YouthWorker Journal - March/April 2009 - (Page 52) TOOLS Resource Reviews SPOTLIGHT REVIEW by Daniel Clark Lessons in Leadership Experiencing LeaderShift: Letting Go of Leadership Heresies Don Cousins David C. Cook, May 2008, 268 pp., $22.99, www.davidccook.com YOUTH MINISTRY PROGRAMMING CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES Experiencing LeaderShift: A Step-By-Step Strategy for Small Groups and Ministry Teams Application Guide & DVD Don Cousins & Bruce Bugbee David C. Cook, September 2008, 252 pp., $39.99, www.davidccook.com Walk with Me: Explore Tough Choices Willy Nywening, Tina Joshua-Bargh, and Vicki Witte Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2007, 47 pp., $6.25, www.crcna.org Experiencing LeaderShift Together: A Step-By-Step Strategy for Small Groups and Ministry Teams Leader’s Guide & DVD Don Cousins & Bruce Bugbee David C. Cook, September 2008, 154 pp., $24.99, www.davidccook.com Experiencing LeaderShift Together: A Step-By-Step Strategy for Small Groups and Ministry Teams Participant’s Guide Don Cousins & Bruce Bugbee David C. Cook, September 2008, 134 pp., $10.99, www.davidccook.com The Seven Deadly Sins: A Survival Guide Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2007, 71 pp., $16.95, www.crcna.org The business and self-help aisles at your local bookstore are filled with leadership books. The Christian media market is no different. Don Cousins, who has been part of WillowCreek since day one and coauthored the award-winning, gifts-based curriculum Network, now brings Experiencing LeaderShift. At first glance, it is just another leadership book. High priced. Promises to change your life. Endless opportunities for additional products. However, it is obvious from the first pages that Cousins’ approach is different. Admitting that leadership is neither the most important nor most needed gift for pastors is a courageous start for a book about leadership. Cousins even calls such belief a “heresy.” We can’t ignore this word. Many people have been burned at the stake over supposed heresies. Experiencing LeaderShift starts with a survey of biblical leadership and a right understanding of the distribution of spiritual gifts. By identifying four heresies of leadership, deconstructing them and recasting leadership as one of the ways God builds the Kingdom, Cousins prepares churches, ministries, organizations and families for a new way of leadership, a leadershift. Along with the book, one can access more of Cousins’ wisdom and real-world experience in the application guide, leader’s guide and participant’s guid, co-written with Bruce Bugbee, who also coauthored Network. These resources turn vision into action, and black-words-on-white-paper into a community endeavor that leads (there’s that word again) to a healthier organization. DANIEL CLARK is Outreach Director at Children’s HopeChest, an international orphan-care organization. He lives with his wife and two children in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Read his blog at www.danieljclark.com. Walk with Me, a four-session curriculum on tough choices, is the first of 27 installments written to provide teaching material for a junior-high Sunday school class. The threeyear approach to junior-high discipleship strategically moves students from tackling issues to discussing the teachings of Jesus to understanding the church. Each session provides ample material that is intended to target a class full of students with different learning styles. While being biblically sound, Explore Tough Choices struggles with being culturally relevant and addressing topics that are important to junior-high students in their day-to-day world. The flavor of material and corresponding handouts seem better suited for older elementary students than for junior highers. DeYoung’s The Seven Deadly Sins repackages the apostle Paul’s ancient list of vices for a new generation in hopes of bringing to light some of our world’s biggest pitfalls. This creative nine-session study weaves together activities, quotes, discussion questions, media suggestions and Scripture that clearly echo the New Testament themes of transformation. Not only does this curriculum clearly define each sin, but it also challenges 52 March/April 2009 | YouthWorkerJournal.com http://www.davidccook.com http://www.davidccook.com http://www.crcna.org http://www.davidccook.com http://www.crcna.org http://www.davidccook.com http://www.danieljclark.com http://www.YouthWorkerJournal.com
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