It’s been a while since we’ve had a GRACE Writes blog contest. Here’s a summer book contest for our readers and visitors. The first person to correctly identify the authors of four of the five works listed below correctly will win the book prize.
[Read more...]
I’m pleased to announce the release of a new resource for children’s missions education: Ready! Set! Go! Children on Mission Throughout the Church Year. The book was written by the students in my Teaching Children course, co-taught by Barbara Massey, Minister to Children at the River Road Church, Richmond, VA.
[Read more...]
I’ve just received in the mail a copy of Learning the Way, by Cassandra Williams (Alban Institute, 2009). I was asked to write the forward to this book. Here is an edited version:
[Read more...]
We have just sent off the order for a third printing of A Family Genogram Workbook by Galindo, Boomer, and Reagan. We’re pleased with its success (and its steady sales!). We only have a few on hand that qualify for discounts, so if you’re interested in a copy order from us soon. (While the book is available through Amazon.com, they don’t give the discounts we provide). Multiple-copies discounts are available from Educational Consultants.
[Read more...]
During a conversation among parents about their children—now adolescents and young adults the issue of children and money came up. There were the usual rants about children not appreciating the value of money, anxieties about paying for college expenses, the astronomical increase in auto insurance when adding a teenager to the policy, etc. Most parents shared frustrations, and worry, about their teenage and young adult children not being able to handle their finances.
I asked the group of parents if they talked about money, finances, and stewardship with their children when they were young. All said that no, they hadn’t. That being the case, I wondered at their surprise that their grown children were unprepared to handle money as adults.
[Read more...]
Margaret Marcuson touches all the right bases in her first book for congregational leaders, Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury Press, 2009). It is a primer on effective ministerial leadership based on perennial principals and much influenced by Marcuson’s experience in working with leaders, and, her continuing study of Bowen Systems Theory applied to leadership. A recognized coach to leaders Marcuson brings real world wisdom to the pages of this book on effective ministry leadership. Insightful, and often playful, Marcuson shares her coaching expertise with readers in this short course on effective leadership.
[Read more...]
Polemics against bad teaching and poor education are a staple in social science, philosophy, and education literature. I suspect for two reasons: first, they are effective in getting readers riled up, and, second, I suspect it’s just too easy to sling tomatoes at poor teachers. After all, who among us hasn’t suffered under one? However, I do love a good rant…
[Read more...]
I suffer from the male genetic malady of the Gadget Gene. If it blinks, lights up, requires batteries, has a button, buzzes, lights up, vibrates, connects to something else via wireless or a cord, and has a computer chip, I’m for it. I’m too much of a generalist to qualify for the lofty status of membership into geekdom, but I can understand the tribal dialect and can hold my own more often than not. I find some comfort in that I know I’m not alone in my malady (see Geekdad).
[Read more...]
Well, I can now cross out “Illustrate a book” from my list of 50-things-to-do-before-I-die (yeah, just 50, I’m not ambitious). I’ve had the privilege of illustrating the latest book by my friend Bill Tuck. He asked me to illustrate his new book on the character of Christ with some of my ink drawings. The book, titled The Compelling Faces of Jesus, is published by Mercer University Press and is available through various outlets. Here is the book description:
[Read more...]
My current online course aims at helping students discern the nature of particular educational approaches. One aspect of that exercise is to discern how context influences what constitutes learning and education (and therefore, the roles of teacher-pupil or teacher-learner, master-apprentice, sensei-disciple, etc.). It doesn’t take long for most students to make the distinction that school is school but church is church (community).
[Read more...]