I have had a sense (or at least a hope) that Lent 2010 will be an especially transformational time in my life, in my home, and in my church. Knowing that we have to be intentional about our own spiritual growth, I’ve been thinking specifically about my growth plan for Lent (this continues the thinking from my recent posts: Personal Growth Plan and Daily Must-Dos).
I didn’t do so well with last year’s attempt at Reading Eugene Peterson for Lent, but that was because we hit a major crunch time in finishing up some work for our commissioning/ordination process. I’m hoping to do better this year!
Here’s the list of books I plan to read this Lenten season (in order) …
Off-Road Disciplines (Earl Creps)
Eat This Book (Eugene Peterson)
Raising an Emotionally-Intelligent Child (John Gottman)
Secrets from the Treadmill (Pete Briscoe and Patricia Hickman)
Hearing God (Dallas Willard)
Emotionally-Healthy Spirituality (Pete Scazzarro)
Cadences of Home (Walter Brueggemann)
Leadership Gold (John Maxwell)
A Resilient Life (Gordan MacDonald)
When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box (John Ortberg)
Some of these books have been on our list for a long time, including the Reading Pile 2.5 years ago. I’m just now recovering from the doctor of ministry program we completed in 2008! 🙂
Observations …
In this list, I’ve tried to include mostly spiritual formation/development types of books along with one leadership book, one preaching book, and one parenting book. Normally, I read mostly leadership books, with a few of the others thrown in occasionally.
Two of the books, including the parenting book, deal with emotional health. I also wanted to include something by Eugene Peterson, Dallas Willard, and Walter Brueggemann, and I settled on these particular ones.
I wanted to include at least one preaching book. I’ve been thinking recently that, while I really don’t usually read a lot of books on preaching, that I should occasionally. Since it’s something that I do virtually every week, it’s an axe I need to continually sharpen. I just finished reviewing Communicating for a Change (Andy Stanley and Lanes Jones) in the last few days, after having read it twice (and I almost never read books more than once!) a few years ago (see my One Point Preaching post for more on that). I’m planning a couple posts on preaching next week.
I always enjoy reading John Ortberg, whose books have great titles (e.g., If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat and Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them). I’ve also been greatly influenced by John Maxwell over the last two decades through his books, monthly audio clubs, and conferences.
Well, I will probably blog some learnings along the way. I’m looking forward to it!