We talk a lot about wonder on this website. The name of the website is even Discerning Wonder. It’s hard to talk about wonder without thinking about children. Children, especially young children, seem to naturally live in world filled with wonder. Maybe that’s partially why Jesus said “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

Children clearly have a special place in the kingdom, and in many ways we can learn a lot from them. Children’s ministry plays an important role in churches and ministry in general. I know that not everyone agrees with that, and there are a lot of different perspectives on how children and children’s ministry should be done in churches. This month’s book review comes from an older book, but one that I believe has valuable information for the church, ministry leaders, and parents still today.

The book, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, was originally written by George Barna in 2003. It was based on research from the Barna Group. Through various studies and research, Barna shares that generally by the age of 13 our spiritual identity is already in place. While children are growing and developing by leaps and bounds through about age 9. After 13, most of their foundations and worldview are in place, and it becomes very difficult to change it later in life. He states that “If you want to shape a person’s life—whether you are most concerned about his or her moral, spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional or economic development—it is during these crucial eight years that lifelong habits, values, beliefs and attitudes are formed.”

Barna doesn’t just rely on research, but also dives into Scripture to examine biblical examples of how much children matter to God. Reminding readers through Scripture that children are a gift from God, that they need to be taught how to think and act in God’s ways, that they are valuable to God and He desires a relationship with them, and more, he lays a foundation for the importance of teaching children. He sums up these reminders saying, “Jesus’ teaching in the opening verses of Matthew 18 suggests that if we, as parents and counselors to the young, lose our interest in and sensitivity to children, we have shirked one of the most important duties given by God to humankind.”

He laments the lack of priority that so many parents, church leaders, and church members place on training children. Barna says that, “I have been discouraged to discover that most American adults—including most parents—see spiritual development of children as a value-added proposition rather than the single most-important aspect of children’s development.” He does not leave things in this discouraging place though. He gives examples of ways to begin teaching children a biblical worldview and train them to be spiritual champions. He encourages readers reminding them that “If you want to have a lasting influence upon the world, you must invest in people’s lives; and if you want to maximize that investment, then you must invest in those people while they are young.”

Teaching children about Jesus, introducing them to Him and how He wants them to live is important not just for parents, not just for children’s ministry leaders, but for the church as a whole. God’s direction to teach his commands to the next generations in Deuteronomy weren’t given just to the parents, though they play a primary role in the task, but they were given to the whole community of Israel. Likewise, as believers we all bear responsibility for teaching the next generations. This can come in many forms, but we all need to appreciate and embrace the importance of training our children to be spiritual champions, and this book is a helpful tool to do just that.

This month’s featured book is Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs by Steve Cuss.

Once again, I was listening to a podcast when I first heard of this book. The title definitely intrigued me because I’m familiar with the overflowing shelves of books about leadership as well as the increasing number of books about anxiety. Putting those two together and talking about Leadership Anxiety seemed slightly unusual though. I like to think of myself as a leader and I know that I definitely have moments of anxiety, but is Leadership Anxiety actually a thing and if so what exactly is it and how in the world do I manage mine and others when I don’t know what it is. That thought alone can start bringing in a little bit of anxiety.

Thankfully in this book, Steve Cuss uses a his years of hospital chaplaincy and pastoring along with tools like Family Systems Theory to tackle the topic of anxiety from a spiritual perspective.  While this book is focused on anxiety in leadership situations, so much of it is applicable to all aspects in life. He begins the book with some explanations and tangible examples of anxiety and understanding it through the perspective of God’s grace. As he talks about the importance of recognizing and examining our areas of anxiety he says: “By paying attention to what was bubbling underneath and managing it, I discovered new levels of freedom and a profound encounter with God’s grace. I experienced genuine spiritual breakthroughs of patterns that had previously kept me stuck.”

Not only does Steve Cuss discuss the importance of identifying anxiety and give hope for the work God can do in our lives as we get to the roots of those anxieties, but he gives tangible tips and tools for how to recognize the causes of your anxiety in leadership and recognizing signs of anxiety in those you are leading. He speaks to causes of both internal anxiety and relational anxiety like the people we feel we need to live up to or not disappoint, blind spots, feeling judged, doubt, dealing with mixed messages, feeling like you’re in a lose-lose situation, stepping on unseen relational land-mines, and so many more. As he spends multiple chapters unpacking and explaining these many sources of anxiety for leaders, I could see situations that I or other leaders I know have found ourselves in.

After spending time unpacking these realities that leaders face, along with the impacts and anxiety that it causes for those around us as well, the author begins to share numerous strategies and tools to for how to manage or deescalate that anxiety. Many of these tools I was familiar with, but was reminded that they are in my toolbox and I should probably be using them a little more often. I was also blessed to be able to have several other new tools to manage relational and leadership issues that can easily cause anxiety for me and others. Tools like learning to pay closer attention to not just content, but to the process of how people are relating and behaving because that is where things tend to get stuck. I was also reminded of the importance of trying to see how I am personally contributing to stuck systems so I can help get us unstuck. Even more importantly than the great tools themselves though, was this reminder:

“The goal of managing anxiety is not simply for relief, it is to connect more fully with God and to raise awareness of what God is doing. Anxiety blocks our awareness of God because it takes our subconscious attention. This means that anxiety can be an early detection system that we’re depending on something other than God for our well-being.”

I found Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs by Steve Cuss to be a very helpful and insightful read. It was full of encouragement, tools, helpful explanations, and challenges to better equip the reader not just for leadership but for life. One of the closing reminders in the book was a quote from a group facilitator that the author works with who said: “This is hard work, but staying the same and not doing this work is hard too. It is just that you are familiar with the ‘hard’ you’re in now. You’ve become so accustomed to the anxiety you carry every day that you don’t realize how hard it is.”

If you’ve not read this book, I would encourage you to give it a read so you can gain some insight, encouragement and tools to hopefully make your life as leader just a little less hard in the future.

​I first heard of the book, Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, in a podcast featuring the author Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith. I was intrigued by what I heard from her and about the book because like so many people I had been struggling with feeling tired all the time. When someone would casually ask how I was doing, so often the first thing that would come to mind was “tired.” I felt like I tried to rest, but never felt rested. For one of the first times as I listened to this author speak, I heard someone explaining why my “resting” didn’t always leave me feeling rested.

In her book, Dr. Dalton-Smith explains that: “Much of what we consider rest fails to work because it is not restful.” She also takes time to explain the difference between sleep and rest, saying that sleep itself is not rest, but rest makes our sleep better. The book explains that many things that we think are restful, like escapism, are actually not helping us rest in a way that helps us recover and renew our energy. She approaches this extensive look at rest from both her medical and faith backgrounds giving a well-rounded, well-researched point of view.

Thankfully, the author doesn’t just explain what we are doing wrong when it comes to rest, but the majority of the book explains what is needed for true rest. She says that “The most effective rest occurs when we are purposefully reviving the parts of our life we regularly deplete.” Dr. Dalton-Smith goes on to explain that there are seven different areas where we need rest: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, sensory, and creative. As we deplete ourselves in each of these areas, we need to rest in ways that help us recover and replete those specific areas. If our senses are exhausted from the noise and other inputs of life, then sitting down to watch tv or a movie for a few hours isn’t going to help us rest and feel renewed. The same idea is true for each of the seven areas. Different types of exhaustion, need different types of rest.

Dr. Dalton-Smith not only shares about these seven areas of needed rest, but she gives very practical ideas on how to rest in ways that can renew us in each of those areas. In case we weren’t already convinced, she goes on to share a dozen different gifts that rest gives us: from freedom and acceptance to permission, productivity, and choice.

All of these ideas were like a breath of fresh air to me, and might be to you as well. Dr. Dalton-Smith asks a question with a powerful suggestion , “What steals your rest? Answering this question helps reveal the benefits of having boundaries and the gift we have in setting boundaries within our lives.” Recognizing the specific things that steal our rest and even more importantly the areas where our rest has been depleted, helps us determine the kind of rest we really need.

This book includes a Personal Rest Deficit Assessment and also a link to her free 7 Types of Rest Quiz. In this online quiz, you can determine the areas where you are most in need of rest. When I took this quiz it was simultaneously eye-opening and also very affirming of what I was feeling. After taking the quiz I spent about a month trying to implement some the types of rest that were suggested in the book. After that month, I retook the quiz and saw improvement in most of the areas.

If you are struggling with constantly feeling tired and exhausted, and feeling like nothing you do makes it better, then I’d highly encourage you to take some time to check out this book. For me, it is definitely going to be a periodic re-read to remind myself of areas where I need to proactively rest and replenish. I hope it might be as helpful to you as it was to me.

Several years ago I was listening to the At the Table Podcast with Patrick Lencioni and heard the episode “What Is Your Genius?” What I heard intrigued me. A short time later, they launched a second podcast called The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni dedicated to exploring this new model called, The Working Genius. Then in 2022 a book featuring the model was released.

I have been a fan of this model since I heard about it on that first podcast episode. It made so much sense to me and helped me to understand so many things about how I worked, how I responded to different types of work and how to recognize reasons for gaps in teamwork.

In his book, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team, Patrick Lencioni begins the book the way he does most of his books and that is with a fictional story. This fictional story that he shares in the first three quarters of the book mirrors how Working Genius came about and its application. He then gives a more detailed overview of the model in the last part of the book. I really appreciate how clearly he is able to present his content through an engaging, easy to read, and entertaining story. By the time I got to the non-fiction overview of the model, I felt like I already had a pretty decent grasp on it from the story itself, but found the overview helpful to tie a nice bow on details.

In the book, Lencioni explore 6 different stages that all work requires, whether that work is on a job, at home, or even as a volunteer. Those areas of work are:

• Wonder: Where work starts with asking questions and wondering why things are like they are.
• Invention: Takes the questions and problems raised in the process of wondering and invents ideas and solutions to address the questions.
• Discernment: The instinctual judging or assessing of the workability of an idea or invention, determining whether it will work and ways to make it better.
• Galvanizing: Rallying people to begin working on the discerned idea, invention, or process.
• Enablement: People jumping in to help work on the project however that help is needed.
• Tenacity: Doing what it takes to make sure the work gets fully completed.

He then goes on to explain that each person has two of these six things that they enjoy doing and that fuels them. He calls these their Working Geniuses. There are also two of the six that absolutely drain a person. Those two he calls their Working Frustrations. The remaining two are Working Competencies. Those are aspects of work that a person might be very good at, but over time they can start to become a little draining. He offers some great analogies on how this works a little like different types of coffee cups. He also gives a lot more details about each of the different types and how they work.

In addition to the book, The Table Group also offers an assessment that individuals and teams can take to identify your own Working Geniuses, Frustrations, and Competencies at WorkingGenius.com. When I took the assessment I discovered that my Geniuses were Discernment and Wonder (another reason the name of this website seemed so fitting). My Frustrations were Galvanizing and Enablement. The geniuses didn’t really surprise me. They definitely sounded like me and are things I enjoy doing. Galvanizing as a frustration didn’t surprise me either, but I had to consider enablement a little more. While I do definitely do a lot of jumping in to get things done, I realized a couple things about this. First, I tend to bristle if I’m told exactly how to do something. I don’t mind helping but I like to figure out the way I think it should be done (wonder & discernment anyone?). I also realized that at times I have to do a lot of this and Tenacity work in my job because none of our team has either of these as strengths which is probably why we often suffer with follow through. Although I am good at these things they drain me and can at times even leave me feeling resentful. The Working Genius book and model helped me to understand that and be able to put language to it. One of the things Lencioni says in the book is this: “For so many people, one of the biggest stealers of peace is having to do work that doesn’t suit their natural, God-given strengths. But because most of these people don’t realize that, they end up feeling really bad about themselves (aka guilty) for not being better at what they are doing. That kind of guilt is unnecessary and leads to serious problems in the lives of workers and the people they love.”

I enjoyed this book and the podcasts so much and could see the value in them to the point that I chose to become a Certified Working Genius Facilitator. I would encourage you to read this book and check out this model. If you want more information or would like to know about how it can help you and your team identify your sweet spots in the process of work, please use the contact page to reach out to me. I’d love to talk with you more about this great model.

On a recent podcast that I was listening to, the book Gently and Lowly by Dane Ortlund was not just mentioned, but highly recommended. I decided to go ahead and check it out, and I was so glad that I did.

I’m guessing that most of us would say that Jesus loves us. We may have even sung “Jesus Loves Me” from a young age and memorized John 3:16. But deep in our heart of hearts, I would also guess that some if not most of us struggle to fully understand and embrace how deep His love is for us.

In Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers Dane Ortlund explores the words Jesus uses to describe Himself in Matthew 11:28-30. Ortlund helps his readers to understand what it means when Jesus says that He is “gently and lowly in heart”. Through this and numerous other passages he explores the amazing love, compassion and care that Jesus has for us at all times even in our sin and suffering.

Reading this book took my appreciation for God’s love for me to new depths. Ortlund’s words helped me to better understand just how much Jesus loves us and embrace it and Him in new ways. In this anxious world today, being better equipped to rest in the confidence and peace of His love for us is a sweet place to be. Gentle and Lowly helped me to do that in a better way.

Just one brief quote demonstrating the multitude of encouragement I found in this book is this: “If his grace in kindness is ‘immeasurable,’ then our failures can never outstrip his grace. Our moments of feeling utterly overwhelmed by life are where God’s heart lives. Our most haunted pockets of failure and regret are where his heart is drawn most unswervingly.”

So is this book for you? Take a look at who Ortland said he wrote this book for in his introduction:

I would say that we all find, or have found, ourselves somewhere in that description at some point and time and if you haven’t you probably will. So I would say yes this book is for you. If you want to draw closer to God, understand how He truly feels about you, or want to rest more confidently in His love for you, then I would highly recommend reading this book.


May you discern the wonder of His love in your life today!