There are two times when I am most susceptible to feeling bad: (1) browsing through the books in a bookstore, and (2) looking through the books in our personal home library. In both places, I come across way too many good books waiting to be read!
A few years ago I talked about our Reading Pile. Some of those books have still not been read, and at the same time, we’ve add others. This past weekend, I updated the pile with the 65 most pressing books. Most of these books are leadership books with some spiritual growth books in there as well.
In my recent post, 15 Books That Have Shaped Me as a Leader, I said that leaders are readers. But I do not read as much as I want to. That’s due in part to finishing up and recovering from the doctor of ministry program in the last several years as well as everything else we’ve had going on, like completing the ordination process in the UMC.
I hope now that we’re recovering the D.Min. program, and especially after we complete the ordination process, that we will be able to get back to doing more reading (basically, we need to read faster than we add new books to the pile!).
Currently, I have a year-long list of books to read as part of a mentoring group I’m in, which are included in the 65 (actually, I’ve read a few of those already so I may only have to review them). I’ve also included resources I’m trying to read as part of my (final) 150 Days of Preparation for Ordination.