Issue No. 139 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting might just change your thinking about Luke 15. For me, it was “Wow!” and “Yikes!” I review a book every week here. I know you don’t read every book, but read this one. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Labels That Live On
First, let’s cut to the chase: The Prodigal God is a powerful book and maybe one of the most important books I have read in years. After my sister-in-law, Marilyn, sent it to me, I also began hearing about it from others. The book has launched a holy buzz.
The lasting power of a book, for me, hinges on whether I can remember the key concepts and labels years later—and if they radically change my thinking. J. Grant Howard’s 1983 book, Balancing Life’s Demands, says that sequential priorities (God first, family second, church third, work fourth) don’t make sense and, in fact, is not a biblical way of thinking about priorities. It changed my thinking.
“God owns everything. I’m His money manager,” is Randy Alcorn’s first concept in The Treasure Principle. That impacts my life every day. And the three inter-connecting circles in Jim Collin’s hedgehog concept (passion, competence, economic engine), in Good to Great, enable me to help leaders identify the soft spots in their organizations.
Likewise Tim Keller’s profound book. His labels, the younger brother and the elder brother, I predict, will be part of our spiritual formation lexicon for years to come. How so? Keller reminds us that Jesus didn’t label the parable in Luke 15, “The Prodigal Son.” Jesus simply said, “There was a man who had two sons.” And so Keller uses each brother’s story to deftly describe the church today.
“There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. One is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good,” writes Keller of the younger brother and the elder brother, respectively. The younger brothers have left the church, often because it is the elder brothers who populate the church. “Though the older son stayed at home, he was actually more distant and alienated from the father than his brother, because he was blind to his true condition.”
Keller adds, “Because the elder brother is more blind to what is going on, being an elder-brother Pharisee is a more spiritually desperate condition. ‘How dare you say that?’ is how religious people respond if you suggest their relationship with God isn’t right. ‘I’m there every time the church doors are open.’ Jesus says, in effect, ‘That doesn’t matter.’”
Why the book title? The dictionary definition of “prodigal” is not “wayward,” but “recklessly spendthrift.” (I also found “recklessly extravagant.”) And so Keller writes, “God’s reckless grace is our great hope, a life-changing experience, and the subject of this book.” Click here to listen to Tim Keller’s messages on this topic.
To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, by Timothy Keller.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Keller writes, “When a newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response, ‘Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.’” What do you think he meant—and how might it relate to this week’s book?
2) Peter Drucker says there are five questions every organization must ask. One is, “Who is our customer?” Does your church (or ministry) really understand these two customers: younger brothers and elder brothers?
The Drucker Deli - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Drucker Bucket, Chapter 4, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to invite your team to the “Drucker Deli” for lunch once a month.
Order deli sandwiches (or bring your own) and meet at a nearby scenic spot. (During my CMA years in San Clemente, Calif., our team sometimes enjoyed carry-out on the T Street bluff, watching dozens of surfers get axed in the Pacific.) The admission price for the “Drucker Deli” is cheap. Bring your underlined copy of a Peter Drucker book and share your favorite insight from the last 30 days of readings.
Of course, it goes without saying that once a month you should also host a Bucket Breakfast or Bucket Brunch or Bucket Buffet or…(okay, I’ll stop) and have your team members share their favorite insights from Mastering the Management Buckets.
For more resources, a worksheet of Peter Drucker quotations and a list of his books, visit the Drucker Bucket page at my Management Buckets website.
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