Bullard Journal Blog

Have You Seen the New Book by Ed Stetzer and . . .

. . . Philip Nation? It is entitled, Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living. It is published by some of my favorite people--New Hope Publishers, a division of WMU [a Baptist missions organizations focused around women and girls]. I finished reading the book today, but will read through it again before I write a review for Books @ Leadership Network.

I was reading it on an airplane while traveling to Ohio. I was sitting in the exit row, the flight attendant had just come by to be sure we knew what to do in case of a crash landing [always a comforting thought], when I got to page 58 where Ed talks about being a hero while sitting in the exit row of an airplane. You've got the get the book if for no other reason than to read page 58!

Look for the review later. Check on the Leadership Network book site at http://books.leadnet.org. Hey, while you are at it, check out New Hope Publishers at www.newhopepublishers.com.

George Begins Writing Book Reviews for Leadership Network

Beginning this week George will be writing regular book reviews for Leadership Network. These will appear on their site called Books@LeadershipNetwork. Visit this site and check out what is going on. It is another great service brought to you by Leadership Network.

George's first book review is on The Church of the Perfect Storm edited by Leonard Sweet. To purchase this book go to Bullard Journal Book Store.

Conflict Ministry Help is On the Way

Amazon has now posted my forthcoming book, Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict. It is scheduled for release in June. Click here to view book.

Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict

The premise of this book is that every congregation has conflict. In fact, every congregation needs a little conflict to give it the opportunity to learn how to address conflict in healthy ways. Doing so allows congregations to develop the capacity to deal with inevitable conflict situations. It also allows them to prepare themselves to possibly handle really big conflict without it becoming overly destructive.

Preorder the book now and you will receive an extra 5% off the purchase price, and a guarantee that if the price goes down before it is released that you will benefit from additional price savings. At the time of this post the book was available for $13.59 plus the additional 5% saving for preordering. What a deal!

While you are waiting for the full book to come out, an overview is already posted as an Amazon Shorts and is available for download at $0.49.

Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict, an Amazon Shorts digital publication. 

In future months you will see information on conflict ministry training that will be available. Stay tuned.

Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict Book Cover

My newest book is due out in June. Its cover has been recently been developed and I want to share it with you. Look for more information on the book as we approach June.

In the mean time, if you want an overview of this subject, see the Amazon Shorts on Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict by clicking here.

Pursuing Your Congregation's Potential: An Afterword

Pursuing Your Congregation's Potential: An Afterword by George W. Bullard, Jr. Read more about this title...

My latest Amazon Shorts is now fully live. I wrote this piece as an Afterword to my book, Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation, published in 2006. The purpose of this Afterword is to add some afterglow insights, to distinguish my approach from several other popular approaches for congregational transformation, to suggest seven additional points I want to say to add value to congregations, and to outline a spiritual strategic journey congregational cluster process that leads to the transformation of congregations.

Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict

Just posted to www.Amazon.com is my newest Amazon Short E-Book--Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict. This is a teaser for the full book scheduled to be released during 2008 as part of the book series The Columbia Partnership Leadership Series.

Check out this e-book. You can download it for 49 cents. Let me know what you think about it.  Consider writing a review of this e-book on Amazon.

Reading in St. Lucia

I have just returned from an extended family vacation to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. It was a wonderful time for 12 members of our family--on my wife's side. We tend to take these trips about every three years, and have done so with 8 to 14 people since 1995.

Unlike previous trips, we went to one general location and stayed there. We had a wonderful house looking out on the Caribbean Sea. It had six bedrooms, a pool, a great porch looking out over the sea, and came with a full-time cook and housekeeper--all for less than a beach house on the ocean in South Carolina.

But then, we had to get there. How we got there and got home is another story for another day.

I determined to spend a lot of time reading. Here is my list of completed books:

1. Philip Jenkins. God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis. Oxford University Press, 2007. [I have read two other books by Jenkins, and found all of them extremely informative and challenging.]

2. Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House, 2007.

3. Christopher Hitchens. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve [Hachette Book Group], 2007.

4. Barbara Brown Taylor. Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith. Harper San Francisco, 2006.

5. Mark Chaves. Congregations in America. Harvard University Press, 2004.

6. Rochelle Melander. A Generous Presence: Spiritual Leadership and the Art of Coaching. The Alban Institute, 2006.

It was quite a week of reading. With Taleb and Hitchens books I have determined part of the making of a best seller is knocking down most of the ideas and the people you have ever known or read. Writing paragraphs of at least 300 words that fill an entire page. Using words people have never heard. Saying the same thing over and over again in different ways. And, having a GREAT marketing campaign.

Other than that, writing and producing a best seller is a piece of cake.

Perhaps later I will share some other thoughts about the trip and the books.

Every Congregation Needs Little Conflict

For more than a year I have been working on the manuscript for my next book entitled Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict. This week I finally completed the manuscript and submitted it to Chalice Press for them to do their magic over the next year.

Can't wait? Neither can I based on this subject. So, I have also submitted a summary of the core concepts to Amazon Shorts. I am hoping that within 30 days you will be able to download for 49 cents about a 15-20 page summary.

Look for an announcement during the next month!

Harold's Breakthrough Discovery

My first Amazon Shorts e-book was recently published. It first began to appaear on www.Amazon.com yesterday. Amazon Shorts are manuscripts of 2,000 to 10,000 words published for a minimum os six months exclusively on www.Amazon.com. They only cost 49 cents and are downloaded on to your computer.

This is a story of one of my heroes in a church where I was pastor.

Here is the link to the e-book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Harolds-Breakthrough-Discovery/dp/B000MM1HYY/ref=dp_shrt_new_0/103-2567781-4083846.

Long Flights, Good Reading

Today I flew from Raleigh, NC to Portland, OR--changing airplanes in Sal Lake City. That is a lot of flying!

I decided that I would devote my time to reading. I first studied a manual I will be teaching today and tomorrow in Portland with  ministry colleague. Other than that I read The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. It is subtitled The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.

This book had been recommended to me in November. I had not read it yet, and did not even purchase it until this week. I came upon it while wandering around one of my favorite book stores with a cup of coffee in hand.