2007 Summer Reading List

I have been reading Rebecca Blood's excellent collection of Summer Reading Lists and after putting in a big order to Amazon.ca, I decided to create my own. In no particular order...

• No Future Without Forgiveness by Archbishop Desmond Tutu :: I picked this up this spring and read it again and I forgot what an amazing book this is and a story of living out one's faith in the most troubling of situations.
• Soul Graffiti by Mark Scandrette :: One of the best books I have read this year and it wrestles with the question of how to actually live out the teaching of Jesus in a post-Christian world.
• The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne :: A book of theology and stories of how those that make up the Simple Way have lived among the poor of Philadelphia.
• Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect by Joe Myers: Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. But community can’t be forced, controlled, or easily created. The problem is that churches are too focused on developing programs instead of concentrating on environments where community will spontaneously emerge.
• An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt :: I thought the book had some excellent chapters as well as some weaker ones (all multi-authored books suffer from this) but as a whole, it was worth reading, even for us non-Americans who get a glimpse of how the American emerging church sees itself.
• The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon :: The book is about how society will deal with increasing costs to get oil out of ground and the challenges and opportunities that will bring but it could as well be read in light of any context going through any great change. (My review can be found here)
• The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson :: A way of sacrifice. A way of failure. A way on the margins. A way of holiness. All of these ways prepared the "way of the Lord" that became incarnate and complete in Jesus. But somewhere along the line, Peterson reminds us that we have lost the "way".
• Everything Bad is Good For You by Steven Johnson :: There has been a lot of books out there criticizing contemporary media for much of societies ills but Johnson makes the contrarian argument quite convincing. Johnson shatters the conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum, showing how video games, television shows and movies have become increasingly complex. Furthermore, he says, consumers are drawn specifically to those products that require the most mental engagement.
• How (Not) to Speak of God by Pete Rollins :: Not the easiest book to read but a powerful theological and philosophical treatise on the emerging church.
• Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin :: It used to be called The Complex Christ but a new continent and publisher have given it a new identity as Signs of Emergence. One of the best books on the emerging church and now new to North America. You can read my review of the book here.

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