"Just go low. Don't worry about getting up":The Word of Dodd on leadership

If you are a not familiar with my friend Brian Dodd's work, you need to be.

You are about to be.

1)A few years ago, Brian's "You are Not Crazy" email read our prayers/mind/frustrations.
If you have ever wondered if you have "lost it" in this new wineskin kind of day, read it;
then celebrating having been lost and found.

2)His first book on IVP, "The Problem with Paul" is a classic on the hermeneutical bridge between Paul's day and the postmodern context. It is bold enough to ask:

Was Paul a chauvinist?
Was he a prude?
Was he anti-Semitic?
Why did Paul condone slavery?
How might he have fared on the
Oprah Winfrey Show?

)His second book "Praying Jesus' Way" is now available free online. Enough said, price is right, click this.

3)His "Empowered Church Leadership: Ministry in the Spirit According to Paul" is especially "afflicting to the comforted" on grasping the consumer vs. communal. He nails the "bottom-up" leadership style that Scripture commends (One chapter is "The Race to the Bottom"). Here's a link to a short interview with Brian on the book.

This most recent book is worthy of several quotes to get you interested:

"I made the quantum leap in my ministry from planning to following" (33)

"I am your servant, but you are not my master"

"God maintains the 'divine incognito' of Jesus' ministry in ours by pouring out his power on the unlikely and imperfect" (84)

"All we have to do is go low. We don't have to worry about getting up." (146)

"For too many, life is lived in a contemporary version if the medieval model that focuses on buildings and clergy" (154)

"Healthy churches tend to have non seminary trained leaders. The comeback to this observation is sometimes 'But we need pastors who are doctrinally equipped.' What evidence is there that seminary education equips a pastor to be orthodox?...Most pastors learn just enough there to make them less than effective the rest of their ministries." (155)


"Paul did not have an organizational plan or a ten year vision. His direction seemed focused and occasional" (162)


"Pray for a burden. When God gives it to you, you will always know what to do next" (174).

"Lord, break our hearts for the people who are breaking your heart!" (178)

Worth the price of the book are these quotes from some classic giants, the first not available anywhere else:

"When we avoid this death talk we dishonor the death of Jesus. When we structure our lives to avoid pain and suffering we reject the way of the cross and dishonor the Son...It is common and easy to dishonor the Son by marginalizing his sacrifice. Old timers called this 'gnosticism." We can just call it 'unfaithful'...Sacrifice. Suffering. These are what (honoring Jesus) means. It is not pragmatic or practical, but it is what Jesus calls us to do,"
-Eugene Peterson (68)

"I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant "=-Henri Nouwen (148)

"God hates visionary dreaming" -
-Bonhoeffer, (168)



Stay up to date with Brian's more recent writing at http://www.thechurchjesusloves.org/

Tell him I sent ya..