My book "Leaving Your Mark..." comes out November 11! Here's some info ...

Published: Thu, 10/25/18

(This is the latest copy of the book cover design. We're still tweaking the subtitle, and as you can see, we're hoping to get a good endorsement to use at the top.)

What's in this email:

1. Book launch ... and you're invited!

2. Want to be part of the launch team?

3. What's this book about anyway? (an overview and table of contents)

1. Book Launch ... and you're invited!

We're making the book available on November 11, and would love you to join us for our book launch party! If you're in Chicago, you can join us either at Loop Church on Sunday morning at 10am for a special brunch service, where I'll be offering teaching that morning from the book, and will make book copies available.

Otherwise, come to Trinity Christian College on Sunday afternoon at 3:30pm for our book launch party! We'll offer some snacks, and you'll hear from me, and hopefully one of the editors and the book designer. I'll tell the story of how the book came to be, and you'll get a chance to get copies there.

We're also planning to do a Facebook Live stream of my talk at this event, starting at 3:45pm.

If you're interested in joining us for any of the in-person events, please let me know by responding to this email.

NOVEMBER 11

10:00am -- Loop Church (11 E Adams St, Chicago, IL)

3:00pm -- Trinity Christian College (6601 W College Dr, Palos Heights, IL)

2. Want to be part of the Launch Team?

Would you like to be part of this launch ... and help connect your friends to a resource that can be a great help to them? Would you like to get your hands on a free, advanced copy of the book? Do you have a circle of friends -- online or in a personal network -- who could use the message of this book? I'd love to work with you in getting the message out!

What book launch team members do:

Read the advanced copy of the book they're sent
Write about it on their blog or social media feed
Share it with friends in their church or other organization
Write a review of the book for amazon.com, posted on amazon on the day of release (Nov 11)

What launch team members will get:

Free, advanced copy of the book ... sent in the next few days
The chance to get their questions about the book answered by me via email or phone call
The chance to be part of a good work to help make a difference in the world

If you are interested in being part of the launch team for this book, please let me know by responding to this email. Thanks!

3. What's this book about anyway?

The book title: Leaving Your Mark Without Losing Your Mind

The subtitle: Overcoming seven obstacles to doing the important work of your life

The book is all about helping people to find better ways of doing the important work of their lives -- the works of service, or ministry that they were put on earth to do. It's organized around seven roadblocks ... seven things that get in the way of our service to others. Each of these seven sections is broken down into separate chapters.

Section 1 - Losing touch with what you really care about and are committed to doing
1.1 Leaving Your Mark in the World
1.2 The Spiritual Longing for Significance
1.3 There Are Powerful Forces Keeping Us Stuck in the Status Quo
1.4 Many of Us Go Through Life Like We’re Asleep
1.5 Taking the Long-Term View
1.6 Write This Down

Section 2 - Getting overwhelmed by the needs you encounter
2.1 Reaching Down and Falling In
2.2 Setting Up a Shield
2.3 Not Every Need Is Yours to Meet
2.4 Not Everybody Wants Your Help
2.5 You Can’t Give It If You Don’t Have It
2.6 Don’t Do Things for Others That They Can Do for Themselves
2.7 Next Steps

Section 3 - Living with confusion about Divine guidance and empowerment
3.1 Overwhelmed by Spiritual Confusion
3.2 How We Make This Harder Than It Needs to Be
3.3 The Divine Plan Is Not a Mystery
3.4 The Path of Discernment
3.5 Next Steps: A Process for Personal Discernment
3.6 Next Steps: Discerning Divine Guidance for Churches, Governing Boards, and Spiritual Communities

Section 4 - Struggling with not having enough time
4.1 I Know I’m Too Busy, but Why?
4.2 Is Time Really the Issue?
4.3 Why We’re Surprised About How We Use Our Time
4.4 The Problem Beneath the Problem
4.5 Learning to Ride the Waves Instead of Being Beaten Up by Them
4.6 Other People Can Be Helpful With This, But Often They’re Not
4. 7 You Are Responsible For Your Own Self-care
4.8 Next Steps

Section 5 - Getting burned out by high levels of stress and anxiety
5.1 It’s Just Too Much
5.2 Stress Is Destructive When It’s Chronic
5.3 You Can’t Offer Spiritual Help When You’re Stressed Out and Anxious
5.4 Antidote 1: Focus on What You Can Actually Do Something About
5.5 Antidote 2: Focus on Today
5.6 Antidote 3: Focus on Creating a Rhythm to Your Life

Section 6 - Feeling disheartened by conflicts and difficult people
6.1 The People Side Is Hard!
6.2 Save Yourself From Pain by Understanding Systems
6.3 Save Yourself From Pain by Honoring Structures
6.4 Insights from One of the Greatest Community Builders of All Time
6.5 Make Harmony Your Goal, Not Unity
6.6 Spiritual Communities Are No Better at Processing Conflict … and They Might Even Be Worse
6.7 Get Real about Human Nature and Save Yourself A Lot of Pain
6.8 Next Steps

Section 7 - Getting discouraged and losing heart
7.1 Facing Discouragement
7.2 How Do You Measure Success? Can You?
7.3 Faithful vs. Successful
7.4 Most of What Discourages You Is Beyond Your Control Anyway
7.5 Five Things to Do to Deal With Discouragement

A couple points to keep in mind:

The book is fairly long -- it's coming in a little over 300 pages. But I assume that people won't read every part of it ... they'll read the section(s) that apply specifically to them.
The book is written from my perspective as a Christian, and as a leader of Christian organizations. It has quite a lot of Bible verses in it, and talks about challenges of doing ministry in churches. I think this book would be very helpful for church staffs, leadership boards, and groups of volunteers in churches to read and talk about together.
That said, I also think it would be helpful for people outside of church contexts. I've tried to keep it open and relevant to people who are not church goers, knowing that the issues it deals with are things that everybody deals with. As long as someone is not hostile to the Bible or Christianity, they'll find a lot of good, helpful stuff in this book.