderful conversation.  Melissa and I don’t see our closest friends from college as much as we would like because we are around 2 hours from most of them.  So, last night was a real blessing for us.  Libby is a fellow blogger, I would recommend her blog to you – Lovely Pearls.  She brings authenticity and a desire to see God move in her life and the lives of those she loves that is inspiring and refreshing.  Gerardo really likes it when I link to the meaning of words on dictionary.com. Thanks Libby and Gerardo for a fun evening!