Recent Reading

Fairly often I get asked what I am reading.  Here are a few books I just finished, or currently have down off the shelf…

Look Unto Me: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon – For $5 this book is a steal.  I have been reading this book devotionally on-and-off for some time now, and the days I do read it I am always challenged.

The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Stearns – Our church takes the month of October to focus on missions, so my Home Care Group decided to work through The Hole In Our Gospel by World Vision’s Richard Stearns.  Some of the group may have just participated in watching the DVDs.  Those, however,  who took the time to read the book as well were additionally challenged to do more to fight against world hunger, lack of clean water, education, shelter, medication, and for billions of people around the world a lack of an adequate presentation of the gospel.

Think Orange by Reggie Joiner – I have slowly been reading through this book by Reggie on family ministry.  We just started using Orange Curriculum in our main children’s services at Calvary this past week so I thought I would read through the book as well.   This book is a must read for any pastor, but especially for children or youth pastors.  It discusses engaging parents in what is going on at church with their kids, recruiting mentors to work with families, provoking kids and parents to work on their relationship, and a whole lot more.

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich – This is a bit of guilty pleasure reading for me.  It’s my nerd side coming out.  I just love finding out how successful companies, organizations and people got started…. especially when it involves computers.  🙂

No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-you-are Culture in the Church by John Burke – As a pastor I always try to be reading something on the church.  This book is a great read to get you thinking about what we could do as a church to be more inviting to those in a post-Christian culture.

Primal by Mark Batterson – I’ll probably say more about this book in a later post, but this book is a great for anyone who is looking for more depth in their relationship with God.  Primal is about getting back to an authentic Christian faith.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin – I honestly haven’t picked this book up in a while.  But I love reading history.

Spoken from the Heart by Laura Bush – Just like history, biography isn’t something I read real consistently, so this auto-biography by Laura Bush has been on my shelf (actually my kindle) for a while, but I am slowly getting through it.

Well, that’s what I have been reading?  Any recommendations on what I should read next?