Friday, April 5, 2013

My Sabbatical Plan and Reading List

I am going on sabbatical from Grace Episcopal Church in Medford from April 15-August 15, 2013.  I have two themes for my sabbatical - 1.) leading change in organizations and communities and 2.) emerging and new forms of Christian community.  

My sabbatical includes leading a conference, attending four or five different conferences and trainings,  going on a week-long silent retreat, teaching Sunday School at my wife's church (Christ Church, Waltham), attending the Wild Goose Festival and visiting a number of emergent churches and christian communities and driving across the country with my family.  I am really excited for this time away from the day-to-day of parish ministry and the chance to reflect and learn about where the wider church and my parish is changing and growing.  

Some folks have asked for my reading list, so here it is.  It is getting kind of long!  Let me know: what else do you think I should be reading?
  • Born of Water, Born of Spirit, Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook
  • American Grace, Robert Putnam
  • Give and Take, Adam Grant
  • Switch:  How to change things when change is hard, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  • How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation, Kegan and Lehey and Immunity to Change: Kegan and Lehey
  • Liturgical Sense, Louis Weil
  • Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
  • Lost in the Middle:  Claiming the Faith of Christians who are both evangelical and liberal
  • You Are Already Praying, Cathy George
    • Buddhist Boot Camp, Timer Hawkey
    • Jesus Freak and Take This Bread, Sara Miles
    • In the Neighborhood: the search for community on an American Street, Peter Lovenheim
    • Blessed are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America, Jefferey Stout
    • Destiny Disrupted: The history of the world through Islamic eyes, Tamin Ansary
    • Transforming Leadership: new vision for a church in mission, Norma Cook Everist and Craig Nessan
    • Emergence Christianity, Phyllis Tickle
    • The gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly, Brene Brown
    • The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Heifitz and Grashow
    • Wide Welcome: How the Unsettling Presence of Newcomers Can Save the Church, Duckworth Jessi
    • Scattering Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality, Stephen Chapin Garner
    • Appreciative Living: The Principles of Appreciative Inquiry in Personal Life,
      Jacqueline Bascobert Kelm
    • Sacred Acts, Holy Change: Faithful Diversity and Practical Transformation, Eric Law
    • John Marshall: Definer of a Nation, Smith, Jean Edward
    • How to Pray When You're Pissed at God: Or Anyone Else for That Matter, Ian Punnett
    • And some fiction…