I received this book yesterday. Tony Morgan… or someone working for the super cool insightful and strategic dude… sent this out to me.  I am really grateful and glad this is in my hands, but, to be honest, I am surprised he sent me a copy!

You see, Tony has written this book: Killing Cockroaches, and it was published just the other day on March 1, 2009.  But prior to the publish date, he had blogged that he was providing a free downloadable PDF version of his new book, AND for the first 200 people who would read it and post an online review of it would receive a FREE copy of the actual book.

I was one of the lucky ones who signed up.

The trouble was, I downloaded the PDF and started to read it… and quickly got distracted with the other stuff of life… and consequently, left the manuscript by the wayside. And because I figured that surely, with the massive online following that Tony has, I’d never catchup and get a review before 200 others posted theirs. So, I never picked it back up to read.

That was a mistake…

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Gratefully, Tony has graciously sent me a free copy of his book anyway, and it is good. Like I said, I received the book yesterday, started reading it last night in bed, and an hour later my head was swimming with ideas and visions and challeneges and questions and excitement… not to mention some frustrations — good frustrations — about how things are currently and how to engage others into talking about how to continue to push the envelop with my church community, as well as in my personal ministry.

So, here’s my quick REVIEW of Tony Morgan’s book, Killing Cockroaches.

It’s not you’re typical read, but it’s simple and clean with no chapters (what?!??!).  Rather, it’s like a collection of ideas and experiences that serve as jumping off points. If you’re a fan of Tony’s blog, or even if you’re not a blog reader, you’ll find that the topics and ideas are in digestable snippets — it’s like reading his blog in paperback format!

If you have any part in being authentic with others, in the name of Jesus Christ, and love to *ideate* ways to clearly and creatively communicate the great news and truth about Jesus Christ against the backdrop of ever-shifting culture, then Tony’s insights, anecdotes, humor, sarcasm, experience, ideas, challenges and questions will provide the spark to fuel the potential that is yet to be tapped in your ministry.

Go grab you a copy! (There’s even a Kindle version!)

You can read up on what others are saying about Tony and his book HERE.

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As a side-note (for Tony)…
Whenever I read, I have a tendency to add a voice to whomever’s work I am reading.  For example, if it’s Bob’s blog, then in my head, Bob is reading his post to me; if it’s Nancy’s news article, then she’s reading it back to me… in my head.

And when I don’t have a source or recall for a voice to match what I’m reading, I either make it up or just read it with my voice.

In the case of reading Tony’s stuff — be it blog posts or his book — I *know* what his voice sounds like.  I’ve listened to his podcasts enough to recognize his voice… AND YET, I have this odd tendency to put Jeffrey Donovon’s voice to Tony’s words (from USA Network’s TV show Burn Notice).

I suppose they have some similarities, but they really are different voices… and I can’t seem to not read Tony’s stuff with Donovon’s voice inside my head.

Weird.