caffeine, please.

Mentored

James S. Stewart, a Scottish pastor from the middle of the last century, is an author I discovered via a footnote.  (Footnotes can be valuable paths to hidden gems.)  Some have called him the greatest Scottish preacher ever and Preaching Magazine calls him the greatest preacher of the 20th century.  (Sidenote:  if you ever come across audio recordings of JSS, please let me know.)

I just finished his book Heralds of God.  This should be required reading for every pastor.  So much insight and wisdom.  I felt like I had an extended mentoring session with a gifted and proven pastor.  Here are just a couple nuggets from the book:

Richard Florida Authors@Google

Readers of this blog know that I'm a big fan of the research of Richard Florida.  His recent book, Who's Your City, is a valuable resource for people who want to understand cities.  Prof Florida was recently at Authors@Google to talk about the book.

Sidenote:  I love the concept of Authors@Google.  The premise seems to be, invite a thought-provoking author to present a thumbnail of their work to Google employees for the simple reason of adding value to the employees' lives.  Honestly, Google probably takes better care of their employees than just about any church I know of.  So I'm wondering,  how could we harness the concept of Authors@Google at New Life?  How could we bring great thinkers, writers and people of faith into our staff environment to present their best material and let it be a catalyst for growth, adding value to our staffs' lives.

Reading

Just finished Church Shift and Church of the Perfect Storm.  Both of them were pretty short reads.  Thumbnail reviews...

Church Shift is a "step up to your church's calling" type of book by Sunday Adelaja.  Sunday is a Nigerian-born pastor of the largest church in Ukraine.  (God has a good sense of humor.)  What I liked about the book--Sunday's story and his personal devotion to Jesus are compelling, his leadership boldness in the marketplace was inspirational, and the manner in which he carries his pastoral burden while challenging people to live out their personal mission was soul-stirring.

Lost in Transmission?

I picked up a book by "accident" Friday at Barnes and Noble.  Lost in Transmission? by Nicholas Perrin a prof out at Wheaton.  A timely and valuable read since we'll be preaching on the trustworthiness of Scripture from 2 Peter this Sunday.  (BTW, this is why brick-and-mortar will not be entirely taken over by internet shopping--browsing a bookstore is a valuable discipline that has often led me to books I needed to read.)

This book is largely an alternative to the story of the Bible's transmission presented by Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus.  Anyone wrestling with reliability of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, in communicating the life and words of Jesus, ought to read this book.

And Perrin is no sterile scholar.  He weaves his own journey of encountering Jesus through the words of the Bible in his college years as he writes.  The book is not what you would expect.  Far from dry, it is an engaging presentation of the historical reliability of the Gospel writers and those who preserved the text through the ages of church history. 

Its the kind of book that reminds you what a treasure the Bible is without employing the tactic of truthiness.  Its meaty without being pedantic or sanctimonious.

Here's a great summary statement from Perrin:

I have been arguing that historically speaking, we can have a fair deal of confidence that the Gospels give us the words--not to mention the life--of Jesus.  But this confidence does not mean that we have fully grasped Jesus, that we have intellectually mastered him, that he is in our back pocket. (p. 127)

This book is worth the $15 or $20 you'll spend--it will increase your confidence in the words of the New Testament with a fully engaged mind and heart.