For the next four weeks, I'll be taking Roundtables on a journey through Tony Jones' latest book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. I've been wanting to do this since reading Tony's book in July. Here's a preview:

Week One: Pay phones and church
Week Two: The West is beautiful
Week Three: So a biblicist and a reletivist walk into a pastors' convention
Week Four: Sonny, it ain't nothin' till I call it

The book is set up well for our class. It's thought provoking and smartly written. I think we'll have a good discussion. I'll be blogging a preview and wrap up here, so be sure to check it out.

"Hamas will continue the resistance until the last drop of blood," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, speaking on  a Gaza radio station.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," Albert Einstein

Reports: 120 killed in strikes on Gaza - Israel-Palestinians- msnbc.com 

Whatever you feel about this conflict, you can't think it's going well for anyone. Whoever hit first, it's going to take someone never hitting again to make it stop. Palestinians have to stop sending rockets and suicide bombers into markets. Israel has to start letting Palestinians have access to food and water and stop the endless harassment of a beat down people. 

Expecting anything different is insane.

Growing up, my wife was a thief. For at least one day a year anyway. Within hours of her mother setting out their hand-carved wooden nativity scene, Amy would sneak in and swipe the baby Jesus leaving an empty crib subject to much adoration from a cast of barn animals and humans.

The first time I asked Amy about this, she got that cute look in her eye. "Jesus didn't come until Christmas," she explained. This was no attempt at rebellion on Amy's part. From the time she was a young child this was an act of reverence. For Amy, it is the proper celebration of advent (or perhaps the proper story of Israel) to wait for Jesus' arrival in the manger scene.

I love this woman.

We tried pulling the same stunt at work one year. There was a nativity scene in our chapel area (which doubled as a lunch room). We snuck in, swiped the baby Jesus and placed a note in the manager: "Don't rush me! Be back Dec. 25th."

Advent 1. Premature celebration 0.

Advent and Lent get trampled over in a lot of evangelical circles. Some Christian groups who take pleasure in demonizing Catholics and high-church protestants gloss over these holy days without fully realizing their significance. Advent and Lent are times of preparation and anticipation. They get us ready for the most incredible celebrations on our calendars. The church I group up in emphasized self-examination leading up to communion. I think these holy days are just as important. They lead us to remember a time when the people of God waited for a Messiah to save them much like we wait for one to come again.

We prepare for roughly seventy days to celebrate for two. Even if you celebrate twelve days at Christmas (and I'm planning to again this year) you have ten weeks of anticipation for two weeks of celebration. Perhaps we need to celebrate more. Or maybe this is the story we find ourselves in: lots of preparation, lots of anticipation, not as much celebration—even for those of us with something to celebrate. Even with the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection life he offers to everyone now and the hope of his return to renew the world, it is clear that there is still much that isn't right with the world. Lent and Advent remind us to prepare ourselves, to make right what we can, and to hope for his coming again to put right what we do not.

But for the next few days, Jesus' arrival is celebrated. A baby has arrived to a big angel band and shephards quiting their jobs to come see him. Scholars travel from distant lands to see him. And we celebrate with awe and wonder at the gift of God to us:

Himself.

In my work at IBS, I was a project manager for the Bible publishing group. This entailed taking a project from idea to physical (or digital) completion.  I worked with writers, editors, designers, printers, and a host of others to complete these projects. Some of them are shown here, credits at the bottom.

A lot of people will say they aren't micromanagers. Most of those times, they end up being just that. I'll say that I tried not to be. I think I succeeded. When one of my team members had a professional opinion, I was inclined to listen and trust their expertise.

There are two reasons I manage this way.

1) I have enough to do without being involved in every detail of how my team members do their job.

2) I believe in working with a team of competent people that you I can trust. If I can't trust them to do their job, I need a new team.

This assumes the best in people. It doesn't assume that someone is essentially good or will do something right every time. I've got a long list insisting that is not the case (a list I find myself on more than I would like). But it assumes that they are capable of doing a good job with the proper motivation.

Micromanagers assume the worst in people. They assume that apart from their expertise and oversight, their employees/team can't complete the task well or on time. This actually sucks the joy out of their team's success. When they succeed, the manager will say it is because of how much work he put into his team. When they fail, it was obviously because they didn't listen well enough. It's like rooting for the Yankees: If they lose, their fans are furious, but if they win, they're only mildly excited because that's what they were supposed to do.

Long before I joined a Presbyterian church I struggled with Calvinism, specifically the idea of total depravity. Sometimes I tell people this was actually the easiest thing for me to believe, knowing that I'm an awful human being. But at the same time, I can't help but remember that human beings were created with the capacity for good; that we weren't meant to be this way and that God may have made the way for us to be everything we were supposed to be. We're all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. But I don't think God is a micromanager. I don't think he wants to take credit for everything we do right and blame us for everything we do wrong. In fact, just the opposite happened on the Cross.

Photo 1: The Book of Psalms, design by Becky Sell, Sell Creative, Omro, WI
Photo 2: Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go, design by James Hershberger, IBS-STL Global, Colorado Springs, CO
Photo 3: Hear This Word: The Book of Amos, design by James Hershberger, IBS-STL Global, Colorado Springs, CO

All titles available at IBSDirect.com

Five years ago, I started working for International Bible Society.

Last year, I started running their The Books of The Bible blog.

Last Thursday, I was laid off.

Today I applied for six jobs.

And I've started blogging again.