You know, that’s not actually my book shelf in the picture.
I wanted to be clear about that.
I’m also not that great of a photographer.
Also, I said that I would start writing again and I didn’t.
This is turning out to be a confession more than an entry on the books I read this year.
But at least it’s an honest entry.
Do you know what else is honest about this entry? It’s that it was meant to be published seven months ago.
Basically, I’m simply trying to catch you up as we “hopefully” gear up for consistent content on spiritual formation and what it looks like to be faithfully present and productive.
But, I digress. Let me invite you to dive into what last year’s reading list entailed and hopefully you pick up something good to read!
2023 was a time where I read less as compared to other years. As a pastor, I’m always in a book — whether I’m reading through my Bible or studying the Scriptures accompanied by a theological book such as a commentary or other resource, but in that arena my reading is never actually finished, especially during sermon preparation. The goal is almost purely for research. The books on this entry are separate from the sermon preparation kind of reading.
A few month ago, I read an article (or watched a video) where author Ryan Holiday said that if you only walk away with one or two things after reading a book, it was worth reading it because those are one or two things that you didn’t know and could make a difference in your life.
That was liberating. That’s what I want to share with you.
1. Atomic Habits by James Clear —
Biggest Takeaway: Your environment shapes your habits. I wrote, underlined, and highlighted so many important bits of information and shareable quotes from James Clear, but his chapter on how environment shapes our habits was the most memorable; etched into my brain. Clear writes, “Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior…a small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do. As a result, you can image how important it is to live and work in environments that are filled with productive cues and devoid of unproductive ones…a stable environment where everything has a place and a purpose is an environment where habits can easily form.” This was such a game changer for me when it came to writing and studying that my wife and I restructured the entire layout of my home office making my productivity not only more effective, but intentional.
2. Preaching & Preachers by Martyn Lloyd Jones —
Books two and three are what I used in our Preaching Lab last year and they served our young preachers well because they’re being challenged in their gifting as they grow as preachers.
Biggest take-away: In the opening chapter, Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones writes, “…the most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is obviously the greatest need of the world also.” This quote set the tone for the entire book because it displayed not only the urgency of preaching and the preacher, but his own passion and conviction in the necessity and developing of gospel-centered preachers. This book made the pulpit intimidating, but gave a reverence that was, perhaps, absent.
3. Preaching that Moves People by Yancey Arrington —
This was incredibly helpful from a practical perspective on preaching. Arrington writes, “The task of the preacher is to guide people ‘down the mountain’ of his sermon: brining them through your introduction, body, and conclusion so that hearers are not only with you at the bottom of the hill but have maximized their journey getting there. In preaching terms, the bottom of the mountain is the response you want hearers to have at the message’s conclusion. This includes their actions, thoughts, and emotions.” Our preachers can preach, but often they, as young men, tend to be very information driven. Arrington’s book helped them learn how to shape their sermons in a way that served our congregation by guiding them rather than dumping information on them.
4. Pastor, Jesus Is Enough by Jeremy Writebol —
On the seven letters to the churches in Revelation, Writebol summaries, “Underpinning every letter is the fact that the pastors are held in the dominant hand of authority and care of Jesus Christ himself. He begins each address confronting the pastors with a specific facet of his identity, directly pointed to the need and lack of ‘enoughness’ that each pastor has. These letters are about how Jesus is enough for each of them, in their particular needs.” There are many take-aways in this book, but every letter is shaped a little different with meaningful and memorable things to consider. Therefore, if you find yourself thinking that you are not enough, this book is a helpful reminder in having and knowing that Jesus is enough.
5. The Gospel Shaped Leaders by Scott Thomas —
Scott is a great pastoral coach and a friend, seasoned in ministry, and one of the most humble people that I know. I love to learn from him. The two most memorable things I walked away with were a great introduction into the need to be watchful of our souls and something, I found, comical but true. Thomas writes, “If we merely pay careful attention to the flock, we’re only doing half our job. What is missing, however, is life threatening. Church leaders that make a wreck of their lives will inevitably make a wreck of the flock. Church leaders must pay careful attention to themselves while paying careful attention to those in their care.” And what I will never forget: “…passion without a plan is just cow manure. No person goes into battle without first devising a plan (Luke 14:31).”
6. Strange New World by Carl Truman —
“…ethics of life and death in a world of expressive individualism tend to default to a form of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the philosophy of life where the morally defensible position is that which gives most happiness to most of the persons involved.” And “If human happiness is constitutes by an inner sense of well being, then anything that disrupts that is problematic. The implications of this are dramatic and set to be comprehensive, or at least to involve all areas of the public square.” “Expressive individualism in the form in which we find it in contemporary society is problematic for the ways in which it places individuals and their own desires — we might even say their own egos — at the center of the moral universe.”
7. The Common Rule by Justin Earley —
“Habits form much more than our schedules: they form our hearts.” On writing on the difference between habits and liturgy, Earley writes “they’re both something repeated over and over, which forms you; the only difference is that a liturgy admits that it’s an act of worship. Calling habits may seem odd, but we need language to emphasize the non-neutrality of our day-to-day routines. Habits often obscure what we’re really worshipping, but that doesn’t mean we’re not worshipping something. The question is, what are we worshipping?” This was SO good. Our lives are literally a daily liturgy.
8. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis —
“If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel; and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.” “A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world — and might even be more difficult to save.” “God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man”
9. A Hunger for God by John Piper —
CLASSIC Piper. “The true mortification of our carnal nature is not a simple matter of denial and discipline. It is an internal, spiritual matter of finding more contentment in Christ than in food.” And “fasting that is not aimed at starving sin while feasting on God is self-deluded. It is not really God that we hunger for in such fasting. The hunger of fasting is a hunger for God, and the test of that hunger is whether it includes a hunger for holiness.”
10. On Getting Out of Bed by Alan Noble —
“For the stoic, though they can choose to face death bravely, death is the final word. For the Christian, death has been conquered, so we can face it bravely regardless of our fears. We can take a step to the block, confident in our hope.” And “God is feeding our souls by giving us tastes of hope that defy the oppression of our spirits. Do not mock God’s grace by rejecting it for your own suffering.”
11. Managing Leadership Anxiety by Steve Cuss —
“…your. ability to grow as a leader is connected to your capacity to examine your mistakes without condemnation and defensiveness.” This book was helpful in some ways, but often I found myself arguing and disagreeing with Cuss on several leadership principles — not because they were bad, but because they were incomplete in my opinion.
12. Zeal Without Burnout by Christopher Ash —
“If we do not give space for renewal, there will soon be nothing left for us to give.”
13. Groups: The Art of Leading Community by Jared Musgrove and Justin Elaeros —
“The less relational your church is, the less transformational your church will be.” And quoting Bonhoeffer from Life Together, “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more extractive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.”
14. Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton —
“Intimacy leads to fruitfulness, not the other way around.” And quoting Dom John Chapman: “Pray as you can, and don’t try to pray as you can’t.” This was a great resource for counseling and discipleship last year where I saw several finding themselves “stuck” in their prayer lives or disconnected entirely because prayer and devotion didn’t look as ideal as they wanted to.
15. The Men We Need by Brad Hansen —
“If the keeper’s heart is lost, the garden is lost too.” “My sin isn’t sin because it’s on a random list of activities that God just doesn’t happen to like. My sin is sin because it stops me from being who I’m supposed to be and what I could have been. It’s a shortcut that leads away from the kingdom of God, where I can flourish, to a different kingdom — the kingdom of me.” Men — our job is to be the keeper of our gardens.
Reading is good for your soul.
Reading is a gift because words (especially yours) matter.
I’d love to hear about what you’re reading or what you’ve read, recently or even from last year’s list!
