Monday, January 10, 2011

Books I've Read in 2010

This past year has been a year of goodbye's and searching for new members in our staff team at the Church. With our Associate Pastor leaving for Melbourne to study and pastor a church and with our Church Administrator retiring we have been saying good-bye and working hard to find new great staff. For the first time in my six years here at Wodonga I have not taken all of my holidays so my reading is less than the previous years. I missed a couple of good chunks of time on holidays when I love to read and secretly compete with my wife to see who can read the most. That said I feel like my regular reading in the throws of ministry has increased which is encouraging to me.


So here are the books I have read for 2010.

Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain (Meir & Henderson), The Imperfect Board Member (Brown), How to Apply the Bible (Veerman), Death By Meeting (Lencioni), The Vertical Self (Sayers), 7 Practices of Effective Ministry (Stanley, Joiner & Jones), The Tipping Point (Gladwell), The Suprising Work of God (Edwards), Everyone Communicates Few Connect (Maxwell), Helping the Depressed (Ross), Colour Your World with NCD (Schwartz), Hudson Taylor (Taylor), The Contemplative Pastor (Peterson) and Short History of the Baptists (Vedder).

My favourite book would have probably been "7 Practices" or "The Tipping Point." I have tried to read books that really interest me while also broadening my reading so that I just don't stick to the categories I naturally love.

The only book not in the photo is "The Contemplative Pastor" which I have on my computer software "Logos 4." I read it by printing off sections at a time. I can't quite get into reading from a screen yet but I know this will increase in the coming years.

I've read two books for 2011 already as my holidays have just finished. Andy Stanley's "Principle of the Path" and have finished my first complete audio book "Vintage Church" by Mark Driscoll. I'm just finishing "Drive" by Daniel Pink and have been enjoying it too.

I think that what Rick Warren has said, "Leaders are readers" is true. Not all readers are leaders but people who are leading others need to be growing and learning so that they can serve the needs of those they lead.

As this year begins my pile of books are waiting for me to read and I am looking forward to growing as I read. We have a terrific new Administrator, a new Associate starting next week and plans for the full quota of holidays ahead!

What are you reading? What would you recommend?

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