What are you reading, Frank Scotti?

So you were expecting a title about the latest in management, finance, or investing when you saw my name this month – right? Perhaps some recent best-sellers like Value: The Four Cornerstones of Corporate Finance, by Richard Dobbs, or perhaps The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Success Growth, by Clayton M. Christensen. Your reaction would be largely accurate as I do enjoy the latest books on leadership, managing change in organizations, and personal and global issues regarding finance. However, the current book I am reading centers on faith and spiritual development. It is entitled Experiencing God, by Henry and Richard Blackaby. This father and son team answers the question of how becoming a Christian should truly revolutionize our lives.

My wife and I are involved in a Life Group from our church that is walking through the book together. We have found it engaging and thought-provoking, easy to read, but not a book that avoids some of the tougher questions we all need to face about being true followers of Jesus Christ. Experiencing God defines what doing God’s will really means, and how sacrificial living and a servant’s heart are needed to truly fulfill our calling. At the core of the book is the foundational requirement that each of us develop a love relationship with God first, before He can begin to use us in the manners He intended. Once the basics of the relationship are established, the authors explain how God reveals himself to us through the bible, prayer, life circumstances, the church, our workplace, and more. As I finished each chapter I found myself asking what adjustments I needed to make in my life to obediently join God in His work.

I recommend Experiencing God to believers at all stages of development in their faith. It is not a book for non-believers as a prerequisite to understanding and utilizing its recommendations is that the reader has accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. It is however, a book that challenges its readers to not settle for practicing sterile religion in church on Sundays, but to enjoy a growing, vibrant personal relationship with the living God. Certainly easier said than done, but what type of legacy are we really trying to leave on this earth?

I really enjoy reading and like to change things up a bit from one book to the next. Targets I have my eye on for future reading include Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World, by Michael Cusumano, and Your Money or Your Life: A Lifetime Approach to Money Management, by Robert Aliber. I am also interested in another of Richard Blackaby’s books entitled Unlimiting God: Increasing Your Capacity to Experience the Divine.

Frank Scotti is Vice President of Business and Finance and has been with HIU for 8 months.

Experiencing God by Henry and Richard Blackaby. B&H Books; Rev Exp edition (September 1, 2008). 368 pp.

This book can be purchased from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Better World Books, and ordered through the HIU Bookstore.

This book is also available to borrow from the HIU Library.