Visioneering/ The Dirt on Learning

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of my readers are having a great day today.
My sister and brother-in-law found out they are having a baby girl! Everyone in our family is so very excited! She's due in May I believe. Jake put the sonogram pictures on his blog risefromyourslumber.blogspot.com. She looks beautiful already, just like her mommy. I am very confident that Jake will be a wonderful dad and Angie will be a wonderful mom. I love them all very dearly! Congrats Jake and Angie!
I've started on some reading projects now. I hope to blog about them along the way. One of them is called The Dirt on Learning. It is by Thom and Joani Schultz. They both are producers for Group Publishing. They produce Christian Education materials. In The Dirt on Learning they use Jesus' parable of the Sower as a paradigm for Christian Education. They propose that teachers engage their students in the learning process. It is a very good book. I'll update more about the book as I read more and more of it. So far I've just read the introduction and chapter one. In this chapter they encourage teaching that is interactive and that the real quest of teaching is that your students learn and retain the information that you want them to learn. Very good stuff!
The second book I'm reading is called Visoneering by Andy Stanley. In this book Stanley talks about developing a vision and then helps us develop steps that makes the way to accomplishing the vision. I've read the introduction and the first chapter in this book as well.
In the Intro part of the book Stanley defines Visioneering as ".. the course one follows to make dreams a reality. It is the process whereby ideas and convictions take on substance". A very good definition, I must say. He develops a mathmatical solution to it as well. Visioneering= Inspiration+ Conviction+ Action+ Determination+ Completion.
In this book Stanley uses principles from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. Through out the book he puts forth twenty building block principles to help us develop a vision and visioneering. The first 3 are in the first chapter. The first one is that a vision begins as a concern. Nehemiah was in captivity when he heard about the crisis in his homeland and it broke his heart.
The second building block is that a vision doesn't necessarily require immediate action.
He goes on to say that we must wait before taking action for two reasons. Firstly because the vision matures us. As stated before, visions begin as concerns and burdens. We need to wait it out to make sure what was a problem to us yesterday is still that today, tomorrow, the next day, and so forth. And the second reason is because we mature in preparation for the vision. I've heard before that God doesn't call the equiped, He equipes the called. That is certainly the case with this reason. With a great task must come great preparation. "God has to grow us into our vision" as Stanley says.
The third reason is that God is at work behind the scenes preparing the way. While Nehemiah was in captivity in Babylone, God was behind the scences clearing the way for Nehemiah to go and make right what was done in his homeland.
Lastly, Stanley talks about two ways we can conclude between what is just our ideas and what are God's plans for us. The first is a God-ordained vision will eventually feel like a moral imperative. We will eventually feel compelled to take action on what is troubleing us.
The second is a God-given vision will be in line with what He is already doing in the world.
I'm looking forward to writing about these two books. Please go out and get them. I shouldn't write so much about the books's contents so please buy them and read them. I certainly hope and pray they will help you all out as much as they are helping me.
Guess that is all for now. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack