It never fails, my reading schedule is clicking right along and then summer hits. It is a little hard to keep up with your reading when you’re driving a church van to camp or keeping tabs on all your teens while on mission trip. During the summer, cleaning out the church vehicle and running to Sonic on the way to an event take precedent over any book. Typically I catch up and finish most of the books that have languished unread on my nightstand or desk in October and November. I currently have about 10 open books right now that I would like to finish before the end of the year. 3 Books I’m currently reading and want to finish before the new year are:

Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership by Tim Irwin
Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson , wrote a great review/preview of this leadership book last week. I was immediately hooked. I downloaded it to my Kindle and actually began reading it this afternoon. The book profiles 6 well-known leaders and how they were eventually dismissed from their companies because of character flaws or lapses in integrity. The book has a Good to Great feel to it so I am very excited to dig into this one!

I chose to write about these particular leaders because they offered highly visible and compelling illustrations of individuals who derailed for the very reasons we can derail—a failure of character. I don’t mean failed character in the sense of dishonesty that results in fraudulent behavior, but rather compromised character in a broader sense—for example, hubris or being dismissive of others.This book has two primary objectives: first, to help us understand how derailment occurs—the real point of the six leader profiles; second, to help us avoid a cataclysmic train wreck in our own careers—the subject of the second half of the book.

Scouting the Divine: My Search for God in Wine, Wool, and Wild Honey by Margaret Feinberg
I love to read and when I can get a free copy of a book I was planning on purchasing that is good thing. At Catalyst Margaret Feinberg gave every attendee a copy of her latest book. Margaret previewed the book during her message at The 9s this fall and so I was very happy to find out we were getting the book for FREE! (I met Margaret on Thursday and she let the surprise slip).

What does it mean to know Jesus as the Good Shepherd when the only places I’ve encountered sheep are at petting zoos? How can I understand the promise of a land flowing with honey when I buy mine in a bear shape bottle? Is it possible to grasp the urgency of Jesus’ invitation to abide in the vine when I shop for grapes at a local grocery store?

Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional by Jim Belcher
One of the ways I enjoy Twitter is following other ministers and reading about what they are reading. @MattChandler74 of the Village tweeted about Deep Church one afternoon telling me to make reading this book a “priority.” I took his advice and was drawn in to this deeply personal and challenging book. What has engaged me so much about this book is because I feel like I have one foot firmly planted in the traditional church and one foot placed in the emerging church. I have been shaped by both. These two movements are often at each other’s throats but Belcher is seeking a way to bring these two ideologies to a place were they can begin to trust each other. The book is all about discernment and understanding. Good times!

Seven years later, I remain an insider and an outsider to the emerging conversation. There are many areas of emerging theology and ministry which I wholeheartedly agree. They desire many of the things I embrace, and they dislike many of the things I don’t like about evangelicalism. But I also have deep misgivings about areas of thought and practice. I am caught in between, and am comfortable with this ambiguity. It allows me to learn from both the traditional church and the emerging church as I follow a different route the deep church.

I said I have ten open book right now. I’ll post about three more next. Until then…