I haven't posted anything in over a month. I've been too busy reading. I have lunch with a good friend, Ken Vickery, about once per month. We discuss sports and life, but also ministry and what we're reading. Ken was my pastor for a year as I served as his youth pastor.
I've always been impressed with Ken's READING, and without him even knowing it, he pushed/challenged me to read. During the year I worked with Ken, I was in seminary and HAD to read constantly. I had so many ASSIGNED books that I never got to read stuff I CHOSE to read, but also, much of what I read was simply to get it done and complete the assignment involved. Even with the books I enjoyed, I didn't take the time to absorb the material because there were always several more books waiting to be read and written about.
Not long after starting as Ken's youth pastor, he walked in my office and checked out my library of books. I think his opinion of me became a little inflated because of some of the books he saw. He asked, "Have you read all of these?" I said, "Most of them. I didn't have a choice." He then told me how many of them he also had in his library.
I was in seminary through July 2010, taking at least 2 seminar classes per year, so I had lots of assigned reading until just 2 years ago. But as soon as I finished, I started reading more of what I WANTED to read. And Ken has been the primary source I've used for my new books. Let me say now before I forget, we all need someone to challenge, inspire, and mentor us, regardless of our vocation. We NEED someone in our lives who has been doing WHAT WE'RE DOING longer than us. I have several of these people in my life, and their wisdom keeps me from wasting energy by learning things the hard/uninformed way.
In the past 2+ years, I've read many of the popular books on ministry, the books "everybody else" has read (Radical, Crazy Love, Christian Atheist, UnChristian, Not A Fan, etc.). It's easy to get caught up in just reading "the latest, greatest thing" by this "latest, greatest pastor," but I refuse to read a book just because "everybody else" is doing it. If I don't want to become like somebody, why would I read their book(s)? I had to do enough of that kind of reading in college/seminary - reading books just to tear them apart and show where they missed the mark biblically.
I've read or re-read a few classics (Pilgrim's Progress, In His Steps, Mere Christianity . . . ), some adoption books (Adopted For Life, Orphanology [currently] . . .), and some harder books that weren't FUN (The Church by Mark Dever, Jesus Among Other Gods, Desiring God, Doctrine by Driscoll & Breshears . . .).
Ken told me about a guy named Avery Willis a while back. I finally checked him out, and I couldn't do that without checking out a guy named Jim Putman. Ken mentioned him, too. He's the pastor of Real Life Discipleship in Post Falls, ID. He was a wrestler in college so his athletic/coaching approach is appealing to me. Jim started a church that grew from infancy to over 9,000 in about 10 years. He didn't do it with flash, an entertainment-based worship service, or any type of gimmick. He did it through discipleship. He said they wanted to put their resources and energy into making disciples, not a Sunday show.
You can read about it in two books Putman's written: Church Is a Team Sport and Real-Life Discipleship.
As I read the second book, Real-Life Discipleship, and Truth That Sticks: How to Commuicate Velcro Truth in a Teflon World by Avery Willis and Mark Snowden, I learned about the Bible storying method of teaching. Willis served as a missionary in Indonesia working with primarily ORAL LEARNERS - people who learn through stories and spoken words, not through reading. Interestingly, most Americans are also ORAL LEARNERS, even though most Americans can read at some level. But most church teaching is presented in a way that appeals to LITERATE LEARNERS. These books have changed the way I think about teaching/preaching.
If you're in ministry, I encourage you to read these two books: Real-Life Discipleship and Truth That Sticks. I don't know if these books have ever been on anybody's best seller lists, but when did popular opinion EVER get set as the standard for value/truth?
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