Sabbatical Reading List Part 1

One of my goals during my sabbatical is to read a lot.  Most of the time I am producing and pouring out.  During this sabbatical I am resting, which means no producing or pouring out.  Instead, I am receiving and being poured into.  One of the ways I'm doing this is through reading.

During this first month I've decided to limit my reading to the Bible, novels, history, and parenting resources.  So here's what I've been reading.

1.  The Epistles (Letters) in the New Testament
I bought a new NIV Bible right before my sabbatical started, and I'm using this chronology I put together for our series on Acts a few years ago.  I'm currently in 2 Corinthians.

2.  1776, by David McCullough
I'm just a third of the way through it, but so far it's a fascinating read.  Some that I remember from school, but lots that I didn't know.  I love reading about George Washington.  Such a great leader.  And I've enjoyed Henry Knox's story, especially the capturing and transporting of the guns from Fort Ticonderoga.  Fascinating.

3.  Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys, by Stephen James and David Thomas
This one has been on my Kindle shelf for awhile.  So glad I'm reading it now.  If you have boys, you need to read this.  The authors utilize the themes from Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are to show the progress of a boy's life.  There's also a ton of practical advice for raising boys.

4.  The Hit, by David Baldacci
I love David Baldacci and have read most of what he's written.  This one was a great read.

5.  Inferno, by Dan Brown
I checked out the kindle version from the library before my sabbatical but didn't finish it, so I then checked out the audio version and am listening to it as well.  This is the fourth book in the Robert Langdon series (The Da Vinci Code)


As I begin to move into the second half of my sabbatical, I'll be shifting gears to spiritual formation, leadership, and ministry/mission.

When God Says No

Last Sunday night I taught on suffering. I never like talking about suffering, but we've been in a series on spiritual growth for awhile, and since people grow the most when they go through difficulties, I knew we needed to talk about it.

This morning I had to get a cavity re-filled. Not sure if that's the technical term for it, but either way, it was not fun. I decided to listen to a sermon while I was in the chair, and I settled on one by Andy Stanley. A little ironic, I realize, that I would choose a sermon on suffering while I "suffered" under the care of my wonderful dentist for 90 minutes.

I should say that the sermon wasn't specifically on suffering. It was actually from a series on faith. However, it dealt with the question of how we respond when God doesn't respond to our prayers in the way we thought he would. It was an incredible talk, and one I would encourage you to listen to.

Link

Let Go of Your Stuff

Below are some of the statistics that Sandy Wilson, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, gives in his message, "Let Go of Your Stuff." The key text is Deuteronomy 14:22-15:23, which is one of the primary passages that helps us understand the Missio Dei (mission of God). In this passage he talks about the relationship between our money and the poor throughout our city and the world. One of the questions he seeks to answer is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The audio can be found here. Notes can be found here.

· If you make $25,000/yr, you are in the top 10% of the world's wealthiest

· If you make $25,000/yr, you are just above the poverty line in this country

· If you make $50,000/yr, you are in the top 1% of the world's wealthiest

· Two million children (mostly girls) will be traded in sex traffic this year

· There are more slaves in the world today than there have been in all points of history combined

· Women work two-thirds of the labor hours in the world, and they get paid less than 10% of the wages. And they own less than 1% of the property.

· There are 33 million refugees throughout the world

· The gap between the rich and the poor is growing. In 1820 the ratio was 4 to 1. In other words, the wealthiest person was four times as wealthy as the poorest person. In 1913 that ratio increased to 11 to 1. In 1950 it rose to 35 to 1. And in this last decade it rose to 75 to 1. So now, the wealthiest person is 75 times as wealthy as the poorest person.

· The biggest gap is found in China. The U.S. is in second place.

· The joblessness rate in the U.S. is now 10%. In the urban core it is over 30%

· The average church member gives 2.6% of his/her income. During the Depression Americans gave 3.3%.

· Just 2% of our giving goes overseas.

2010 Top Ten Lists: Books

Here are the best books I read this year:

1. You Can Change, by Tim Chester - I won't repeat my praise of this book since I've written 16 posts about it this year. Definitely the most shaping book of the year for me.

2. The TK Primer, by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay - Our community groups went through this in the spring, and I think it was helpful and encouraging to all of us. It's my recommendation for any new church core group.

3. The Gospel of the Kingdom, by George Eldon Ladd - I read this one as preparation of a series of talks I gave on the Kingdom of God. It was written in the late 1950's, and I quickly discovered that it was formative to a lot of the other authors I've read on the Kingdom.

4. And, by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay - Not as good as their first book, but still very helpful. Lots of great stories, and written to a wider audience than the first one.

5. Radical, by David Platt - This will give you an idea of the impact this book has made on my life. It was while listening to an interview with David Platt that I felt compelled to challenge our church to build a well this year.

6. Love and War, by John and Stasi Eldredge - This one was very different from the other marriage books I've read. Mandy read a friend's copy in one weekend, and then told me we needed a copy so I could read it as well. We're now going through the devotional together.

7. Rework, by Jason Fried - Easy read that challenges the way we lead and do business. I liked that the chapters were so short.

8. How I Changed My Mind about Women in Ministry, edited by Alan Johnson - This book is a compilation of chapters by men and women who have moved from a complementarian position to an egalitarian one. The authors include Bill & Lynn Hybels, John & Nancy Ortberg, I. Howard Marshall, Cornelius Plantinga, and Ron Sider.

9. The Letter to the Ephesians, by Peter O'Brien, and The Message of Ephesians, by John Stott - These are the two commentaries I most turned to during our series on Ephesians.

10. Finally, a little fiction:

• The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher, by Rob Stennett
• Playing for Pizza, by John Grisham
• Rooms, by James Rubart
• The Chopin Manuscript, and The Copper Bracelet, written by some of the top thriller writers today

One last thought, of the fifteen books mentioned in this post, eight of them were Kindle books. Wonder if that number will go up this year.

Weekly Links

Scot McKnight writes about homeschooling with, get this, a Germany and Memphis connection

Making lemonade out of lemons - found out about this movie on Seth Godin's blog. The idea is that sometimes the best entrepreneurial moments come out of times of crisis

Starting a Church Without Losing Your Soul - by Ed Stetzer

Audio & Video from the Acts 29 Church Planting Bootcamp in Raleigh

Ten Reasons why Churches Stall - Tim Chester

10 Tips for Missional Communities

2009 Top Ten Lists: Technology

A lot of my favorite blogs and websites from 2008 are still my favorite blogs and websites this year, so I decided to add a new category this year: Technology. I like gadgets, but some gadgets and technologies are more useful than others.

10. iTunes - I use it to keep all my music organized as well as my feed for podcasts. Free.

9. Files lite - I use this to keep Word and Excel documents on my iPhone. It doesn't allow for editing, but I don't really need that feature. I just want to have them available for reference. Free.

8. Grooveshark - allows you to listen to any song in its entirety as many times as you desire. Pretty simple. And free.

7. Syncback/Mozy Backup - Anyone who has lost data on a hard drive will tell you that you have to get a backup system in place. Here's mine. I use Syncback (scroll down to the free version) on my pc's. I use it to sync files between MyDocs and a separate partition on my hard drive. I do it every few days. I also use it with an external hard drive. Mozy costs $5/month, but provides secure offsite backup.

6. ReQall - This free service gives me a phone number that I have on speed dial in my iPhone. Here's how it works: I hit the speed dial, then a nice lady comes on, asking me if I want to add, share, or reqall. I always use the "add" feature. I hear a beep, then I make a statement like, "pay credit card bill" or "call John." I then get an email with the transcription. Best use is when I'm driving and think of something I need to do. Free.

5. Evernote - I had heard about Evernote for awhile before trying it out. Everything I read about it indicated that there are some very loyal fans of it. I've been using it for several months now, and really find it quite handy. I use it to organize research I'm doing online. For example, I'm teaching through Luke right now, so when I'm studying and come across a quote, link, idea, etc, I copy and paste it in the folder. There's an iPhone app as well. Free.

4. Twitter/Echofon/Facebook - I started twittering several months ago, and though I'm not near as deep into it as others, I've found it to be a useful and fun tool. Case in point: It's been easy to get updates on Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village in Dallas. Up to date info is the primary reason I read twitter feeds, and the primary reason I post is that I have my blog, facebook and twitter all linked up together. Echofon is the iPhone app I use. Free.

3. Kindle for iPhone/PC - I've written about the Kindle elsewhere. Amazon has most books available in Kindle format, and the majority are cheaper than the normal format. Plus, they are always offering Kindle books for free. Here is a list of their bestsellers (many are listed because of the fact that they are free). Free.

2. Google Reader - I've been using this as my RSS feed for the past year (after being onBloglines). It has a great iPhone application, which I use to browse feeds when I'm away from my computer. Free.

1. The iPhone - I probably don't need a link for this one, do I? You've probably noticed that almost all of the apps above are only possible because of this, or at least are greatly enhanced by this. Here's the review I wrote when I first purchased my iPhone last January.

2009 Top Ten Lists: Books

The following were some of my favorite books of the year (in no particular order). I realized the other day how many books I started this year but didn't finish. That's always been an issue with me, but it seems that I excelled in it this year. First new years' resolution of 2010: finish more books that I start!

1. The Prodigal God, by Tim Keller - Just as you can't have a top10 music list without U2, you can't have a top 10 list of books without something by Tim Keller. I don't think I've underlined in a book as much as I have in this one. Whenever I read something by Keller, the response is always the same: I need to read this a few more times so that I can really get it. I realized while reading it that I'm more of an older brother than I would care to admit.

2. Deep Church, by Jim Belcher - I'm almost finished listening to this book. I also have the hard copy, which I'm going to go back through when I finish listening. This book has been very helpful to me. It's helped me to process a lot of my journey. I've been impacted greatly by a lot of the folks in the emergent stream. I know the protest. But I've also been impacted by the folks in some of the other camps. I really like thinking in terms of Third Way, as Scot McKnight puts it, and I think Jim Belcher's book helps with this conversation.

3. The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones (and God) - I first heard about this children's Bible a couple of months ago, and got a copy for our church's new library. We've been reading it with Adam, and he really likes it. What sets it apart from other children's Bibles is that fact that it tells the story of Christ from the beginning. The stories fit together when looked at through the lens of God's plan of redemption. We watched this video on Sunday night as our worship gathering got started. I looked around and the kids (as well as the adults) were all caught up in the story. Get this version for a few bucks more and it comes with the audio as well.

4. Total Church, by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis - Our leadership team is reading through this book. These guys are writing things that will challenge the status quo, but they do so without (at least it seems to me) a lot of baggage, which normally comes with the territory in this kind of work.

5. Myth of a Christian Religion, by Greg Boyd - I really like Greg Boyd. He offends a lot of people, but I think he nails it most of the time. This one's no exception. The idea is that Jesus came to start a revolution, not a religion. This big idea has helped me to shape the series that we're currently going through at NC.

6. Love is an Orientation, by Andrew Marin - This was my primary source this summer as our community group discussed GLBT issues within the church. Andrew is such a humble guy, but I especially like the fact that his writing comes from a lot of years of experience. This isn't two years of work and then a book.

7. New Testament History, by Ben Witherington - This is one of those books that you don't really read straight through, but I've been reading it off and on this past year. I used it all the time for our teaching series on Acts, and now I'm using it for the series on Luke. Highly recommended.

8. Death by Love, by Mark Driscoll - I read this in preparation for my series on the Cross last Spring. The main thing I got out of it is how pastoral it is. Driscoll devotes each chapter to a different aspect of the Cross and how they relate to us. It's not just theology for our head; it's how it's worked out in our brokenness.

9. The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, by Frank Viola - This was the primary recommended resource for our Acts series. Viola brings this story to life by weaving in history and the culture of the day. He helps the reader connect the letters of Paul to the experiences of Paul as told in Acts.

10. Chasing Francis, by Ian Cron - I can't remember where I heard about this novel, but it was the first Kindle book I bought. I don't know a lot of the history of Francis of Assisi, so can't vouch for how accurate things are, but I thought it was pretty good.

Bonus tracks...

11. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown - I know this one had some bad ratings, but it was entertaining. Another Kindle read.

12. Crazy Love, by Francis Chan - Chan has helped me to to see that it's ok to be really passionate! It oozes from him, whether he's writing or speaking. I'm looking forward to reading his new book as well.

Weekly Links

1. Gotta start out with this video. It's not everyday that something this awesome and unexpected happens.




2. When Helping Hurts - I heard Steve Corbett speak at CCDA and then purchased the book. Here is an article by the co-author, Brian Fikkert. I have to say that I had never heard anyone say these things, yet something resounded within me that these guys are speaking truth.

3. Another free ebook from Seth Godin - What Matters Now

4. Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church, responds to some of his critics. Almost finished with this book, and it is great.

5. Perry Noble's 7 questions that teams should be asking. This is very helpful if you are a part of a team.

6. Scot McKnight's brief review on Alan Roxburgh's new book makes me want to read it. Guess that's the point of book reviews, right. I think the three missional conversations that speak of are right on point.

Weekly Links

Audio from the Acts 29 Bootcamp in Louisville can be found here. Haven't listened to any of it yet, but reading Steve McCoy's reflections of the event make me want to.

Found this site from Acts 29. Here's the tag line from Dustin Neely: "speaking up for the guys who may never plant mega-churches, while being thankful for those who do."

Great interview with Jon Foreman of Switchfoot.

Advent Conspiracy in Wired Magazine

My friends Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr have a new book out: Church Turned Inside Out. Check this out.

Free Kindle Book

The Kindle version of Nancy Ortberg's Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands is free for a limited time here.

Catching Up on Some Links

Way behind on this, so I'm going to have two posts on some of the great things I've read online over the last few weeks. First, some great resources...

150 of Tim Keller's sermons available for free

Summaries from some of the talks at Catalyst this year

Free ebook on discipleship from Winfield Bevins. I'm printing it out right now and am looking forward to reading it.

Videos from The Nines

Video/audio from the Lead09 Conference featuring Tim Chester and Jonathan Dodson

Links

It's been awhile since I posted links, so you can imagine that I've got some really good ones here. Hopefully that will prove to be the case.

Tim Chester on the differences between house churches and missional communities

Tim Kimmel, author of Grace-Based Parenting, is coming to Memphis in October. Hoping to take a great group from our church

A month or so ago I started doing a bible study on our identity in Christ. Today I see that Greg Boyd has beaten me to it. This is worth spending some time on. I want to teach on this at some point soon.

A key passage for our Acts series this summer was 1 Peter 3:15, which says that we as Christians should always be ready to give a reason for why we have hope. I remember first hearing Brian McLaren say that this implies that people are asking questions. So what questions are our friends asking?

I just ordered the TK Primer (Workbook). It's a follow-up to one of my all-time favorite books, The Tangible Kingdom, by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. I'm looking forward to going through this workbook.

How I Got Here - Teams

Here's another article from Cutting Edge, this one from the Spring 2001 issue. (Back in the day, there weren't near the resources for church planting that there are now, or at least I wasn't aware of them). The article was called "Teams that Thrive and Not Just Survive", by Grace McLaren, and the subject was Teams. We moved to California from Nashville so that I could go to seminary, and the reason was so that we would be prepared for church planting. Prior to that time, I had been a worship leader. I felt pretty confident in this, but church planting was something new.

There was one major problem with me being a church planter. I had never been a pastor, and at that point had preached a total of five sermons. I felt that if I were going to start a church, I needed a team. This article helped me to understand why a team is needed to accomplish any project. I was introduced to the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory through this article, and was able to better understand how God had wired me and what I would bring to a team. More importantly, I understood who I was not.

From the time I started seminary, I was on the lookout for team members. Later, I began understanding that my desire to be a part of a team wasn't simply about logistics. It was about being a part of something greater than myself, and it was about doing whatever that was with my friends.

Three years ago our dreams were finally realized when Jason and Barb Elder moved to Memphis with us to start Neighborhood Church. Though they are no longer with the church, I am so glad that they came along us on this journey. They helped us to build a foundation of team, and the team we have now is amazing. I am so thankful to be able to live out the mission of God with my closest friends!

Total Church

Beginning next Tuesday I'm going to be commenting on the book Total Church with my friend Nathan Cook and others. For more info, as well as to join the conversation, go here.

Weekly Links

Ben Arment on "Three Kinds of Jobs"

More from Andy Stanley on Communication:  Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

The messages from Advance09 are available for download from Desiring God

New iPhone and software getting ready to come out

Good explanation of bi-weekly payments on a mortgage - I've been doing something similar since we bought our first home, albeit without the fees.  I just divided the monthly payment by 12, then added that to the principal each month.  It will end up knocking around seven years off my mortgage, which will save me approximately $36,000 in interest!

Internetmonk's review of Love is an Orientation, by Andrew Marin.  Here's Andrew on the Neue podcast as well.

Saving the best for last..."Why couldn't Jesus shapeshift?" and other Awkward Questions from Children - from Scot McKnight  

Weekly Links

Tim Chester's summary of the one-another passages in the New Testament

I started teaching a six-week series on the book of Acts at Union Ave. Baptist Church two weeks ago, and these posts by Perry Noble and Tim Chester have been helpful.

In another post from Perry Noble (who I've just started reading), he makes the statement: "I believe that God is getting ready to do something unlike He has ever done before." I think I'm starting to believe this as well. Jesus, I believe; help my unbelief.

Here's a great story from Scot McKnight's blog on the power of the Scriptures.

Jonathan Dodson on Simplified Missional Living - practical yet powerful.

One of the phrases that stuck out to me in Newsweek's article "The End of Christian America" was "religion is 'losing influence' in American society." Read the article for the context of this quote, but I for one am excited by the possibilities.

TED Conferences cost thousands of dollars to attend, but you can watch the videos online for free.

You'll be happy to know that Micah has been doing a little modeling.

Books I'm Reading

I just updated my Shelfari page, so I thought I would give an update on some of the good books I've been reading. On Easter we finished up our series on the Cross, so for the last couple of months I've been reading a lot on that subject. Two of the key books I read were Death by Love, by Mark Driscoll, and The Atonement, by Leon Morris. I grew and learned a lot during this series.

Next Sunday I am preaching on parenting, so I've been reading a few books on this topic, namely, Grace Based Parenting, by Tim Kimmel, Revolutionary Parenting, by George Barna, and Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture, by Mary DeMuth. I haven't read much of Barna's yet, but I highly recommend the other two.

I've also just started reading Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. This is one of those books where it seems like I'm underlining every other sentence. The chapter on community is amazing, as is the one on evangelism. Speaking of that chapter, you can read it on Tim Chester's blog.

Finally, our men's discussion group has one more week on Piper's Don't Waste Your Life. It's been encouraging yet very challenging. I guess that's typical Piper, though.

Weekly Links

• Innovation3 was one of those conferences that I would have loved to have gone to. The next best thing is having free resources from it.
  
  
• Great nugget of parenting truth from Mark Batterson
  
  
• Ben Witherington reminds us of God's promises during our woeful economic times
  
  
• Tim Keller's Q & A Sessions free for download at Redeemer's store
  
  
• Ed Stetzer's 5-Part Interview on Communication with Andy Stanley

Another Great Resource

Leadership Learnings from Bloggers

This is a 250-plus page e-book features the best of the best leadership lessons from 20 different bloggers. I printed it out and have been reading it over the last few days. A lot of great reminders!

A Great Church Resource

Mars Hill in Seattle has released a free resource in conjunction with their 28-week series on 1 & 2 Peter. It seems that there are a couple of reasons behind this document. The first is that they want to saturate the message of 1 & 2 Peter into everything their church does. They have outlined the two letters, giving the big ideas for each message. They've also written a study guide to be used in their weekly community groups. This also includes a daily devotional guide for families to use. I love this because it's centered around the dinner table and is to be used with the kids. Brilliant!

Their second reason for doing this is to help pastors like myself plan and "brand" sermons. I need all the help I can get, and I'm very appreciative to Mars Hill for this.

You can download this 207-page document from the Resurgence site.