Organizations Books

This book and the other three in the series will give you a new appreciation for hymns that you probably learned a few years ago. Besides background on the hymn, the authors have also supplied a CD with a nice choral arrangement of each song. The art work, print quality, and music is all excellent.

I am listening to my copy of the CD as I order three more copies of this fabulous book and CD to give away. What a deal! Easter is only a week away and the hymns in it are most appropriate to express our joy at Christ's redeeming work on the Cross and His glorious resurrection. Today's modern "worship" music can NEVER compare to rich and beautiful hymns of better days.

I heard about this series of three books with their accompanying CDs from from a radio interview with Joni. She was expressing concern over how Christian music is losing its depth of meaning and its doctrinal reinforcement.

Joni has succeeded in selecting and rendering some of Christendoms most relevant hymns to encourage and edify the Church and the Lord jesus Christ. The reader/listener will find him or herself elevated and singing along with these classic hymns (words and music are included in the book). If you have never been moved to tears over a hymn, these renditions may do it!

"What Wondrous Love Is This" captures in a very powerful and moving way what Christ has done for mankind.

Vocals range from solos to choral music accompanied by the humble piano or full orchestra. The tone is not loud or brash. Joni's humble character comes through in the way the book was designed and the way the music is performed.

I highly recommend adding all three books in the series to your library. I give copies away to encourage others spiritually.

Class collection of data and analysis regarding the (very limited) utility of lecturing for achieving educational objectives beyond information transfer. Do you want to change attitudes, or teach skills, or impart enthusiasm or curiosity? Don't lecture.

When this book was first published in 1971, the first edition sold out in ten weeks. Long regarded as a classic on the topic of lecturing, this book is an indispensable manual for anyone who aspires to be a skilled lecturer and teacher. It examines the nature of teaching and learning in a classroom lecture-describing how students learn, how much knowledge they retain, and how to enhance their attention and motivation.

Bligh offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making lectures more engaging and effective. Topics include taking notes, using handouts, practising different formats and styles, obtaining feedback, overcoming difficulties, evaluating the lecture, and testing alternative methods when lecturing is not adequate.

Written in an accessible and helpful style, this very readable book is a source of great insight for people who lecture-experienced or not. Teachers at every level will find straightforward and detailed practical advice to help improve their lectures. However, the author reminds us that, like musical composition and performance, lecturing is an art. Skill is acquired by practice rather than by reading books. Yet just as the budding composer may wish to study forms of composition known to have been successful, but later disregard them, so new lecturers may wish it worthwhile to consider the findings of research into lecturing before developing their own style.

Donald A. Bligh was a pioneer in university staff development when he joined London University's Teaching Methods Unit in 1970. He was the first professor and director of continuing education at the University of Dundee (1985-1989) and is now honorary research fellow in computer science at Exeter University.

BOOK REVIEW: What's the Use of Lectures? by Donald Bligh. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
The following review is from from "Teaching Concerns" by Dustin Kidd

First, some disappointing news for those of us who lecture: lectures are ineffective, as compared to other teaching methods, for teaching values, inspiring interest, developing personalities, or instilling behavioral skills. So why lecture? That's the central question in Donald Bligh's What's the Use of Lectures? The answer seems simple enough: "Use lectures to teach information. Do not rely on them to promote thought, change attitudes, or develop behavioral skills if you can help it" (20). The logical question to ask next is "How can a lecture best teach information?"

Bligh offers eight principles to follow for using lectures to teach information.

Make the lecture meaningful to the students. Lectures are easier to comprehend when they connect with students' everyday realities.
Use "whole learning" to teach understanding and "part learning" to teach specific information. In my course on American society and popular culture, I open each lecture by asking students to think sociologically about the topic at hand and to identify important sociological research questions ("whole learning"). I then move to "part learning" as I teach the specific findings of research that has been conducted in particular areas.
Organize the subject. Summaries, overviews, and concept maps (a technique you can learn more about at the TRC) can provide an overarching narrative for each lecture. The syllabus and the construction of exams, papers, and assignments provide a similar narrative for the entire semester. This level of organization aids student learning by connecting the specific components of the course together into a comprehensible whole.
Put new information to use swiftly. Quizzes, short papers, discussions, and assignments provide an opportunity for students to put new knowledge to work, thus improving their retention.
Use repetition within lectures. State the key points at the beginning and at the end. Repeat the definitions of concepts and important conclusions often.
Frequently provide feedback on learning. Students learn better when they know how to evaluate their own progress. Testing knowledge early and often improves student learning.
Keep students alert. (Poor posture indicates low student attention.) Mix up visual and auditory stimulation. Provide an element of novelty in each lecture. Interject your lecture with "change-ups" that will energize your students' attention spans (see "The `Change-Up': A Good Pitch to Have in Your Teaching Repertoire." http://trc.virginia.edu/tc/1997/ChangeUp.htm)
Connect new concepts to previous lectures. By drawing on previous knowledge to teach new information, you reinforce the earlier concept while making the new information easier to learn.
What's the Use of Lectures? supports these claims with a wide array of research from the classroom. The book also provides extensive suggestions for addressing these areas in very specific ways-from methods for teaching note-taking to your students, to tips on effective use of handouts. Whatever your academic field, this book is a gold mine of resources for achieving our goal as lecturers to teach knowledge and understanding

This book is a must read for anyone with an inquiring mind. Kuhn conclusively documents that the sublime wisdom embodied in Greek myth and Bible allegory is still not interpreted correctly by the western mind. As such, it will prove to be the weightiest psychological indictment of ignorance that history will present against the Christian civilization of this age. Indeed it is the root cause of conflict within and between societies - causing an unwarranted schism between conservatives and progressives.

He documents the source of the NT typology and allegory as being derived from ancient Egyptian systematization - the formulation for the individual of the virtuous and divine temple steps for the soul; to understand and apply to beome a creative worthwhile consciousness. His methodology evidences the real ancestral lineage of the OT and NT mythologies and he does this superbly well in tracing the image sources. He initially describes it as "revamped and terribly multilated Egyptianism" but recognizes there is much deeper layer of developed sentient meaning to be gleaned from the co-linking of scripture allegories, once perceived - that at least matches if not surpassing the original increment of the ancient mythologies. The co-linking of allegories provides conclusive evidence of layered sophisticated meaning. He starts by stating that Christianity must acknowledge its parentage in a pagan (called ancient primitive) past and that only by such recognition and regaining of its parentage will the sublime be comprehended - its true nobler splendor. Convincingly, he traces the Egyptian Jesus, Egyptian Lazarus, Egyptian Bethany, and the two Egyptian Maries. Egypt knelt at the shrine of the Madonna and child, Isis and Horus and Egypt had long known Jesus, Iusa - born of immaculate parenthood, circumcised, baptized, tempted, glorified on the mount, persecuted, resurrected, and elevated to heaven. Egypt had listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and the Sayings of Iusa for ages. But Egypt's Christ was not a living person and neither was it historicized in Judean times - but exists at all times. In other words the Gospels "life" of Jesus turns out to be out to be nothing but the garbled and fragmentary copy of the Egyptian and other prototypes, never lived. But the light of Egypt Occidental religion can now find its way from medieval darkness to sunlit truth. The Dark Ages can now be brought to their dismal end means there is more to the later-day allegories than former - a way for the construction by the individual of that long sought divinity requires a much greater comprehension of the allegorical methodology.

In stating this Kuhn deeply comprehends that the NT largely replicates and enhances the types in the OT in a particular Hebraic way of thought and that the original stories in form came from early Mediterranean/Eastern sources and that the final culmination and apocalyptic scenes of Revelation point back to and remember OT precedents ("historically" referenced and allegorical conjoined links) and these then become motifs for higher perception of both the virtuous and disreputable psychological elements in all ages at all times. The purveyors of the OT and NT were taking very real but mythological, portrayed precedents and elaborating these with partial "historical" recollections of the elements in all events, to portray the forward and backward steps that living creativity confronts - the divine focused element and systematization of the creative element within each individual - the Christ within - the temple covering of the soul and heart. This is as far removed from the literal and historicized ruse Christianity that we are duped with in the mediums of today. Readers are capable of taking this knowledge much further and seeing the real message in Scriptural writings (yet to be disclosed) if allegorical appreciation is developed. This strictly opposes the static legalism, literalism and deadly indoctrination of the illiterate purveyors of a so-called naïve truth and this opportunity has been more starkly available since the pick struck the Rosetta Stone in 1796. Kuhn has traced original Hebraic meanings and documents that many others have seen the same revelations down the centuries of time - but the poetry of deep allegorical meaning has remained in the hands of a few. The tide has turned. A great read for anyone with an open mind and willing to sing a new higher song of joyful and inspiring eternal hope in divinity - we are yet to revive.

Alvin Boyd Kuhn really gets his facts straight when he reviews Christianity's origins as being not from Palestine, but ancient Egypt! Alvin Boyd Kuhn describes the myths of Egypt and demonstrates the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is a typical savior-type, which was quite common to the ancient mind. His pronouncement that Jesus is non-historical is not presented to destroy Christianity but to unlock the secret meaning and by doing so introduce the reader into the deeper meaning of the Gospels.

This book is not intended for the individual who is content with the common view of a historical Jesus but for the individual who struggles with a faith that seems like an impossibility. I would recommend this book to any theologian or spiritual seeker.

Alvin Kuhn presents an extensively researched study of the origins of Christianity in Egyptian and Greek history and of the tragic efforts of the early church to cover up those origins and to adapt the gospels to the ignorance of the people; people made ignorant by the burning of libraries and closing of universities by that same church. Despite the present day trend toward fundalmentism, I think the educated public is ready for the truth, for a faith that is believable, and for a Cristos that is centered in the heart of the individual. Since this book was written in 1943, most of us would have been deprived of its wealth of knowledge concerning this important aspect of our lives had someone not chosen to have it reprinted. The studies by Egyptologist, Gerald Massey, on whose work Kuhn bases much of this treatise, is now also available and is a work of fact and truth supporting Kuhn's revelation of a corrupt church.

My son graduated college in May and I was able to find great homes for everything he didn't want for his new apartment. Outgrown clothes, room decorations, even his old sports trophies! And I'm now able to transform his old room into my very own exercise retreat!

My grandmother died and mom and I had to deal with all her stuff. A lot of it we couldn't use and didn't want to throw away. WHO NEEDS IT helped us find good homes for grandma's things.

My mom bought this book and used it to clean out our house. I gave away a bunch of old clothes and toys. We gave our stuff to different charities that needed it to do good work. My dad was real happy because he saved some money on taxes. We bought two copies and gave one to our church. This is a real good book.

I love books that help me understand "how to . . ." and the practical explanations and examples provided in this book do exactly that. It gives details and examples that make the concepts very easy to appreciate. The 8-step coaching model is a great, very practical, roadmap for effective coaching.

This is a great follow up to their first book, "Coach: Creating Partnerships for a Competitive Edge".

Great book! It reads easy and keeps you captivated with the side notes, pics, drawings and quotes that add to the content of the book. This kept me interacted with the book.

I would recommend it for people who are looking to greatly improve their management and communication skills. It was good enough that I requested my entire staff team to read through it.

I don't think you can go wrong.

Tim

Note the sub-title; "Be on the Leading Edge with Synergistic Coaching" and you know what is in it for you to read this book. It is a beautiful handbook for leaders, coaches, mentors and learning organizations.

The synergistic approach to coaching is based on core values of: ME = I am, secure, an optimist, a teacher, just. YOU = are valuable, principled, trustworthy, safe. WE = are allies, vulnerable, learners, reliable. If our needs and success are interdependent, then your success (win) is my success (win).

The authors then go on to outline their research based 8-step coaching process that focuses on gaining cooperation, commitment, synergy and success and back it up with success stories.

Very easy to read and very valuable.

Work and Rewards is chock full of useful information. Crandall and Wallace write mainly for organizations that resemble their clients -- corporations that manufacture goods for profit. But I think this book is even of value for non-profits. While obviously helpful for human resource people, this book would be beneficial reading for CEOs, top organizational leaders, and even frontline supervisors.

"The job is dead," the authors declare. "Job" is part of the "old deal" marked by cradle-to-grave security. "The New Deal will require us to act as adults, not children." Employees will be increasingly responsible for acquiring the skills needed by their employers. Narrow job descriptions are already giving way to broader, more flexible skill sets. The authors claim this shift will help organizations run more effectively and will increase worker satisfaction.

Don't be mistaken; Work and Rewards is not a pie-in-the-sky futurists dream. It is based on the real life experiences the authors have had with dozens of clients, including Sony, Corning, and others. Work and Rewards is packed with practical models, steps, outlines, case studies, plans, and formulas. These tools can help organizations evaluate the cost of going virtual, determine what key drivers the organization wants to reward, and how to manage the transition.

I highly recommend Work and Rewards.

Chapters include:

1. Forging a New Compact Between People and Technology
2. Working in the Virtual Workplace
3. Exploring the Virtual Workplace
4. Work Design
5. Skills and Competencies
6. Rewards in the Virtual Workplace
7. The Blended Workforce
8. The Economics of the Virtual Workplace
9. Getting to the New Deal in the Virtual Workplace

"Economic and technological forces have converged in this last decade of the twentieth century to create an entirely new form of business competition. The New Competition", N. Fredric Crandall and Marc J. Wallace, JR. write, "encompasses a global economy and is driven by information rather than product and by time rather than space, creating a revolution in the way we do business...The New Competition has emerged in three parallel developments: (1). Former competitors forming alliances to command the market, (2). New marriages of technology, markets, and opportunity, and (3). The creation of new business entities that replace traditional ones, defining the entire length of a value chain-a form of organization that has been characterized as the virtual organization...The virtual organization requires a virtual workplace. The virtual workplace is a work environment where goods and services are created and delivered joining employees beyond the traditional bounds of time and place. Technology is a foundation for the virtual workplace, creating the means for innovations in working relationship such as teams of people who work together via teleconferencing or transfer work in progress from one venue to the next across time zones to keep work going on a continuous basis."

In this context, in Chapter Six, they examine how the role of rewards and compensation changes when an organization evolves from a traditional to a virtual workplace. Firstly, they define job in a traditional organization and argue: "The job concept served traditional organizations well. Work has been organized in a command-and-conrol bureaucracy characterized by functional specifications and hierarchy. It is a paradigm shaped by early twentieth-century thinking of Max Weber and Frederick W. Taylor, implemented by Henry Ford, and cast in the legislation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s. Unfortunatelly the paradigm no longer serves us because the job has died. Globalization of production and technological revolution have forced us into a post-industrial model for producing goods and services. The work designs of the virtual workplace have forced companies to tear down hierarchy do away with functional specialization, and organize all activities according to entire business processes that cut across traditional departments and occupations."

Hence, they compare traditional and virtual base pay models, and argue that in the new workplace people are paid not for the job they hold but for the role they are expected to play.

I. Base Pay Model in the Traditional Workplace:

1. Unit of analysis: Job

2. Basis for determining value: Job evaluation

3. What pay is for: Work performed

4. Base pay progression: (a). Modest movement within grades to mid-point. Pay is controlled to mid-point. (b). Promotion required for significant advancement.

5. Base pay structure: Many narrow grades, hierarchically arranged.

II. Base Pay Model in the Virtual / New Paradigm Workplace:

1. Unit of analysis: Personal role

2. Basis for determining value: Personal evaluation

3. What is pay for: Capacity to perform

4. Base pay progression: Significant movement from entry rate to target rate based on capacity acquisition.

5. Base pay structure: Few, broad bands

Finally, they define this new paradigm as skill-or-competency-based pay, and argue: " the base pay progression policy that best serves the virtual workplace is skill-or competency-based pay.

I highly recommend.

Like the industrial revolution before it, the Information Age is giving rise to new types of organizations, new ways of working, and new approaches to human resource management. This technology-driven economy, with its virtual realities, is profoundly reshaping the nature of relationships between organizations, as well as between the organization and the individual.

On a macro level, the authors aim to show how a new social contract (New Deal) is developing between individuals and organizations, replacing the traditional employer-employee relationship. Through this virtual revolution, the conflict, as many see and experience it today, between people and technology will be overcome. And free market dynamics make it inevitable that virtual organizations will and must continue emerging.

Moving from the macro to the micro, the authors explore some of the pivotal changes taking place today; changes in the nature of the workplace, the design of work, the use of competencies, the characteristics of reward systems, learning, career opportunities, and staffing. Numerous tables and diagrams, as well as illustrations from company experiences, highlight key points and make the distinctions between traditional and virtual workplaces vivid. There is a lot to be gained from each chapter. Guidelines are presented to help practitioners address their needs for taking action. The authors are also helpful in laying bare serious problems that companies have faced in applying such concepts as skill- or competency-based pay and broad bands which I, as a consultant in organization and compensation, welcome seeing in print. Additionally, the authors present a model to demonstrate the economic value of the virtual workplace. This is an excellent book, impressive in scope and rich in substance.

... and needing 'education' ?
So-called education under the market system of the Almighty Dollar has nothing to do with learning or culture.Its goals are to teach working-class youth to be regimented and obedient to 'superiors' and regurgitate what bosses, big and small want to hear and want to believe�and teach children of the middle class ( degreed professionals ) and of the supperich that they are somewhat better and a lot better than us workers, respectively. Socialist Cuba has lifetime education and a current TV campaign called the University For All.To do this they had to make a revolution. What will it
take for us to unite and fight back as the New Depression begins ? Is it possible for 'regular average everyday working people to take power in the belly of the Imperial Beast ( America ) ? Will we have to change ourselves in this process ?
These are the themes of this excellent pamphlet.

This pamphlet really opened my eyes. I have been all the way through education to a final degree and teach college. However, this little pamphlet tells more about education, real education, than anything I have read before. What is called education in this society is fitting you into the slots that this exploitative, oppressive society has for us, not providing us with knowledge, blaming us for our grades and putting some people in 'good' jobs and some people in bad, all to mask a system that exploits us all to benefit the big business rich? I have been to graduate school and have friends with Ph Ds and hung with several Poet Laureates of the US and people saturated with what this society calls education, but I have coworkers at the bus garage smarter than most of them. This pamphlet explains why this is, and how we can fight for real education. Real education is learning the tools to understand this system, learn to fight, learn to do real things in a real world, real education can come only through mass struggles against this system. Real education can't be separate from work, from life, from struggle. Check out Capitlism's World Disorder, the book this is excerpted from, also sold by Amazon

While these books may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.

This booklet was published during the phony debate between Gore and Bush on "education reform" in the 2000 election campaign. It explains why education cannot be "reformed" under capitalism. Barnes talks about how capitalist education from grade school through college socializes us to become docile worker bees and why we have to unlearn a lot of the junk they teach in school in order to become effective fighters for workers' rights today and for a socialist future.

This set of books was an interesting combination of a history of the author, his actual sermon's, hymns, etc. This recopied and compacted set has all the detail and exactness of the original set, with the minor flaw of a random missing letter in the midddle of the text, intermittently. I have not found this to cause any great difficulty. The set is very informative regarding the thought of early Puritan Christianity. It is also a handsome set and well worth the price. echance

Great Value! These seven volumes are actually fourteen volumes, re-issued as seven, with two "volumes" in each book. These are nicely bound
If you contrast the content in these volumes with Christian books which are enjoying popularity today, you might wonder why you wasted your time on the popular stuff. Wesley changed the English-speaking world, especially the working class. His sermons are awesome. When you read his sermon "Against Evil Speaking," you may find yourself carefully guarding your tongue, and thoughts. Wesley's sermon against bigotry may help you become more tolerant of others -- this from the most prominent teacher and preacher of holiness in modern times.
You'll have to work at some of the reading, but it is well worth the effort. This set of books lends itself well to browsing. You don't have to read huge chunks at a sitting. There is a wide variety of writings in these volumes. You'll get more than your money's worth in pleasure and intellectual/spiritual profit
If you enjoy these books, you would probably enjoy William Wilberforce's "A Practical View of Christianity." Wesley's fans credit him and the Methodist movement (not today's United Methodist Church) with averting the kind of bloody revolution experienced by France. Wilberforce is rightly credited with bringing down slavery in Great Britain. Together, these English giants revived Christianity in the English-speaking world: relying upon the Bible, they showed Christians what God expects of us. If you compare them to the prophets of the Old Testament, you may be amazed at the success of these two Englishmen.

This is a great value for the money! I am a seminary student (and a Methodist), so having John Wesley's works at my finger-tips is a blessing. It is a beautiful set and very affordable.

This book is the most comprehensive and thoughtful text on the subject I have read to date, systematically presenting the vision, arguments for and against it, and practical approaches to making progress towards achieving it. While it is not fully up-to-date with the latest developments in international politics, it is surprisingly relevant - a true classic.

If I had to choose a textbook for a course on world federalism, this would be my runaway choice.

Glossop displays a respect for true discussion of the issue. He outlines the most-often heard criticisms of world federation and offers accurate, informed responses which any American would support and appreciate. This is the leading authority on world federation in many years!

As is the case of the "true believers" of any philosophy, many proponents of a world democratic government display an element of Utopianism. Serious thought gives way to sloganeering. Ronald Glossop is an exception. A dedicated World Federalist, Glossop demonstrates his devotion to the cause is the result of thorough analysis of all points of view, which he presents in this book with unusual fairness and accuracy. His work belongs in the library of every student of international relations, regardless of the reader's viewpoint.

Dr. Marcia McFee's book is one of the most helpful books for anyone looking for concrete ideas about planning, creating and leading worship. From her whirlwind tour of liturgical history (which she deftly uses as a model for thinking about changes in worshipping patterns) to her wonderful exercises to help get the creative juices flowing, this book is a must have for ministers, music ministers, worship committees, liturgists and anyone involved in worship planning. Regardless of your denomination or style of worship, if you are looking for ways to plan worship with a group, to start a new worship service, to evaluate your current worship practices, or simply to create "interactive, intergenerational, interesting and inspirational" worship, McFee's book is the one for you. As a worship leader, planner, and participant, I can tell you I use ideas from this book on a regular basis. If you are ready for more meaningful and memorable worship, pick this book up!

Starting in 2007, I'm officially taking the position of "Worship Coordinator" at my relatively small church (about 100 in attendance on Sunday mornings). So, I decided it would be beneficial to pick up a few books from my local library to get ideas about how to do the job more effectively (I have been part of the worship planning team for some time). This was one of the two books that I got out.

I found this book to be quite helpful in giving me a systematic way (actually a multi-systematic way!) of thinking about worship. McFee develops several easy to remember formulae for what needs to be considered when designing worship. At times, the format was somewhat frustrating to me, but that was because I was using it in a fashion other than what it was designed for. I was just reading it.

So, what is the book designed to do? As should be relatively obvious from the title, it is (primarily) designed to equip you to run a worship workshop for those involved with worship planning in your congregation. It has great worksheets and activities to be used for getting the creative energies flowing so that worship can be designed in a way that allows everyone to worship God and glorify Him in a sincere manner. Though I have not (yet) used the book in this way, I did find it to be filled with ideas that I could use (or at least consider) even without running a workshop.

A couple final notes:

1) It seems that Marcia McFee is coming from a "mid-to-high" church background. (I'm guessing one of the higher-church UMC congregations, though I'm not certain.) So, if you're coming from a more contemporary setting, then some of her suggestions may feel strange. However, the overall principles are certainly applicable.

2) BUT, if you're looking for a book that is about the philosophy or theology of worship, then look somewhere else. McFee's book is far more practical. Which, in my case, was exactly what I was looking for.

I would recommend this book for people who are involved with worship planning in some capacity (or Christian artists looking for ways that their abilities can be used to enhance their congregation's worship experience). If you'd like to be involved in worship planning, then talk to whomever does it in your church... odds are good they'll be happy for the help!

Marcia writes to the heart of Church's worship teams on how to plan great worship services that invovles every one that attends your church services.