Summer Reading

Are you a night owl? Like to read and talk? Grab a coffee and join Collaboration Works! at the Broadlind Café for discussions about creativity and innovation.

Book & Brew Schedule

On the following Friday nights at the Broadlind Café:
438 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802
JUNE 29, 8 pm Orbiting the Giant Hairball
by Gordon MacKenzie
It’s not too late to pick up this book! You can read it in one sitting! Mac Kenzie inspires the creative person to rise above a “rubber-stamp” mindset into a mode of dreaming, daring and doing.

JULY 20, 8 pm The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson
Turn your ideas into path-breaking innovations! Johansson shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory.

AUG. 31, 8 pm The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
"To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation". This quote taken from The Alchemist sums up what the book is all about. The journey that life should be is lived by a simple shepherd who finds that life's gifts lie within us all.

SEP. 28, 8 pm The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO by Tom Kelley
Learn the secrets for fostering a process of continuous innovation!
IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals the solution to the problem of innovation.

OCT. 26, 8 pm Good to Great and Good to Great and the Social Sectors by Jim Collins
“Some of the key concepts,” comments Jim Collins, “fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”
Discover the surprising findings. If you own a business or run a nonprofit, you do not want to miss out on this discussion!


November Just Added!
Eric Marsh of HfLB was so excited about our upcoming reads he wanted to add his own favorite:

NOV. 30, 8 pm The Starfish and the Spider
by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional “spiders,” which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary “starfish,” which rely on the power of peer relationships.


In every city there are two groups living side-by-side; non-profit organizations fighting to meet the needs of under-served people and socially conscious creatives with a desire to “give back” to their city or community. CollaborationWorks! bridges that divide, matching creative people with exciting projects that benefit nonprofits.

CWorks! is being launched by Alexa McNabb and Breanna Fowler from the Gathering, and Amy Hammer from the Young Adults group.

posted by Alexa @ 9:41 AM 2 comments

Gazing into the Abyss - Christian Wiman

From The American Scholar quarterly.

Though I was raised in a very religious household, until about a year ago I hadn’t been to church in any serious way in more than 20 years. It would be inaccurate to say that I have been indifferent to God in all that time. If I look back on the things I have written in the past two decades, it’s clear to me not only how thoroughly the forms and language of Christianity have shaped my imagination, but also how deep and persistent my existential anxiety has been. I don’t know whether this is all attributable to the century into which I was born, some genetic glitch, or a late reverberation of the Fall of Man. What I do know is that I have not been at ease in this world...

Read more here.

posted by Christina @ 4:42 AM 0 comments

Reflecting on Mission/Vision

In this past Sunday's Gathering, Matt McNabb made a short presentation, detailing the proposed mission and vision statements of Grace Brethren Church, and requested our response, comments, questions, and feedback:

Mission: A community of the new creation, living out the Gospel, for the flourishing of all...
Vision: Catalyzing a global movement of the Gospel, that begins by impacting 40,000 people with the Gospel by 2015.

A discussion followed, highlighting these four questions:

1.) What intrigues you about these two statements?
2.) What excites you...?
3.) What would you do differently...?
4.) What would Long Beach look like, if we were fulfulling this?

We will be continuing the discussion regarding these proposed statements, at the Gathering, on 6/17.

Note: the number 40,000 was mentioned as 8% of the population of Long Beach, which is attributed to an approximate percentage of people required to effect a "tipping point", or movement for change.

posted by Christina @ 3:24 PM 0 comments