Scot McKnight on the Books Pastors Like to Read

About a year ago I came across a post from Scot McKnight that grabbed my attention, and that I've continued to think about. Here's the opening paragraph

Evangelical pastors have flipped in the last generation. 30-40 years ago what most incited excitement was a new book by the arch-pastor and expositor, John Stott, expositing a New Testament book or a J.I. Packer book on theology. Today's evangelicals pastors are enamored with the latest book on leadership, like that morsel of an idea in the book called Tribes, or the latest book on management, or the latest fad in creativity.

I guess part of this has to do with the fact that for the first time in my life I am reading John Stott. I'm one of those who, for the past decade or so, would choose books devoted to orthopraxy over orthodoxy. It wasn't so much that I was disinterested in theology but more that I wanted to flesh it out, to put it into action. However, lately I've been rethinking a lot of things. Though I've always known it in my head, today more than ever I believe that our orthopraxy must be shaped by our orthodoxy.

Today was Union Avenue Baptist Church's annual rummage sale to raise funds for mission trips, so I went down to check things out. I came away with 17 books, with all but two written pre-1980. Oh, and six of them are by John Stott.