Newsbrief: Summer Reading List

At our weekly trip to the library to this week I signed Henry up for the Summer Reading Program.

It is an annual tradition at our house, made all the more special by the fact that this year Henry has decided that he’ll be the one who reads the books. He has just finished Kindergarten after all and he’s gotten quite good at this reading thing. For every five books he finishes he gets to go back to the library to have his Reading List stamped with the official library stamper and then he can pick out his prize. He got so excited about the whole thing that he tried to read 20 books on the first day just so that he could go back and get four prizes – he’s getting pretty good with the math thing too, I guess!

I grew up taking part in the Summer Reading Program at my home library in Round Rock, Texas and in fact it is something that I still do. When the summer months come I put together my reading list and then spend part of those June, July, and August days working through my stack of books.

This year my list includes: Thomas Long’s Preaching from Memory to Hope; John McClure’s The Four Codes of Preaching; Alex Roxburgh’s Missional Map-Making; J. Wimberly’s The Business of Church; and Dan Hotchkiss’ Governance and Ministry.

I’d like to invite you to join me this summer in reading something beneficial for the life of our church…but I’m relatively sure academic tomes on theories of preaching or an experts take on congregational policy and polity probably aren’t what you had in mind!

So let me recommend one other: Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works. It is an “engaging study of creativity. Lehrer uses case studies like 3M’s and Pixar’s innovative corporate cultures and Bob Dylan’s songwriting habits to frame scientific findings about the brain and where creativity comes from” (from The Amazon Review of Books).

If you are looking for something to do this summer, check out Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine. I might not be able to entice you with a prize from the treasure chest or a voucher good for “One Free Donut” from the bakery down the street, but I can guarantee that it will get your creative juices flowing. And that is a pretty great gift in its own right!

Yours in the Journey,

Rev. Brian