"Generation X" grew up with Star Wars, prepared to deal with the problems of a fantasy universe. They grew up during the longest period of economic growth in American history. When the first Star Wars movie came out the Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 900 points; when the last movie was released it was more than 10,000. Their parents' 401ks got fat and the little houses they had collected Star Wars toys in became worth ten times what mom and dad had paid for them. Now Gen Xers are in their thirties and forties and starting to run for Congress and to run major corporations. As the legions of Baby Boomers retire to live out their eternal "hipsterness" with megadoses of Viagra and iPod's full of classic rock, the Star Wars kids are going to take their turn leading America. Are they ready? Rob Stam rode the wave of the last two bubbles economies, with luxury houses, cars and toys before he was thirty years old. He lost it all in bankruptcy court and became a cautionary tale of easy times and easy credit. He learned the hard way that the values and way of life of his grandparents are timeless truths that made America great. In Almost Our Time he argues that Generation X is assuming leadership of a very different country than the one they grew up in. Even so, if the Star Wars generation will learn and apply classic American principles they can defeat the "Debt Star" and other real world problems and pass on a better nation to their children.

Almost Our Time: Generation X Takes On America's Challenges

Business & Money

Smith, Greg

Stam, Rob

Economics

Black Lake Press

Some people always get job offers, they never get laid off during lean times and if they are self-employed they always have a full pipeline of clients. What's their secret? In his new book, In Demand: How to Get Hired, Develop a Career and Always be Successful, Bill Van Steenis offers practical advice about being a valuable player in the business world. He explores the personalities and practices of the workers and contractors that have their pick of jobs and projects. He shows how they understand and respond to the market for their work, and why they are always the most highly sought after people in the labor pool. Follow his sometimes tough, sometimes tender but always useful advice and become In Demand.

In Demand: How to Get Hired, Develop Your Career and Always be Successful

Steenis, Bill Van

Job Hunting & Careers

God is waiting for his people to pray. But the contemporary Western Church is blighted by a prayer famine. It is plagued with dry eyes, few tears and no fire in the gut. Conversation with God ought to be a part of the natural rhythm of our lives, like eating or sleeping, yet we have neglected this most basic need. Our churches have kept us so busy with activities, carefully-crafted music presentations and non-offensive preaching that we are often too tired to pray, and impatient when we do. As a result, altars are vacant, church members come in and go out the same, the local culture remains unchanged. Dale Van Steenis calls us to recapture our energy and excitement, to catch our "second wind" in prayer. God still answers. He said he would. Whenever God's people have turned to him in prayer, they have been heard.

Heard: The Power and Promise of Christian Prayer

Religion & Spirituality

Van Steenis, Dale

Christian Books & Bibles

A complete workbook for the youth baseball coach (for players ages 4-18). Featuring drills, practice plans, team management, and fun ideas to keep things sharp and fresh.

Coaching the Little Boys of Summer: Fathers, Sons, and the Experience of Youth Baseball

Sports & Outdoors

Van Huis, Jeff

Coaching

Think or Sink is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when people don’t work together effectively, and a hopeful one about what they can accomplish when they do. Think or Sink sets a stage that may occur multiple times every day in companies and organizations around the world. The headquarters of a major corporation sends a request for proposal to three of its regional branch managers. The company has won a major contract, and one branch will get the new business, while the other two will be downsized. Each regional management team has six months to prepare a presentation that will determine the next chapter of their careers. The teams in Phoenix, Atlanta and Indianapolis illustrate that the quality of the ideas we generate, and the buy-in we build for those ideas, is rooted in the way we think and work together. Think or Sink provides an opportunity to consider, compare, and choose a leadership style very likely to help you achieve sustainable gains over the long term – a leadership style driven by good thinking. Dysfunction is an all-too-often used word to describe social and political speed bumps and road blocks in the workplace. It means a thing not functioning properly, or not functioning in a way that would achieve its purpose. Dysfunction in the work place is waste. Think or Sink presents structured, deliberate collaboration as the primary strategy to reduce/eliminate dysfunction. Collaboration can be so much more than just assembling as a team to do work. Think or Sink is intended to be a rallying cry for better collaborators, better leaders, and better employees. The goal of Think or Sink, and the rest of my Good Thinking series to be completed by early 2011, is to provide the approach and tools to help minimize the waste/dysfunction in workplaces. I am hoping Think or Sink will serve as a call to action for many employees and leaders who really want to improve their workplaces.

Think or Sink: A Parable of Collaboration

Canfield, John

Management & Leadership

Idea generating skills are crucial to an organization’s success. They are the stepping stones to decisions and support. Implemented well, the ideas are transformed into improved business performance. Considering that you cannot realize what you cannot imagine, your ability to realize improved ideas can differentiate you from your competitors. Considering that you cannot will yourself a new idea, your ability to purposefully imagine improved ideas on demand can differentiate you from your competitors.

Imagine: Ideation Skills for Improvement and Innovation Today

'Lost in the Pages' suggests that God does not have plans for our lives–he is telling stories. Like stories, our lives are full of conflicts and surprise plot twists. Like characters in a novel, none of us knows what is going to happen next, or why. We do not know whether we are on page three or three hundred. We are lost, not only on the pages of our little stories, but somewhere upon the pages of the Big Story that the Author is telling through the cosmos. If we are characters in a story God is telling, then how should we live? Lost in the Pages asks what it means to live as a character. How do we make sense of our lives? Why are they so hard, and joy so elusive? What does it mean to live in the present tense? Are we free to choose, or have our futures already been written? Can we talk to the Author? And how will our stories end? 'Lost in the Pages' is a call to hear the tale of the protagonist of all our tales: the Author-made-character who promises a never-ending story to those will believe it, and follow him.

Lost in the Pages: A Character's View of Life

GREG SMITH

Collaboration can be so much more than just assembling as a team to do work. Collaboration done well builds decisions better than anyone expected, supported enthusiastically by all of the team’s members. Opinions are substantiated by data. Goals are developed and documented by the team. The team generates, considers, selects, and implements its own decisions. There is lots of conversation, lots of wall charts, lots of productive learning. Team performance improves, and improved team morale follows quickly. The Good Thinking Series of books can help you learn that you don’t have to be captive to personal agendas or corporate dysfunction. We can understand why our meetings are frustrating, why our projects don’t turn out like we expected, and why our goals are just beyond our grasp. We can understand why our teams seem to achieve less than the sum of the team members’ abilities. We can recognize unhealthy expectations, ineffective thought patterns, and unproductive communication styles.

Collaborate: Tools and Techniques for Productive Meetings

Processes & Infrastructure

For the Christian in science, the centrality of faith, gives coherence to reality. A Christian apologist can identify multiple strands of evidence for the the truth claims of Christianity. While any one of these might be objected to, woven together like a rope they are strong enough to resolve the conflict between the objective and the subjective, faith and reason. Kenell Touryan weaves together evidence for the Christian worldview drawn from the physical world, human nature, history and archeology, Scripture, and the truth residual in the hearts of all humans. He reminds us of the essential unity of faith and reason, calling to mind Albert Einstein’s statement that, “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”

A Cord of Multiple Strands: An Evidence-Based Assessment of Christian Truth Claims

Touryan Ph.D., Kenell J.

Religious Studies

NOTE: This is the small group, companion workbook for "Heard: The Power and Promise of Christian Prayer." It divides the material in "Heard" into six study sessions, each containing a mix of fill-in-the-blank and questions for individual reflection and group discussion. DESCRIPTION OF "HEARD:" God is waiting for his people to pray. But the contemporary Western Church is blighted by a prayer famine. It is plagued with dry eyes, few tears and no fire in the gut. Conversation with God ought to be a part of the natural rhythm of our lives, like eating or sleeping, yet we have neglected this most basic need. Our churches have kept us so busy with activities, carefully-crafted music presentations and non-offensive preaching that we are often too tired to pray, and impatient when we do. As a result, altars are vacant, church members come in and go out the same, the local culture remains unchanged.    Dale Van Steenis calls us to recapture our energy and excitement, to catch our "second wind" in prayer. God still answers. He said he would. Whenever God's people have turned to him in prayer, they have been heard.

Heard: Small Group Workbook: The Power and Promise of Christian Prayer

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