Best Books of 2008

I'm moving offices this week, so it's likely my blogs will be a little disjointed. My apologies in advance.

One of my favorite things about a New Year is the year-in-review shows that everyone broadcasts. They evaluate everything from the top infomercials of the previous year to the top news stories of the previous year, and I love watching them. Well, in that spirit, here are the top 5 books I read this past year.

Church Unique - Will Mancini - This book barely made the list, but only because I just read it over Christmas. I'll write a proper review of it one of these days when/if I get it back - it was so good I loaned it out. It offers tremendous insight into the mistakes most churches make through the strategic planning process. Excellent, excellent book for anyone on the strategic planning side of ministry.

The Future of Justification - I wrote a review on this book fairly recently. It's not the easiest read of the year, but one of the more important. John Piper does a great job defending justification against the current writings of some popular theologians (N.T. Wright being foremost).

Vintage Jesus - I love the fact that Mark Driscoll is writing about significant theological issues. He and I aren't together on everything, but we're together on almost everything, and I really really liked this book. I'm praying that God will continue to raise up a younger group of guys who will think theologically, and preach biblically. Mark seems to be one of those guys. I hope to be one too, but a little less angry than Mark...
Why We're Not Emergent - I said much more about this book in a review earlier in the year. It's a well-written, easy-read, but is a very thorough (and fair) treatment of the "Emergent Church." These guys resist the urge to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but aren't afraid to throw out the bathwater.

Soul Revolution - This one was a weird one for me. I didn't love the book as much as I loved John Burke's former book, but I really love the concept of the 60/60 experiment - that our lives need to be more devoted than just a 30 minute "devotional" time in the morning. I'm doing the experiment with a group of guys in 2009, and think it's going to be a great thing for us.

I'm looking forward to some good reading in 2009. And I'm especially looking for some great books. How about you? Anything you read this past year that was particularly helpful to you?

0 comments: