Happy tensions: a few of my reads (print + web)

Don’t have much time to invest writing these days, but do keep a journal and write thoughts (more often type them, or hand-write in my illegible lower case scratches that inevitably make it difficult for others to read; a short-hand of sorts).

Along the same lines, I haven’t had much time to read in recent months. At least not at the book-a-week clip I enjoyed before. Always dabbling in a few books, and trying to keep up on a few blogs. Here’s what I’m reading right now:

BOOKS

Always

• God’s Word, the Bible (ESV + NIV + ESV Study Bible online)
• Greek New Testament (UBS 4th Rev. Ed., mostly following along while receiving the weekend sermons to not lose everything I’ve learned)
• The Best of A.W. Tozer (never tire of this saints’ insights)

Renewing minds

• Godology: because knowing God changes everything by Christian George // a short, creative and at times mind-blowing treatment of God’s Perfections (attributes), and how the Triune God intersects with daily lives. He had me on the first page when he quoted my favorite Tozer-ism: "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." How true. Yesterday morning I read a chapter called "Chocolate for the Soul" (on God’s Holiness), which had an awesome sidebar quote: "Grace is the grueling work of a determined God."
• Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ by John Piper

Leadership + Pastoring

• Leading with a Limp : take full advantage of your most powerful weakness by Dan Allender (just got it back from Kari, who thoroughly enjoyed it)
• Leading from the Second Chair : serving your church, fulfilling your role and realizing your dreams by Mike Bonem & Roger Patterson
• 101 Ideas for Making Disciples in Your Youth Group by Kent Julian

Many other pastoral books are within reach here on my desk, and from which I glen often. Like A Quest for More by Paul David Tripp, Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester, Waiting on God by Andrew Murray, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul David Tripp, and many Warren Wiersbe books (including On Being a Servant of God ).

I am not a fast reader, but give me a day off without any other commitments and I would happily read for 12 hours straight. (In a public place, so I can dialogue with others too.) I call this a "happy tension" because I long to read and know more. Yet the Spirit longs for reshaping us to want to know God more, obeying him from the inward person. Put another way, while we want to "get in the Word," God works for the word to get in us.

Leaders must be readers, and I’m convinced that we give far more consideration to what we put in our mouths than what we put in our minds. Renewing our minds is the daily discipline of people who love God and are growing to love Him more. Otherwise we implode on ourselves and get trapped in the tiny prisons of our own minds, and remain like kids in our thoughts, tossed to and fro by every wind of teaching (Eph. 4:14).

BLOGS

Don’t have time to read much of these anymore, but other than my wife’s daily musings, here are some of my favorite blogs (with a link to a particularly good post on each):

• Gospel-driven Church // bonus post (Jared Wilson, writer, and pastor of Element )
• Christians in Context
• Dwell Deep (Matt Chandler)
• What’s Best Next (Matt Perman)
  
• Desiring God
• subtext // the gospel in the suburban context
• Church Planting Novice & Creation Project (Jonathan Dodson, who has the same glasses as yours truly)

And others when possible.