Book Review: Cracking Your Church's Culture Code

The starting point for this whole book is a quote from Dick Clark - no, not the "it has a good beat, you can dance to it" Dick Clark but instead the head of Merck Pharmaceutical:

"The fact is, culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don't have the culture & the enabling systems, the [negative] culture of the organization will defeat the strategy."

Dr. Chand takes that conceptual idea and expands it into a multifaceted examination of how churches work (and how they don't) in his new book, Cracking Your Church's Culture Code. A great vision for ministry is worthless if the current culture of the church won't support that vision - the author compares it to trying to drive a car from Chicago to London, England... it doesn't matter how much you want to get there, you don't have a vehicle that can make the trip.

One of the strengths of the book is this wide-angle glimpse of how a myriad of factors shape the culture of a church - and Dr. Chand offers wise counsel from years of consulting on how to deal specifically with a number of these issues, from improving communication skills to planning ahead of the stagnation curve.

However, that strength is also a weakness - there is so much information here, presented in 2+ page "nuggets" & loosely organized by theme, that it's difficult to wrap your brain around all that the author is trying to instill in you & in your church.

With that said, I still found the book incredibly useful - esp. in dealing with questions about the nature of the culture of the church I pastor and what actions I can take to continue shaping that culture in order to build an authentic Biblical community. The chapter on "Changing Vehicles" (and Dr. Chand's admonition not to change the vision to suit the messed-up culture) is very convicting.

One note for small church pastors: unlike some church leadership books, the ideas presented here are applicable in our non-mega-church situations. While Dr. Chand uses examples from larger ministries, the principles he suggests are not restricted to big organizations.

Doug Asked a Great Question

On his wonderful (and long-running) podcast, Doug Garrett asked a great question as a part of a contest: "What are the three best new-to-you games from 2010?"

Well, here's my answer.

THE TOP THREE

Tannhauser: Revised Rulebook

When I played the original U.S. release of Tannhauser back in early 2008, I enjoyed the alternate history theme & the Pathfinding board mechanism that makes checking LOS easy... but the rules were kind of a mess, with some real problem areas that begged for serious development. So, even though I knew this was "my kind of game", I was scared away by "good luck, you'll need to house rule ad infinitum to fix this" nature of Tannhauser circa 2008.

So, earlier this year when Fantasy Flight finally announced that they had revised the rules so completely that they were publishing a new rulebook, I sat up & took notice. One math trade later, I had a copy of the game in my hands to go with the aforementioned rules... and Fantasy Flight had a serious customer on their hands. (It's no surprise that the guy who owns every expansion set for Heroscape & Memoir '44 would do the same with Tannhauser.)

Here's what I like about the game: it combines a compelling thematic world (an alternate history universe where the First World War never ended & the armies utilize alien technology harvested from the Roswell crash and occult items harvested a la Raiders of the Lost Ark), a simple combat & line of sight system that makes game play fast-moving, and a wide variety of characters & weapon packs that make each game a different experience. It plays well as a 2 player game... or with multiple players (up to 10) with each person controlling a single character. And it doesn't hurt that it has pre-painted minis - that stuff is like catnip for me.

This is Hellboy (theme) meets Halo (game play)... and it works like a charm.

A Brief History of the World

Much like Tannhauser, I first played the Ragnor Brothers' History of the World in the mid-90s. The experience was a disaster - six new players coupled with the overly wargamer-tinged rules of the original Avalon Hill publication of the game meant it took us nearly four hours to complete two of the seven epochs... and then we abandoned the game.

It was nearly six years later when I received an early prize table pick at a gaming convention and thanks evidently to a whiff of the massive amounts of plastic figures in the box decided to pick up the Hasbro/Avalon Hill edition as my first pick. The game was substantially better than I had remembered - esp. with the revisions that had been made to streamline the design. It became one of those "once a year" games (because of the length... 4-6 hours) though I wanted to play more often.

Fast forward to late 2009 as the Ragnor Brothers announced that they had - nearly 20 years after the first edition was published - once again made some major revisions to their signature game. The early press was positive enough for me to plunk down some hard-earned cash on it - seeing as how I hadn't played my beloved H/AH copy of HOTW in nearly 3 years.

I didn't waste a penny... though I miss the 7 different plastic minis (one type for each epoch) and the shiny capitol/city markers, everything else I love about the game system is still there - and less. It's shorter, leaner & tighter (our six player game this year took 3 1/2 hours with 2 new players)... and there's actually more room in the game for tactical & strategic decision-making while reducing the number of armies on the board. The refining of the empire deck (giving more thematically specific powers to some of the empires) and the costing of the event deck (many events now come with some kind of VP cost to activate) make for an even better game.

I managed to play it 4 times in 2010... and expect to get at least that many plays in 2011.

Gelini Nightlife

A common theme on my list of "best new to me games in 2010" is "games that have been retooled" and Gelini Nightlife is no exception. Tutankhamen was a very early Knizia design (1993) and my one play left me with a headache & a vow never to play again - the BGG description humorously understates that it is "an exercise in numbers that plays quickly, probably 30 minutes tops, and is suitable for youngsters yet susceptible to analysis."

So when Joe Huber poked me via email following Essen 2009 and told me to pick up a copy of Gelini Nightlife, it's a good thing he didn't mention the resemblance to Tutankhamen. But Dr. K. made a really brilliant change to the game that made it one of my favorite games from last year.

He added a die.

Yep, a die. Randomness. In this case, it replaces the tendency towards AP with a need to properly assess probabilities and then go for it. The press-your-luck element in the game (do I use this roll or let the next guy in line take it?) ups the tension and tendency towards lighthearted mid-game banter.

It doesn't hurt that you're collecting gummi bears (Gelini is a German brand) rather than the standard Euro theme of ancient Egyptian symbols. Even better - the gummi bears are headed for a variety of clubs to go dancing... so your objective is to fill your dance floor first. (Note: this is a simplified scoring system compared to the original game.)

There are some "advanced" variant tokens which add some twists to the game - but it works just fine without them. I've played with kids as young as 5 and adult gamers - it's been a success in every setting.

JUST MISSED THE TOP THREE

Yes, I know it's supposed to be three. So sue me.

Fresco

Possibly the best marriage of theme & game mechanisms since Thebes... a worker placement game that doesn't make me want to run screaming from the room. I also like the way the included expansions can vary the complexity without damaging the purity of the base game.

I'm looking forward to the new expansion box - though it's pretty spend-y.

Dungeon Lords

Almost as good as Fresco at mating theme & game mechanisms... and using worker placement in some very creative ways. The game is much more enjoyable if you (a) have a background in fantasy roleplaying and (b) get to read the very, very funny rulebook.

Burger Joint

Joe Huber (he who recommended Gelini Nightlife) also managed to publish a splendid two-player game of restaurant building that uses wooden cubes as a resource in some tricky ways. Burger Joint plays in 30 minutes and keeps showing us new ways to pursue a win.

BTW, I played an earlier prototype of this game some years back - I like the released version MUCH better.

Catacombs

Take the dungeon crawling of Descent: Journeys in the Dark and add the flicking of Carabande... then subtract 3+ hours & voila! you have Catacombs. It's a one hour romp through the catacombs with combat resolved via wooden discs.

I can NOT wait for the expansion.

Would We Hear Dr. King Today?

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

“...there are two types of law: just and unjust...A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out harmony with the moral law...Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.”

And with that quote, James Emery White

poses an important question - would Dr. King be heard today based upon the worldview that underlies his argument?

And there lies the irony; as a culture, we celebrate a man’s Christian convictions that were used to change our culture in the past, while simultaneously rejecting those values as a part of shaping our culture for the future.

Still turning this one over in my mind...

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Eight)

This chapter was esp. challenging to apply to our small church situation... "Making Room at the Top."

• Like most leaders, I love the idea of servant leadership & putting others first, as long as no one actually cuts in front of me or starts treating me like I'm a servant.
• Empowerment without a platform is like responsibility without authority. It's frustrating for everyone involved.
• Titles are powerful platforms that cost nothing to give away except a willingness to share some of your own organizational prestige & power with others.
• Weddings, funerals, baptisms, preaching, & up-front leadership at special events provide significant platforming opportunities.
• When tenure is the primary deteminer of who sits where on the leadership bus, a church is headed for trouble.
• If your leadership team chooses to shut them out, please don't complain when they fly down the street & plant a church that sucks away all the kids, young families, and energetic folks who used to join you for Sunday services.

#83: Jungle Speed

Jungle Speed

• designer: Thomas Vuarchex & Pierrick Yakovenko
• publisher: Asmodee
• date: 1997
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 444/6.80
• position on my top 100 in 2005: #27
• age: 7+
• # of players: 3-8
• print status: in print
• cost: $13.50 (Game Surplus)

Here's what I wrote back in 2005... which still holds true.

In America, "Land of Litigation", no one in their right mind would make a speed game with a HARD plastic stick that can be batted around the room by over-zealous players. Evidently, Germans aren't nearly as worried about "legal entanglements."

Hence, the Arribabaton... thing of beauty & fear. It's the centerpiece of Arriba, a cross between Set (the pattern recognition game, not the ancient Egyptian game) and Spoons. For a game with 80 cards & a stick, there's certainly a lot of injuries. We've had to "time out" the game more than once to bandage players... and I'm not the only person wearing glasses who has stopped the baton with my face. Still, there's nothing quite like snatching the stick cleanly away... or watching 3 people wrestle for control of it. (When we play on the floor, we play that the stick is "in play" no matter what... even if it leaves the circle. Much fun!)

I'm no longer unbeatable at this (there's a dude in our Bible study group who has cat-like reflexes who gives me a run for my money) but it doesn't change how much I enjoy playing it with 4-8 players. (It will, btw, work with 9 or 10 if you're willing to get REAL close to each other in a circle on the floor.)

Arriba is better known in the U.S. as Jungle Speed - and for those who love the game, Asmodee has finally published the expansion (more cards, more craziness!) stateside.

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Seven)

Now that we've taken care of the pastor, it's time to move on to "Clarifying Board & Staff Roles."

• One of the best ways to cut off disharmony & dysfunction at the pass is to clarify board roles & staff roles before someone joins the team - and to make sure that everyone knows that changes in these roles will be unavoidable & necessary as the church grows.
• When a board takes on the role of setting direction & boundaries, it has to release micromanagement & preference management.
• I've found that "You don't listen" often means "You didn't do what I suggested."
• Three key functions of a board: wise counsel, brakes & a crisis team in waiting.
• Specialists who can't become trainers or who aren't willing to become trainers will eventually put a ceiling on the growth of your church or bust your budget.
• Staff members must... transition from focusing primarily on their own ministry area to asking, "What's best for the church as a whole?"
• Fiefdoms & silos might make for strong programming but the price is a sick church.

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Six)

Two things run through my head when I read the title of this chapter, "Clarifying the Pastor's Role"

1. Mmmm... butter.
2. Well, duh, they're the pastor.

Larry has a bit more to say than that:

• Pastors who don't lead, can't lead, or aren't allowed to lead seldom see their church break through growth barriers.
• More often it indicates that they see the pastor as an outsider. And no one who cares a lick about their church is going to hand it over to an outsider.
• Until everyone is convinced that the pastor is as committed to the church's long-term health as they are, they'll tend to resist strong leadership, especially when it threatens to take them in a new direction.
• Even if the founding pastor or a new pastor believes that God has called him to have a long-term commitment, that doesn't mean much if nobody believes it. And many won't, for good reason. Their past experiences tell them not to.
• The pastor can't be a Jekyll-&-Hyde leader, someone who abdicates leadership and then jumps in to micromanage. That guarantees confusion, frustration, and often some rather creative forms of passive aggression.
• I always present first drafts, not final proposals. By this, I don't mean that I offer half-baked ideas or suggestions off the top of my head. My first drafts are carefully thought out and persuasively presented. But I don't confuse them with God's final revealed will. That's something the board, staff, and I will determine together.
• I've found that strong & gifted leaders often confuse leadership with infallibility.
• If I hadn't previously submitted to their decisions that I didn't agree with, there's no way they would have listened to me when I played the "God told me" card. It would have been seen as just another creative ploy to get my own way.

Five & Dime 2010: This Time It's Personal

Here's my own personal Five & Dime list (the games I've played 5+ and 10+ times in 2010). I decided to break it into three categories. (Games with an asterisk [*] were on my Five & Dime list last year.)

Face-to-Face (not predominately with kids)

DIMES

• Race for the Galaxy 229
• Heroscape 29 (23 of those using the D&D sets)
• Memoir '44 25
• Skip-bo 13 *
• Catacombs 12
• Keltis: Der Weg der Steine 11
• Marrakech 10
• Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 10 *

NICKELS

• Gemblo Woodman 9
• Bounce-It-In 8 *
• Burger Joint 8
• Castle Panic 8
• Small World 8 *
• Diamant 7 * (exact same number of times I played it last year!)
• Smarty Party 7
• Tsuro 7
• Alea Iacta Est 6
• The Downfall of Pompeii 6
• Dungeonquest 6 *
• Fast Food Franchise 6
• The Adventurers 5
• Fightball 5
• Qwirkle 5
• Tobago 5

Online (games played versus online players through yucata.de, mastermoves.eu & brettspielwelt.de)

DIMES

• StreetSoccer 21

NICKELS

• Yspahan 6

Kids (played primarily with kids)

DIMES

• Gelini Nightlife 17
• Forbidden Island 13

NICKELS

• Hop Hop Hurray 9 *
• Magic Labyrinth 9
• Walter Wick Can You See What I See? 9 *
• Click Clack 8
• Enuk the Eskimo 7
• Feed the Kitty 7
• Fluch der Mumie 7
• Reiner Knizia's Amazing Flea Circus 7
• Duck, Duck, Bruce 6 *
• Mummy's Treasure 6
• Sorry! - Pokémon 6 *
• Animal Upon Animal 5 *
• Gulo Gulo 5
• Zitternix 5
• Zoff im Huhnerhoff 5 *

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Five)

Nothing say "rewritten leadership talk" like the title "Six Things Every Leadership Team Needs To Know"... but when the quality level is this high, who cares?

1. Ignore your weaknesses.
2. Surveys are a waste of time.
3. Seek permission, not buy-in.
4. Let squeaky wheels squeak.
5. Let dying programs die.
6. Plan in pencil.

And now, the pithy quotes:

• Unless a weakness is potentially fatal, it's usually a waste of time & energy to worry too much about it.
• Surveys (esp. anonymous surveys) seldom give us the accurate information we think we're getting.
• Most people will grant the pastor, board, or staff permission to try something new as long as they don't have to make personal changes or express agreement with the idea.
• If an idea or program is really new & innovative, there will never be enough evidence to "prove" that it will work. After all, it's never been done before.
• Permission not only gets things up & running much faster; it also makes it much easier to close up shop when a great idea proves to be a dumb idea.
• Most squeaky wheels keep right on squeaking, for one simple reason: they don't squeak for a lack of oil; they squeak because it's their nature to squeak.
• Church harmony is inversely related to the amount of time spent oiling squeaky wheels.
• Without a commitment & willingness to cease funding & staffing the programs that no longer work, we'll never have enough money & energy to create the future.
• I do find that we constantly have to remind everyone up front that our budget is a planning tool, not a straitjacket, that it's an estimate, not the law of the Medes & the Persians.
• "Every time a sailor does something stupid & drowns, we make a new regulation." A far better response would be to simply have a funeral for a dumb sailor & to wait until three or four sailors die the same way before rewriting the manual.

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Four)

The chapter entitled "What Game Are We Playing?" is subtitled "how growth changes everything."

• Since I tacked a Bible verse onto everything, any changes I made seemed like a change in my theology & values - and they were resisted as such.
• I knew that despite all the "sin words" that both sides had thrown around ("arrogant," "self-willed," "unaccountable," "not a team player," "boundary queen," and "inflexible," to name a few), the real issue was not sin so much as deep hurt & discomfort that came with our changing organizational dynamics.
• [Note from Mark: I can not recommend Larry's explication of team dynamics/growth using the sports team metaphor highly enough... nor can I condense it down to a few pithy quotes. I won't even try.]
• The need to change the game, as well as the rules of the game, tends to sneak up on leaders & leadership teams because growth exponentially increases complexity. We might think we've only added a couple of new programs or staff members, but in reality, we've multiplied organizational complexity...

The Vault of Walt: Stokowski

I'm putting this extended quote here to:

• show you some of the nifty stuff in this book full of essays on "lost" stories about Walt Disney & the Disney films and parks...
• give my friend, Jonathan, a bit of a birthday present (thought it is inexcusable that I crossed Stravinsky & Stokowski in my memory)

This comes from Jim Korkis' book, The Vault of Walt (available at fine booksellers everywhere!)...

When Leopold Stokowski was recording the music for Walt Disney's Fantasia with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, the complex recording system set up in the basement of the Academy of Music (also known as the American Academy of Music & is the oldest opera house in the United States still used for its original purpose) was declared a fire hazard & work was ordered stopped.

On the advice of friends, Stokowski called Joe Sharfain, then city solicitor for Philadelphia and an ardent music fan. Sharfian quickly withdrew the stop order & recording proceeded. Later, Stokowski expressed his gratitude and asked, "Now, what can I do for you?" Sharfain said jokingly that one of his greatest wishes was to be rich enough to engage Stokowski & the orchestra for a single performance at which he would be the sole audience. (The price at that time would have been at least $100,000.) [Note from Mark: run through an inflation calculator, we're talking $1,441,000+.]

Stokowski asked, "When did you have in mind?" Sharfain answered, "Oh, that's a long time away." Stokowski countered, "How about tomorrow at two o'clock?" The incredulous Sharfain appeared at the side door of the Academy of Music the next afternoon, to be escorted by a deputy of the maestro into the hall, empty except for the orchestra & conductor. The maestro turned to make sure Sharfain was there, raised his arms and conducted for four hours - all the music of Fantasia - just for Joe Sharfain.

Now, Jonathan, if you can just figure out how to make friends with a well-connected conductor... Happy Birthday!

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Three)

Today, I'm re-reading the chapter on "Guarding the Gate" subtitled "No Guts, No Unity."

• Worst of all, once a toxic board member or a troublesome staff member has a seat on the bus, it can take an act of God to get them off.
• The best time to remove a problem player is before they have a place on the team.
• Intentionally keeping the pastor out of the selection process (or worse, putting someone on the board who is at personal or philosophical odds with the pastor) is like saddling a coach with a general manager & assistant coaches who don't buy into his game plan. It simply doesn't work.
• If you don't have the guts to speak up on the front end, you don't have the right to complain on the back end. So shut up - and speak up next time.
• I'm a strong advocate of selecting board & staff members who are leadership oriented. They don't have to be aggressive, charge-the-hill leaders. But they do need the ability to think in terms of leading the congregation where God wants it to go. And that mindset is very different from worrying about every minority opinion or asking for an opinion poll on the front end of every significant decision.
• Don't forget, when the elders of Israel used an opinion poll to determine which way to go, they ended up wasting forty years in the desert.
• I told the board that as far as I was concerned, the "theys" no longer existed. I'd happily listen to comments & critiques from people with real names & faces. But nebulous theys who didn't want their identity known & hypothetical theys we couldn't identify would no longer have any sway.
• Our primary job is to listen to, discern, & carry out God's will, not the congregation's.
• Good undershepherds never forget that they work for the Chief Shepherd, not the sheep.
• Be esp. leery of those who are angry & argumentative for all the right things, particularly the single-issue crusader. I call these people pit bulls for Jesus... [The apostle Paul] simply said to keep contentious people out of leadership. Here's why. Pit bulls bite. It's what they do. If you allow on on your board or ministry staff, don't be shocked when at some point of disagreement they turn around & bite you - and bite hard. It's what pit bulls do.
• The most common breakdown I see in terms of relational fit happens when we allow superior Bible knowledge or spiritual zeal to trump an obvious & serious lack of social skills or a bristly personality.
• If the best person available is not the right person for the job, it's far better to have a long-term vacancy than a long-term cancer on the team - even if everyone else is hounding me to fill the position right now.
• Most pastors aren't very good at interviewing strangers. We tend to like people & want to help them.
• Character is always more important than giftedness.

Like what you're reading? Pick up a copy from Amazon. (I am not an Amazon associate or a shill for the Buy Larry Osborne A New Car Foundation... I just think the book is that good.)

Five & Dime 2009: Recap

I realized this morning that as I got ready to post about the 2010 edition of The Five & Dime Report on BGG that I hadn't posted the recap for last year. So, here it is.

I first began keeping track of the Five & Dime lists back in 1999... and here it is, 2010. Meaning I've been doing this for eleven (12) years. Either I'm very thorough or verging on OCD. (You choose.)

Here's the all the links for the 2009 Five & Dime reports.

• How It All Started (actually from 2005)
• Most Played Games
• Dimes
• Nickels
• Fresh Faces
• Lo, How the Mighty Have Fallen
• Joining the "In" Crowd
• Decay Rates
• Blips
• The Up Escalator

And here's the links for graphic 'over time' comparisons of the top games, which I call Wide Angle Lens:

• 12 Year Pix
• 11 Year Pix
• 10 Year Pix
• 9 Year Pix
• 8 Year Pix
• 7 Year Pix
• 6 Year Pix
• 5 Year Pix
• 4 Year Pix

Start sending those 2010 reports in! (Here's the link to the details over on BGG: The Five & Dime Report - 2010 Edition.)

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter Two)

The chapter is entitled "Why Boards Go Bad." (For those of you in SBC life, you can substitute "Why Deacons Go Bad" or perhaps "Why Church Councils Go Bad." It's not exactly the same thing, but it's close enough for horseshoes & hand grenades.)

• Location & environment matters; it's never neutral. It always works for or against us. More important, it sends a strong message about what kind of behavior is expected & appropriate.
• While admittedly there are some individuals we appreciate less the more time we spend with them, the dynamic of a group is different. Groups predictably draw closer with increased interaction & time.
• Our rotating board did more harm than good. Imagine a corporation that changed one-third of its leaders every ten to fifteen meetings... When, by definition, thirty-three percent of the board lacked a corporate memory, it was hard to build on past decisions.
• Last week I talked to a pastor who had 25 members on his board. It's no wonder they move at the speed of an arthritic snail.
• The larger the size of a board, the greater the temptation for board members to think of themselves as representing a particular constituency.

Sticky Teams: Selected Quotes (Chapter One)

Back in late October, I had the privilege to attend the Sticky Teams conference at North Coast Church (down in Vista, CA)... and as you can probably tell from the name, the conference focused around the concepts laid out in Larry Osborne's book, Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team & Staff on the Same Page.

I bought my copy of the book at the conference & promptly devoured it - it's chockful of amazing insight into church leadership, staff dynamics & following God as a pastor. Usually I'm the guy who reads a book once & then puts it on the shelf for reference... but I'm in the process less than 2 months later of reading through it again, which ought to tell you something about the impact it's having on me.

Rather than write a full review (short version: it's great! go buy it!), I'm going to offer some quotes that make a lot of sense to me, ministry-wise and/or challenged me in how I'm leading NewLife (the church I pastor):

• It finally dawned on me that we were never going to change the world out there if we couldn't solve the conflicts in here.
• Unity that insists on uniformity isn't unity at all. It's a cheap counterfeit.
• Let's admit it. Our Christian hot buttons constantly change. One decade's battleground is another decade's yawn.
• Most church fights aren't over theology or even ministry goals; they're over priorities & methodology.

As you can probably guess, my intention is for this to be the first in a continuing series of posts as I re-read the book.

The Unofficial Guide To Catan, Part 3

I wrote Part 1 and Part 2 of my unofficial guide to all things Catan back in 2007... and a lot has changed since then. So, consider this an unofficial update.

The Settlers of Catan

The 4th American edition (pictured here) is now pretty much all you can find - that's not a bad thing, mind you, but those with pre-2007 sets will want to hunt down the adaptor kit from Mayfair Games.

There's also a $150 all-wood 15th anniversary edition if you feel like blowing your hard-earned gaming money on something pretty.

The last "big box" expansion for Catan, Traders & Barbarians, has been published in English. As I don't own a copy myself, I can only comment on the description of the expansion - it sounds like they've adapted some of the earlier small expansions (Fishermen, Caravan) and some of the Das Buch scenarios (Barbarians) into a larger format. I think that's a great idea... but since I've got a German set, I've got to figure out how to get a German copy of it.

Catan: Histories

I wrote about Settlers of the Stone Age in my earlier post... we played it again earlier this year and it held up better than I thought it would. It's not a "play once a week" kind of game (due to the set board) but it's really got some interesting variations on the basic Catan mechanics that work well together.

I had also mentioned Struggle for Rome (but hadn't played it). I've since remedied that & found it to be enjoyable but with seemingly less options than Settlers of the Stone Age. There is an official online variant from the designer of Catan, Klaus Teuber, that I'd like to try.

The most recent addition to this line is Settlers of America: Trails to Rails... which takes some ideas from Settlers of the Stone Age & some from the Das Buch train scenario & some from more typical train game roots and smushes them together into an interesting but MUCH too long game of westward expansion. (This is very possibly the first Catan product which I've had NO interest in personally owning.)

BTW, each of these games are independent of the base game - they come with all the pieces and equipment needed to play them.

Catan: Geographies

So far, there's only one stand-alone game in the Geographies series: Germany. I have not played or seen it.

There are a number of Geographies poster maps... but they have only been available in the US as prizes in convention contests. Honestly, I think this isn't a terribly wise policy - hopefully Mayfair will begin making these available for purchase.

The Rivals For Catan

Klaus Teuber has been working long & hard on a reboot of the Settlers Card Game... and it was just released this fall. The Rivals For Catan looks to be easier to learn (you can add complexity in steps), quicker to play, and - since it is being released in the U.S. & Europe at the same time - less likely to get caught in the odd packaging issues that plagued the earlier game.

I haven't played it yet - but that's just a matter of time. When I do, I'll post a review here on the blog.

Catan Dice Game

The dice game is now available in the U.S. in both a basic & a deluxe edition (shown here). As much as I like Catan, there are better dice games.

The Muppets: Pöpcørn

OK, so I'm not actually writing new stuff for the blog yet... but this is delightfully oddball & Muppet-ish.

5 Last Minute Stocking Stuffers

They're games... of course.

• Archaeology: The Card Game ($10) - I was underwhelmed with this set-collecting card game the first time I tried it... but multiple plays have won me over. There's enough luck to blame if things go wrong & enough interesting tactical decisions to claim credit for if you win.
• Duck Duck Bruce ($10) - This is a reprint of a card game (Kleine Fische) that is VERY similar to Knizia's Circus Flohcati - but was released a year EARLIER. (Hmmm...) I think it's better than Knizia's game, btw. (Read my whole review!)
• Famiglia ($10) - Two player card game of mob recruiting that has a bunch of interesting decisions... the more we play, the closer the scores get.
• Hey Waiter! ($15) - Surprising how much game play the designer (go, Anthony!) can get out of a deck with only 4 types of cards... we haven't tried the partnership version yet (the preferred "gamer" way to play according to the buzz on BGG) but have had a lot of fun just playing the basic game.
• Mummy's Treasure ($12) - A weird but enjoyable cross between Yahtzee & Tetris... the dice-rolling is Yahtzee-esque but the scoring uses Tetris-like pieces. (Read my whole review then check out the variant my son & I created for the game!)

The Wrong Shade of Green for Christmas

I've known Eric Michael Bryant for a very long time... since he was a teenager, in fact. He was the one of those "good kids" in the church youth group that my wife grew up in at Shady Oaks Baptist Church. (I was a youth intern there during my seminary days... and it's the church Shari & I were married in.)

When I hosted my first DiscipleNow weekend (that's Southern Baptist for "in-town intensive spiritual retreat for youth"), he was my pick to come & lead my junior high guys. We flew him in from Waco (where he was attending Baylor University - sic 'em, Bears!) into the wilds of Arkansas and I watched him make a big impact on a squirrely bunch of 7th & 8th grade boys. (This is also the time when he informed Shari & I that since he was a college guy, "now, when I kiss a girl, I have to mean it." A veritable pearl of wisdom.)

Thanks to a common home church & the magic of snail mail, we kept up with Eric in dribs & drabs as he got married to Debbie & they headed to Seattle to help plant a church. And then, we lost touch somewhere in the mid-90s.

Fast forward to 2004, when I attended my first Origins Experience - a very cool church conference put on by Mosaic down in Los Angeles. At the end of the first night, they had one of their Navigators (Mosaicspeak for "lead pastor") give a few announcements. I was sitting way in the back so I was a little surprised when they introduced him as "Eric Bryant"... and out walked this young guy with a "Deal or No Deal" Howie Mandel haircut. After the session was over, I pushed my way through the crowd to confirm my suspicions - and gave Eric a monster bear hug.

We got to talk & catch up a bit over those two days - I met his kids and heard a little bit about how he'd got from Seattle to L.A... but it wasn't until I read his book, peppermint filled pinatas (which has since been reprinted as Not Like Me with some additional material) that I found out the whole story. (If you're interested, the book is great - here's my review of it.)

And over the last six years, we've enjoyed seeing each other on various occasions (Mosaic events, conferences, his family's visit to Fresno, etc.) and keeping in touch via text & email. He's been an encourager & a friend... a guy who has grown & matured far beyond the promise of his youth & yet still has the childlike warmth & humor that he had as a teenager.

So now, after 12 years at Mosaic, he's moving to Austin, TX to serve in a new ministry position - and I couldn't be more excited for him & his family. Both he & Debbie will be closer to their folks... and Austin is the perfect blend of old school Texas & vibrant cutting edge culture that fits Eric to a "T." (Read more about the move on Eric's blog: We Are Moving To Austin!)

At the same time, I'm jealous. That's right: I'm turning a distinctly non-Christmas shade of green over the thought of the Bryant clan heading back toward family, toward more familiar territory, toward an exciting new opportunity...

In my most "pity-party-ish" moments, I mix into this pea-colored emotional soup the local Lutheran pastor & his move back to his family in Northern California (after 27 years of community-changing service here in Easton - way to go, Paul!) and my sister-in-law going on staff with Gideons International in, of all places, Nashville, TN - the town where Shari & I spent more than half of our marriage and where many close friends (and now a decent-sized chunk of her family) reside.

It's ugly inside my heart... as if I'd painted it the wrong shade of green for Christmas time. I wallow in self-pity, marinate in bitterness, breathe in envy as if it were oxygen. "Why them, God? Why do they get to 'go home' while Shari & I live in 'the far country'? Why do we get shuttled off to the side - into this small rural/suburban town - while Eric gets to serve at this cutting edge church? You obviously stopped caring about us... well, about me!"

And then... when I'm still before Jesus - the One who loved me so much that He came as a baby & died for my sins - the peace of God overwhelms me. He cared so much about us that He sent us here - to Easton, to NewLife Community Church - in order to be cared for & loved on & ministered to in ways we would have never imagined. When our oldest son (Braeden) was in the hospital, the church rallied around us. When Shari was in the worst of her emotional struggles, our small group kept us fed physically & spiritually. When we chose to homeschool our boys, God provided a network of like-minded folks to walk with us.

Moreover, He loved the folks in Easton so much that He matched us up. As much as I want to throw a spiritual hissy fit over not getting to pastor a "big" church, I hear His voice ringing in my ears: "I called you to this place, these people, in this time... on purpose." My gifts & talents are made "for such a time as this" - and such a place as this.

After that - after hearing so clearly from God - it's much easier to celebrate the good stuff that is happening in the lives of others... and to celebrate the wonderful stuff that is happening in my own.

And my heart feels like Jesus strung up Christmas lights & repainted the walls a deeper, richer color - the color of growth & eternity.

A much better shade of green.

BGN: State of the (Excellent) Site

I'm a huge fan of Boardgamenews... an excellent site for current news & reviews on board & card games. I've even written some of those reviews. (And the editor, W. Eric Martin, is an extremely nice guy.) I'd give you the URL, but there's been a little problem...

...due to computer/server difficulties, the site has been crashed since the end of November. If you want to know the whole story, check out W. Eric Martin's blog post, The Past and Future of Boardgame News.

My host is useless, and I am equally useless, lacking the technical skills to figure out what might be the problem in the site design. Worse, I can't log in to the site due to a lack of memory (duh), so I can't attempt to change the site design to strip even more things out to at least make it possible to post something to tell people why I can't post anything. A modern dilemma to be sure. A human in prehistoric times would respond to this situation by throwing the computer against the wall. That same impulse lives in me, too.

If you just want the highlights, here they are:

• changed website to add cool features
• cool features ate up too much memory
• upgraded server (and all the difficulties that entails)
• memory issues ate my dingo baby
• crash bang boom
• and, THE GOOD NEWS: "That solution is largely in place, and Boardgame News will return sometime in January 2011, if not sooner. More details on this solution soon."

Long live BGN! (Enjoy your Christmas holiday, you recalcitrant pile of 1's and 0's.)

Heroscape "Arena of Doom"

I'll try to get better pictures of this Heroscape board this next week (since Braeden & Canann & I are getting ready for an epic 1000 pt army battle on it) but I still wanted to show it off. This is my self-created "Arena of Doom" that I built for Crazy Squirrel Game Store's grand opening celebration this last Saturday.

Yes, I'm the dumpy guy with a goattee & a silly grin.

This is a better picture of the board... that's my arm coming in from the right. (Yes, my mother taught me it's not polite to point.)

We managed three games on the board... and all of them were a lot of fun!

UPDATE: Joe Aguayo (who played in the 2nd game) sent me this picture he took which gives you an even better look at the board.

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part seven)

This is, for now, the long-overdue penultimate installment in the story of my ministry life. (Thank you to Jennifer from Crazy Squirrel for encouraging me to finish this series!) If you want to pull a Paul Harvey & get "the rest... of the story," here's an index of the earlier articles.

The church @ hickory hollow closed in late September of 2002... and it felt a little bit like my ministry had come to a thundering close. I'd burned the ships when I went into church planting (I gave away almost all of my youth ministry resources & severed most of my speaking/writing connections) - and even if I hadn't, my heart wasn't in working with teenagers anymore.

There was a senior pastor opening at an innovative church in the Cool Springs area that Shari & I visited in the weeks following the close of tc@hh - I even got to talk to a couple of search team members. In the end, they "went a different direction" and I was left to post my resume online & activate my seminary placement file...

...and sit. Looking back now, I have no idea what I did with most of October 2002. I didn't work & the church was DOA. I'm guessing I spent time with Shari & Braeden and otherwise did a lot of moping. It was a very, very long "lost weekend" with no actual alcohol involved.

By early November, I started looking for a job to help pay the bills... and ended up back at the JC Penney Call Center. I worked third shift through the Christmas holiday season, which was miserable on a number of levels:

• the weird schedule meant less time with my family
• the atmosphere at the call center was much less friendly

And the search for a new church for us to attend was not going well. While we had a number of good experiences with innovative churches in the Nashville area, none of them felt right. (The church search process was eye-opening, though - taking our 4-5 month old son into a new environment every week & leaving him with strangers was nerve-wracking. It gave us a renewed appreciation of the need for quality kid ministry in the church.)

In January of 2003, I built a resume website (which would be important later) and started using my Christmas gifts from my wife & sister: a copy of John Eldredge's Wild at Heart and the Wild at Heart workbook. Yes, we can argue if his "wild God" theology is as Biblical as he thinks it is (but not right now!)... but that study profoundly affected my life. Finding an author who struggled with the question of what it means to be a man of God without veering into weepy tween-girl-slumber-party emotionalism OR chest-thumping Iron John eat-something-raw ranting was a revelation - and this was a guy who quoted Scripture, C.S. Lewis & George MacDonald... and even used contemporary films to drive home spiritual truths. It would be an understatement to say that Wild at Heart changed not only my relationship to my wife & son but also to the way I approach church leadership.

My career with JC Penney ended on a sour note: they decided to get my attention to see if I wanted to train for the next level by not actually giving me any hours for two weeks. No note; no call from a supervisor; nada; zilch; nothing. Since it was early January, I simply assumed that I was getting no hours because of the post-Christmas slump. So, I found a new job (more on that in a minute) and went to tell my boss - who was surprised. It was at that point she finally decided to tell me that they wanted to train me for the next level. Sigh.

My new job was a job through a temp agency, working at a video fulfillment company. In my 5 months there, I learned that working a production line feels a lot like that "I Love Lucy" episode at the chocolate factory. (Our main business was duplicating & sleeving videos for Tae-Bo and Gaither Homecoming, though I spent most of the last couple of months trying to sort out the Hot Licks video music lessons account that we took over from another company.) My boss there was great about letting me take time off for interviews in the search process.

Another church popped up on the radar in late January 2003 - a church plant just a few years older than tc@hh whose founding pastor had left for the mission field. They were close to Cleveland, OH (in fact, within sight of Cedar Point Amusement Park) which would have kept me smack dab in the middle of some very good gaming friends. Their vision - to reach their community "by any means necessary" - was inspiring. It sounded perfect.

Of course, the search team was worried about what had happened at tc@hh, but hesitated to ask me directly so they wouldn't spoil the budding relationship. Instead, they asked the associational director to give me a call. I poured out my heart to this guy... and what I got in return was a blessing from God. He proceeded to tell me about his experience in helping church plants - and that in his opinion, tc@hh was woefully underfunded & it was a miracle that we had lasted as long as we had.

It wasn't until much later that Shari filled out the rest of the story - after the church in Ohio had said they'd put their search process on hold & we were headed to Fresno. She had been praying about the Ohio opportunity and felt a strong "no" from God - that it wasn't going to happen. But, because she didn't want to discourage me, she didn't say anything. (In retrospect, a very wise decision. Without it, I probably wouldn't have bothered talking to the associational director... or experienced the encouragement of the process.)

It was also in late January 2003 that we found our church... January 25th, to be precise. It was exactly 5 years since we'd started tc@hh and the Oakley's (a major part of tc@hh) had been inviting us visit their church, Fellowship Bible, for a number of weeks.

What Steve & Shane forgot was that the January 25th service was the last service that Fellowship was having in a school building before occupying their new facility in Brentwood... and that it was also their fifth anniversary. As we heard these growing group of people celebrate what God had done, as they had a special recognition for all the folks who'd done set-up & tear-down for the past five years, as they looked forward to the next chapter in the history of the church... Shari & I sat with tears running down our faces & big questions in our hearts.

• God, how cruel are you to bring us here to today, to rub our face in our failure?
• Why do they get to have the success & we had to watch our vision circle the drain?
• With all of that, why do I feel so drawn to this church even though I'm ticked off & angry?

Steve & Shane were incredibly apologetic... and we took the next week off (another celebration was going to be a bit much) - but Shari & I both felt like we were supposed to go back. And we did.

For the next six months, Fellowship Bible became our church home. Jeff & Lloyd's teaching style had a big impact on mine (my weekly "So What?" comes directly from them) and Shari got very involved in some incredible spiritual growth opportunities for women.
During that same period, I did a 3 month consulting gig with the Tennessee Baptist Convention, helping them connect with innovative Southern Baptist churches. It didn't do much to further my job hunt (which was a bit of surprise) but it did help me get a better picture of what church planting really looked like (and how difficult it was).

There were a couple of other churches who expressed interest during this period - I even got as far as committee phone interview with one church in El Paso, TX, that was slowly declining. You know you've got "vision" issues when I suggested that correcting this decline meant some serious re-thinking of how their neighborhood had changed & what it would take to reach them... and after a long silence, one of the committee members replied, "Yep, we need a revival." Sigh. Needless to say, I didn't pursue things with that particular church.

To be continued...

#84: Say Anything

Say Anything

• designer: Dominic Crapuchettes & Satish Pillalamarri
• publisher: North Star Games
• date: 2008
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 356/7.08
• position on my top 100 in 2005: did not appear
• age: 13+
• # of players: 3-8
• print status: in print
• cost: $17.75 (Game Surplus)

Here's what I wrote not too long after it was released... which still holds true.

Proving once again that my superpower is Getting Random Strangers To Give Me Things (though, frankly, there are not enough Random Strangers and not enough Things Given), I just received a pre-release copy of Northstar Games Say Anything.

The game itself is very simple - take the rotating Judge concept from Apples to Apples, add in the answer submission system (tiny dry-erase boards & pens) from Wits & Wagers, and top it off with a kinder betting system, also from Wits & Wagers. Players take turns being the Judge, who draws a question card & picks one of the five questions to read. The rest of the players then race to scribble out answers that they think will entice/entertain or otherwise engage the Judge. Example from one of our games the other night - my wife asked us: "Aliens have just landed on earth? What do you do?" Some of the answers were (from memory, so I'm not sure I'm completely accurate here):

• "Hide!" (this was my answer)
• "Run away"
• "Kill 'em"
• "Feed them something" (this was the answer that Shari picked)

After all the answers are in (the Judge gets to decide if answers are duplicates - you can't have those - and who got their answer down first), the Judge secretly picks the answer they like using the Select-o-Matic 5000, which sounds a lot more sophisticated than it is. (It's a spinner that doesn't spin very well - which is how it's supposed to work.) Then the rest of the players quickly lay their bets (each has two betting chips) on the answer or answers they think the Judge will pick.

With the chips played, the Judge reveals their answer & points are scored - the system is designed to reward players who guess correctly without creating chances for runaway victories... in fact, the entire game is designed for maximum party enjoyment rather than maximum gamerness. (Yes, I know "gamerness" is not a word - but most of you get what I'm talking about.)

I've had the opportunity to play the game twice now - once with 5 players and once with 7 players. The five player game was fun - enough so that we promptly roped 2 more people into the game & played with seven, which was a LOT more fun. I think the sweet spot for the game is probably 6-8 players. Here's what I like about the game:

• plays quickly - a huge plus for party games
• nobody feels dumb - you can approach how to answer the questions in whatever form you wish: you can try to please the Judge, you can try to be the class clown & make with the silliness, you can simply try & entertain yourself...
• the score doesn't matter much - sure, if you're playing a 2 hour game of El Grande, you want to know the exact score at the end, but the draw here is not the winner(s) celebrating, it's the journey getting there
• the rules - they are incredibly easy to explain
• it's got the good parts of Apples to Apples with added creativity - the free-form questions means the game doesn't devolve into the same kinds of jokes & picks (as A2A has a tendency to do)
• it simplifies the Wits & Wagers scoring - I love Wits & Wagers... but the betting system is tough for non-gamers to wrap their heads around. Say Anything uses the same kind of system in a way that's friendlier to non-gamers.

A warning: some of the questions on the cards could cause certain crowds to head in a PG-13/R-rated direction with their answers... while that's a selling point for some folks, I know a number of folks who read this blog work with youth & adults in faith-based settings. None of the questions are smutty (as in some other party games) but you'll want to be aware of this possibility. Please don't misunderstand me - I really, really enjoy the game; I'm just aware of the potential for problems in these kind of arenas.

A final word: I saw the folks who played the game with us a couple of days later - and they were still talking about it. That's the kind of reaction you want from a party game! I see Say Anything getting a lot more play around here, esp. with Bible study groups & small parties.

#85: Pizza Box Football

Pizza Box Football

• designer: Scott Smith & Erik Smith
• publisher: On the Line Game Company
• date: 2005
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 1117/6.40
• position on my top 100 in 2005: did not appear
• age: 12+
• # of players: 2
• print status: in print
• cost: $19.50 (Game Surplus)

Let's keep this short & simple... if you don't like dice and/or football, you should not pick up Pizza Box Football. 'Cuz that's pretty much all there is to it - choose your play, roll the dice, figure out what happens based on some pretty simple charts, have fun.

But for me, a big football fan who doesn't particularly like sports simulation games, this is a delight. (Note: there is a distinct difference between sports games & sports simulations - the first group includes things like Strand Cup, Streetsoccer & En Garde, where the game does a good job of getting the "feel" of the sport right without attempting to replicate the details of the sport. The second group attempts to simulate the sport in game terms - an excellent example of this is Pursue the Pennant/Dynasty League Baseball.*) If you really want a football simulation, go play the latest Madden video game.

I'd strongly recommend picking up one of the expansion team sets - this gives the game a wider variety of plays to choose from (from 3 to 6) and a full roster of NFL teams with their individual quirks. Also keep an eye out for the yearly Super Bowl match-up team cards that they put out free of charge online... it's been fun to play the game alongside the real game - and sometimes MUCH more interesting.

A final word: I think I've only won two or three games of this, out of the nineteen times I've played it. Doesn't change my love for it one bit.

* I actually enjoy Dynasty League Baseball, but only with someone who knows the game really well so we don't get bogged down in the rules.