For All my Minnesota Friends!

I thought this was funny! Especially since half of my family sounds like this!

Everyone should have a Summer Reading List!

OH Joy it is that time again!  The time to grab a book and sit under a big Oak tree with one of your favorite books.  I believe that reading is a greatly underestimated discipline that is largely forgotten in Christianity. As the old adage goes: Readers are the next leaders, and I find this to be true. Everyone loves the fruit in the readers life and many I talk to sigh, “I really ought to read more…” but seem to never get around to it. But reading, like sleeping, eating, jogging, praying or any discipline for that matter, comes usually when it is scheduled.  If not scheduled we would not jog, pray, sleep (much), or eat right and neither would we read; which is why most people do not.  I remember I heard one my teachers say, “the one who chooses not to read is the one who scorns wisdom.”  It is true.  Augustine, Wesley, Shakespeare, Calvin, Luther, St. Francis, and many more all have valuable jewels that are only to be found by those who read.  Reading is also a form of discipleship.  I am in a limited way being discipled by Brennan Manning or Hannah Whitall-Smith when I lend my ear to the insights that they have received.  So my exhortation to you is to read. Because ignorance has never been glorious.

So without further ado, here is my 2010 Summer Reading List!

1.  Bernard of Clairvaux by Abbé Theodore Ratisbonne

2.  The Climax of the Covenant by N.T. Wright

3.  Fathered by God by John Eldredge

4.  Home Tonight:  Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen

5.  Flame of Love by Clark Pinnock

6.  Out of the Silent Planet (Book 1 in the Space Trilogy) by C.S. Lewis

7.  Perelandra (Book 2 in the Space Trilogy) by C.S. Lewis

8.  That Hideous Strength (Book 3 in the Space Trilogy) by C.S. Lewis

9.  End of Memory:  Remembering Rightly in a Violent World by Miroslav Volf

10.  Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

So there are my ten books that I am looking reading this summer (though I have read Mere Christianity 2 out of the last 3 summers ) I guess it is just that good.  What is on your list?  Do you have any thoughts on the books that I have chosen?