Issue No. 326 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends a very funny—yet very serious—book from John Ortberg! And this reminder: subscribe here for Drucker Mondays, as 52 guest writers share their favorite quotes and commentary from the new book, A Year With Peter Drucker.
John Ortberg's Bull Ride
John Ortberg—a very, very funny pastor, speaker, and writer—also has a serious side. He writes, “As long as I keep pretending, my soul keeps dying.”
So when is the last time you’ve drilled down deeply to understand what makes your soul tick—and why should you?
Ortberg says that “one of the most important words in the Bible is soul. We throw that word around a lot, but if someone were to ask you to explain exactly what the word soul means, what would you say?
• Why should I pay attention to my soul?
• Hasn’t science disproven its existence?
• Isn’t the soul the province of robe-wearing, herbal-tea drinkers?
• Isn’t ‘soul-saving’ old-fashioned language that ignores concerns for holistic justice?
• Won’t it mean preoccupation with navel-gazing? Will I have to go to Big Sur or look some stranger in the eyes? Will I have to journal?”
Who’s not a fan of John Ortberg and his genuine appreciation for Dallas Willard? When I reviewed one of my favorite books, The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Issue #18), I noted that Ortberg asked his publishers to title that book, “Dallas for Dummies.” LOL!
So…in February when I read the first chapter of Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You, I planned to enjoy, but move quickly through, the 17 short chapters (less than 200 pages). Not!
Instead…I’ve lingered slowly through the last 17 weekends…a chapter every Saturday or Sunday morning. Whew. Good stuff. Quotable stuff. PowerPoint-worthy wisdom. And always good for a half-page read to my wife, Joanne, who also appreciates Ortberg and Dallas Willard. Most weekends, I read her funny stuff, like this:
The Soul Without a Center Is Easily Thrown
“We were with friends recently at kind of an open-air street fair, and at one spot there was a mechanical bull that tries to buck people off. We stopped to watch, but nobody would climb on the thing and give it a try. The man operating the bull said, ‘Watching isn’t nearly as fun as riding. Who’s going to be the one to get on the bull?’ So somebody in my little group said to me, ‘Why don’t you go?’ I never took the rodeo class when I was in seminary, but nobody else would go, and I wanted to see something.
“So I told the remote-control-bull operator that I wanted to ride. He took one look at my middle-aged body and asked, ‘Are you sure?’ That pretty much guaranteed that I would not back down.
“‘There are twelve levels of difficulty on this bull,’ he explained. ‘It might not be all that easy, but the key is you have to stay centered, and the only way to do that is to sit loose. People try to clamp on too tight. Don’t do that. You have to be flexible. If you think you can be in control of the ride you’ll never make it. You have to follow the bull. You have to keep moving. Shift your center of gravity as the bull moves.’
“I got on the bull and it started slow, and then it started moving faster and jostling around, and I was holding on real tight. Then I remembered his advice, so I loosened up, and it kept moving faster and jolting and bucking and jumping. I was hanging on sideways. My arms were flailing around all over the place. I just hung on and finally the bull slowed down and it stopped, and I was still on the bull. It wasn’t pretty but I made it. I imagined how surprised the operator of the bull would be that I had triumphed. I looked over at the man who was operating the bull, and he looked over at me. Shaking his head, he smiled and said, ‘That was level one.’
“Level two lasted maybe a second.
The bull won.”
LOL! Ortberg reminds us that life never stays at level one. “It gets complicated. Stuff happens.” This book will help you in level two and beyond.
Along with the humor—and it oozes with Ortberg’s special brand of clergy comedy—the pastoral pokes are memorable and needed. He quotes Dallas Willard: “You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God.”
And then this from Thomas Kelly:
“…We have seen and know some people who have found this deep Center of living, where the fretful calls of life are integrated, where No as well as Yes can be said with confidence.”
There’s so much more. I’d made notes for my “Top-10 List of Ortberg Insights on the Soul”…but it’s time to quit. (You will read his book, right?) And speaking of top ten lists…I’ve decided that if Stephen Colbert doesn’t cut it as the new guy for the CBS Late Show in September, I’ll launch a grassroots campaign to put John Ortberg in that chair. Wouldn’t that be something!
To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for: Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You, by John Ortberg.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
#1. In his chapter, “The Soul Needs a Center,” Ortberg confesses, “If I am always in a hurry to be somewhere else, it’s an indicator that my soul has not yet found its home.” What does that insight mean to you?
#2. “Idolatry, according to Timothy Keller, is the sin beneath the sin.” Ortberg adds, “We all commit idolatry every day. It is the sin of the soul meeting its needs with anything that distances it from God.” Is it well with your soul today?
The Poignant Power of a Book Recommendation - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
As we cycle through the 20 buckets, here is an insight from Chapter 5, the Book Bucket, in Mastering the Management Buckets.
Over lunch, my friend, Mark Bargaehr, suggested I read John Ortberg’s book, Soul Keeping. What a gift Mark gave me!
Charlie “Tremendous” Jones said, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
What gift (book recommendation) will you give to a colleague or family member this week?
For more resources on books—and recommendations categorized by 20 buckets/core competences, visit The Book Bucket webpage.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free two to four times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines.
Plus...check out John's post on the ECFA governance blog page, "Sorry! There Is No ONE Thing!"
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