change

Managing Change and Transition
$19.95
This book came in really handy for my dissertation on change management. Very straight forward.

The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive
$24.95
Another valuable contribution from the Fullan collection.Always nice to receive a new quality second hand hardback version promptly and efficiently!
thank you.

How People Change
$17.99
Although I had high expectations when I purchased How People Change, the book turned out to be even better than I expected. In the first few chapters, the authors earned my respect as men who are committed to the power of the gospel to change lives and who are familiar with the human heart, both from their own experience and from counseling others. The first five chapters lay the groundwork for the model of change that is presented in the remaining chapters. Lane and Tripp work hard to help the reader see that the Christian faith is immensely more than just a "get out of Hell free" card. Rather, the gospel is the power of God for our present life, and union with Christ is both how we receive that power and the purpose for which the power is given.

After these introductory chapters, the book moves to a series of chapters that explain a framework for understanding and pursuing change. The basic model is Heat -> Thorns -> Cross -> Fruit -> (repeat). The model focuses on getting to the heart issues that our external sins grow out of and then points to Christ and the sacrifice for our sin and the source of the grace we need to live out the life that God calls us to.

I have found this model presented in How People Change to be quite helpful for several reasons:
1. It recognizes that the circumstances of life are not the cause of my sin. I am. That helps me stop ignoring it or making excuses for it.
2. It pushes me to look at my heart, not just the external behaviors that I want or need to change.
3. It looks to Christ as the one true solution. I cannot change myself but must cast myself upon the One who can.
4. It frees me to live differently by dwelling in the gospel rather than by do-more-try-harder.
5. It recognizes that failure is part of the process and gives me hope that God will use my sin to show me what's in my heart so I can put it to death by the Spirit and become more like Christ. I can own my sin without feeling like I should be "past it".


The book itself is particularly strong in having many presumably real-world (at least, believable) examples of how people might deal with all of the different issues that are brought up. The numerous examples help illustrate how the concepts being presented might work out in real life and thus lend credibility to the ideas.

The other strength of the book that I really appreciated is its wide use of extended quotations from Scripture. Lane and Tripp don't just sprinkle in proof texts to back up their ideas. Rather, they take whole passages, quote the passage right in the text (not just a citation that probably few will actually look up), and walk through it to see how it develops or illustrates what they are addressing. These extended quotes do not include verse numbers within the quote, so it takes some work to figure out what part of the text they are referring to, but as a whole, I think that this approach to teaching is excellent.

One potential weakness of the book is that in focusing on sin that arises out of the circumstances of life, it can miss our many sins of omission--things that we fail to do as we settle into a comfortable, complacent lifestyle. Much of the work is directed inward, so there is little emphasis given to the outward momentum of the renovated heart. Still, if we are diligent to hold the mirror of Scripture to ourselves, I think that these sins will be brought to light where we can address them at the heart level as suggested in the book.

How People Change is an outstanding resource that I would heartily recommend to any believer who desires to see real heart change and who wants to help others do the same. I can easily imagine it being used for small-group study as well.

The Glow Of Love
$0.99