If you are familiar with the concept of Victor Turner's Communitas (or not) you should check out the way this plays out through The Biggest Loser. I love this show (I lost 30 pounds over a 4 month period in '06 by learning how to eat and getting back to consistent work outs), got hooked on it a couple of years ago. Anyway, the concept of Communitas is sooo different than community. Most churches just experience, at best, community--fellowship. But communitas is different; it happens when a group of people go through a collective crisis. Turner called it Liminality. It is when the group faces an adaptive challenge...they must "adapt or die". When we truly journey on mission we face these challenges and communitas happens. Turner's stuff is essential reading.

If you liked The Starfish & The Spider, by Ori Brafman, then you will want to order SWAY. Ori has been a great friend to Shapevine from the beginning. I will be with him this weekend in San Fran to film content for an upcoming Shapevine Learning Podule.

You can preorder SWAY HERE

 

Below is the review by Kirkus Reviews:

Economist Ori Brafman and his psychologist brother Rom explain why "the more
there is on the line, the easier it is to get swept into an irrational
decision." The authors offer an accidental motto that ought to be engraved over every
casino in the world, to say nothing of every stock exchange. Adding a page
to the small but growing literature of behavioral economics, they examine
these irrationalities. It makes sense that egg sales, for example, would be
up around Easter and at the beginning of the month, when paychecks had been
freshly deposited. It makes less sense that when egg prices drop a little,
people buy more of them than they perhaps can eat, but when they rise by the
same amount, people cut back on their consumption by two and a half times.
"This feeling of dread over a price increase," write the authors, "is
disproportionate to the satisfaction you feel when you get a good deal." In
other words, we seem programmed to expect disappointment and to fight harder
to avoid losing a buck than to earn one in the first place, messy matters
that carry the reader into the deeper, more complicated recesses of the
mind. Also, "we often ignore all evidence that contradicts what we want to
believe." Eureka! The Brafmans' book probes less deeply into economic
behavior than does Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational (2008), but it is
richer psychologically, a worthy companion to Malcolm Gladwell at his best.
One of those rare books that explains the obvious in ways that are not
obvious at all.

Spent the weekend and Monday fiiming for Shapevine Learning Podules (more on those coming) with Ori Brafman in San Francisco and Neil Cole in Venice. Spencer Burk (www.theooze.com) and I were with Ori in his cool row house digs in SF. Ori is one of the most gracious guys you'll ever meet; not to speak of his great brain. You will want to be sure and order his latest book, SWAY. 

Monday was on the beach with Neil Cole as we filmed for an upoming Podule based on his latest book, Search & Rescue. Again...get Neil's book. Great stuff on Discipling from 2 Timothy. This is the big need in the church and Neil is classic discipler.