Six Hours One Friday

 

Issue No. 601 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (March 29, 2024) suggests an Easter Weekend book from Max Lucado, who says he “writes books for people who don’t read books.” Plus, click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets.   This Easter weekend, I'm rereading Max Lucado's book, Six Hours One Friday. This gem is in my "WHAM! Bucket" (a new category today!).   WHAM! “You make mistakes. God doesn’t.” Occasionally…you discover a book that interrupts your routine page-turning. Wham! More than three decades ago, I was about half-way through the book, Inside Out, by Larry Crabb (1944-2021)—and it stopped me in my tracks. Wham! I closed the book—stunned. I’ll never forget that moment. (Last Sunday, I mentioned this to our granddaughter, Emelia, and I gave her my book. In God’s timing, I hope she’ll read it.) Max Lucado is another “Wham!” author. During Easter Week in 1990, I read this prolific author’s fourth book. His capacity to flesh out and fresh out insights that touch both my heart and my mind—extraordinary! Six Hours One Friday:  Living the Power of the Cross by Max Lucado This Easter weekend, I’m rereading Six Hours One Friday. Here’s a holy taste: “Those six hours were no normal six hours. They were the most critical hours in history. For during those six hours on that Friday, God embedded in the earth three anchor points sturdy enough to withstand any hurricane. “ANCHOR POINT #1—My life is not futile. This rock secures the hull of your heart. Its sole function is to give you something which you can grip when facing the surging tides of futility and relativism. It’s a firm grasp on the conviction that there is truth. Someone is in control and I have a purpose. “ANCHOR POINT #2—My failures are not final. It’s not that he loves what you did, but he loves who you are. You are his. The one who has the right to condemn you provided the way to acquit you. You make mistakes. God doesn’t. And he made you. “ANCHOR POINT #3—My death is not final. There is one more stone to which you should tie. It’s large. It’s round. And it’s heavy. It blocked the door of a grave. It wasn’t big enough, though. The tomb that it sealed was the tomb of a transient. He only went in to prove he could come out. And on the way out he took the stone with him and turned it into an anchor point." Max Lucado adds, “He dropped it deep into the uncharted waters of death. Tie to his rock and the typhoon of the tomb becomes a spring breeze on Easter Sunday.” This profound book—with heart-touching stories of his family and memorable pastoral moments—connects three anchor points of the cross with our everyday obstacles: Futility, Failure, and Finality. Wham! Wham! Wham! (This outline will preach!) WHAM! “…if you ever want to know how to conduct yourself at a funeral, don’t look to Jesus for an example. He interrupted each one he ever attended.” WHAM! “Has it been a while since you let God surprise you? It’s easy to reach the point where we have God figured out.” WHAM! “Had the centurion not said it, the soldiers would have. Had the centurion not said it, the rocks would have—as would have the angels, the stars, even the demons. But he did say it. It fell to a nameless foreigner to state what they all knew. ’Surely this man was the Son of God.’”   To order from Amazon, click on the title for Six Hours One Friday: Living the Power of the Cross, by Max Lucado. Listen on Libro (3 hours, 54 minutes).     YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Ready for a deep dive into the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection? Read the new book, On the Resurrection, Volume 1: Evidences, from the noted apologetics professor, Gary R. Habermas. (Warning! The book is 1,072 pages!) Prefer something shorter? Read my short review of Is God Real? by Lee Strobel. QUESTION: What book “WHAMMED” you recently? 2) Max Lucado has written more than 40 books. Read these books also this creative author/storyteller: Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear and Cure for the Common Life. QUESTION: What books have you read more than once—and why?        Mastering 100 Must-Read Books Part 13: In Search of Global Perspectives Book #71 of 100: Myself and Other More Important Matters For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #71 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.  Myself and Other More Important Matters by Charles Handy Books #71 through #76 spotlight six fascinating looks at diverse cultures—in search of global perspectives. You’ll be shocked—and educated—when you discover that Britain had no books on management in the 1950s (none). And no business schools until Charles Handy co-founded the London Business School in 1967 (after a year at MIT’s Sloan). “Business…was long seen by the British as a lower status occupation, definitely inferior to the armed services.”     • Read my review.     • Order from Amazon: Myself and Other More Important Matters     • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson). While paradigm-changing concepts like the shamrock organization, the sigmoid curve, “doughnuts,” and the “portfolio worker” elevated Charles Handy to management guru status, his humility is remarkable. He said that Peter Drucker “once quipped that journalists only came up with the word [guru] because ‘charlatan’ was too long for a headline.” Handy has written 20 books, including his classics Understanding Organizations, The Future of Work, Gods of Management, The Age of Unreason, and The Hungry Spirit. While this book is autobiographical, his professor/consultant bent pops out on every page.   CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN           Visit The Shroud of Turin: An Immersive Experience (Garden Grove, Calif.)   Read my "review" of visiting this extraordinary museum. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon. 4 CONFESSIONS Confession! Sadly, I had never read a book on neurodiversity until last week. I urge you to inspire someone in your organization to read The Neurodiversity Edge: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization, by Maureen Dunne. Read my review.