Who’s Reading What? is a monthly feature at Lifeway Pastors. We survey a few pastors, business leaders, theologians, professors, writers, and other culture shapers with these four questions:
What are you currently reading?
Who is the author?
Which genre is it?
Why are you reading it?
No reviews. No summaries. It is a quick list to help expand the borders of your intake.
Enjoy!
Helen Lee, author and speaker
What: The Jonathan Effect
Who: Mike Tenbusch
Which: Sociology/Education
Why: It gives me hope that churches can be part of a sustainable solution to help impoverished youth, with vivid depictions of the challenges these kids are facing and practical tools and guidance for churches that want to be a part of that solution.
Brad Waggoner, executive vice-president, Lifeway Christian Resources
What: Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
Who: Timothy Keller
Which: Apologetics
Why: To assist me understanding and interacting with increasing numbers of skeptics, agnostics or “nones.”
What: The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues
Who: Patrick Lencioni
Which: Business/Leadership
Why: To assist me in my professional role of hiring the proper employees and guiding a healthy culture.
Micah Fries, lead pastor, Brainerd Baptist Church
What: Leadership Mosaic
Who: Daniel Montgomery & Jared Kennedy
What: Leadership
Why: I am reading a couple of books on leadership, thinking through leadership paradigms.
What: Gaining by Losing
Who: JD Greear
Which: Church leadership/multiplication
Why: Thinking through the creation of a culture of multiplication.
Todd Littleton, pastor, Snow Hill Baptist Church
What: Faithful Presence
Who: David Fitch
Which: Theology/Ecclesiology/Missiology
Why: Fitch works constructively through seven disciplines of the Church that point toward the way the new world of the Kingdom may break into the shattered lives of our neighbors. This helps me (and helps me help others) be present with people in my community in the Name of Jesus.
Amy Whitfield, director of communications, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
What: Hannah Coulter
Who: Wendell Berry
Which: Fiction
Why: I like to always be reading and/or re-reading anything by Wendell Berry, and usually switch back and forth between essays and fiction. I’m hanging out in Port William at the moment.
What: Ragman
Who: Walter Wangerin, Jr.
Which: Short Stories/Essays
Why: Wangerin is a powerful storyteller and essayist. I read from this collection every Advent season.
Kathy Litton, national consultant for ministry to pastor’s wives, NAMB
What: The Forgotten Ways
Who: Alan Hirsch
Which: Mission
Why: I have been drawn to Hirsch’s voice and wanted to dig deeper into what I have heard others call an imperative message for the church in the west. After reading the book I heartily agree.
What: Hope Has Its Reasons
Who: Rebecca Pippert
Which: Evangelism/Apologetics
Why: When a book is so vigorously recommended by Tim Keller, Elizabeth Elliot, Chuck Colson, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, and Sheila Walsh I felt I needed to read it. Helpful book for the doubting Christian or the thinking skeptic.
Marty Duren, executive editor, Lifeway Pastors
What: The Great Omission
Who: Dallas Willard
Which: Discipleship
Why: Finishing a classic started several years ago.