Organization

I ordered Book of Hymns as a Christmas gift for my wife -- hoping against hope that it would be a cut above the usual hymn history pablum. I was not disappointed. I couldn't put the book down! The authors have really done their homework, combining their own devotional thoughts with details from the hymnwriters' personal lives. Now it's on sale -- and I'm ordering two more! Highly recommended. Johnny Long Presbyterian Church in America World Harvest Mission ("The Sonship People") Africa Renewal Team Nairobi, Kenya East Africa

This book has several case studies that show from real-world experience how to show dollar value from so-called "soft initiatives." There are several tools and ideas for demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt how the change initiative delivered monetary value. Dave Ulrich endorsed the book.

This book was an incredible guide to establishing respect and communiation with a teen.

Richard Kew makes predictions about the future of the church by identifying current world trends and suggesting how they will impact the way we "do church." The author names ten trends, such as globalization, fiscal challenges, and moral dilemmas, and offers insights on how the church needs to revision its way of doing ministry in order to address the extraordinary challenges and changes that are sweeping our world. Each chapter is devoted to a "trend," complete with the author's analysis, study guide questions, suggestions for further reading, and websites to search for more information. Our church board is currently reading Brave New Church and we will be discussing the study guide questions in future adult forums. I especially appreciate the website references, and have found them to be very useful and practical. I recommend this book to any church leader who wants to be more effective in doing mission and ministry in our rapidly changing world.

Bread for the Journey is a fantastic resource for any worship planner. The language is inclusive, the imagery varied, the words mellifluous. The structure follows the Christian year, beginning with resources for Lent and Christmas, and continuing to provide words for all seasons. Duck has done a tremendous job of including calls to worship, prayers, and litanies that reflect many different styles and moods of worship. Many of the prayers also reflect a real call to social justice and inclusiveness... and are beautiful to boot. If you write worship services regularly, this is a fantastic book to have on your shelf. You'll find yourself reaching for it again and again!

The real monetary value of this book lies in the detailed and yet comprehensive QUESTIONING process, which the book outlines in strategic depth. Not only it breaks down the questioning process into three consecutive phases - status-quo, brainstorming,& activity planning - with specific examples of real-world questions to ask in each planning phase, it sort of holds the reader's hand (and his attention) all the way to addressing all the EIGHT strategic questions (another good monetary value) in designing and actualisng a company's long-term future. It's really a field-tested, practice-oriented book for strategic visionising. Not many strategic visionising books can do that well. I particularly like the author's writing style - very crisp, succinct and clear. A MUST READ!

It took awhile, but I just read Lotte Bailyn's "Breakingthe Mold: Women, Men and Time in the New Corporate World" ... . The fun in reviewing a book seven years after publication is the future perspective. In this case, the author was amazingly prescient!

The book is written for social scientists, managers, unionists, and the general public, and is very readable. Basically, Bailyn challenges our thinking about work/family and especially about the way work is designed. Like Hochschild's work, much of the purpose is to make our society value time with families and particularly children. Like Fried's much later work, there is a clear feminist perspective. Like Williams' recent book, issues of fairness are framed in terms of current career structures and the ideal worker norm generating discrimination against women in particular and parents in general. Most impressive, in the concluding chapter Bailyn foresees the increases in worker autonomy and flexibility that were later documented in the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce, and she both predicts and explicitly responds to the backlash against w/f policies which did in fact develop. In other words, if you want a wonderful summary of where the field is headed today, it is virtually all here (without the latest references :-).

But there is more. What moved me to read the book at this time was my own conclusion that solving the "time divide" between overworked and underworked Americans is going to be a bit trickier than just creating part-time professional careers (a daunting and worthy task in itself). The fundamental problem is that the overworked folks tend to be professionals and the underworked tend to have less education and fit into very different occupations. To shift work from the first group to the second will therefore require redesigning jobs and tasks.

Here is where Bailyn's work remains path breaking today. Chapter three documents the distinct w/f pressures and opportunities associated with several different occupations. Although the chapter is brief, it provides enough information to draw the reader successfully into two of Bailyn's key arguments. The first is that jobs and occupations are sufficiently different that no one policy prescription will serve to resolve w/f conflicts. The second is that successful w/f policies will require redesigning work with the active participation of those doing the work. Since writing the book, Bailyn has set out to make these things happen in research projects with many other folks here (including Francoise Carre, Susan Eaton, and Paula Rayman, although I'm sure there are many others).

Although I remain optimistic regarding the opportunities for public policy intervention, Bailyn is very convincing in her claim that we must allow employees to bring their family commitments to work if we are to succeed in creating better lives for American families. Indeed, I think this has already happened in large part, otherwise the backlash would never have occurred.

A great piece of writing and highly recommended!

Cheers, Bob ...

Breakthrough Inc. was terrific. It was not another recipe book, rehashing old ideas. Instead, this book kept on asking me to stretch my goals, and suggested courses of action I could take that were designed at an MBA level. At times I actually did feel I was taking an MBA course as I visited such technologies as gap analysis, competitive analysis, and innovation analysis. Yet unlike an MBA course, everything was easily understandable and could be immediately applied. This book has already given me specific strategies for making my business more relevant in my market, and more profitable in my pocket.

This book is a must read for progressive managers. It provides indisputable evidence of the trend to anti-conglomeration and sets out in detail the U.S. companies within the top 100 that are prime candidates for such splits. For general business readers, it provides a critical review of a previously unchallenged business thesis- that bigger is better. This book is bound to be the talk of the business commentator circuit and the handbook for the Wall St. rainmakers.

I've read several books in the past couple of years about bridging the gap between the different generations, and I have to say that this one is the most useful. It's written from an objective point of view, and so gives powerful "snapshots" of different types of congregations and how they are dealing with the generation gaps---some successfully, some not.

Instead of reading about someone else's cookie-cutter "fix-it program," I got a lot of ideas and insights that might work in my own congregation. I highly recommend this book.