8 Ways to Read the Best books

I love books. This isn’t a secret if you’ve been around my blog for a long time or follow me on Instagram.

And now is a great time to be reading and finding great books (and to broaden your reading).

So, here are eight ways to know if you are limiting your reading and what to change to find the best books:

Every book you read is from your theological camp. There are a lot of crazy religious ideas out there, so you need to be wise about what you read. But the reality is though, you don’t know everything, and you certainly don’t have the bible and every theological idea all figured out. I don’t either. It is good to read authors who believe differently than you so that you can be challenged. Now a short note, if you are new in your faith, this isn’t a good idea as you don’t have the foundation to question yet. If that’s you, ask your pastor or a respected Christian for some book recommendations.

Every book you read has bible verses in them. You should read some books by authors and leaders who don’t follow Jesus. As a pastor, one of the reasons is to learn how to communicate with people around you. To learn something, you may not know but also to see what people who walk through the doors of your church believe. This also helps when you have conversations with people who don’t follow Jesus so that you can relate to things they are thinking about and books they are reading.

Every book you read confirms what you already believe. This is similar to the first one, but if you put a book down and have not learned something new, you wasted your time.

You finish every book you start. I get asked a lot why I don’t write negative book reviews on Instagram. People will often say, “all you ever say is how great a book was or how much you loved a book.” The reason? If I don’t like a book by p. 40, I put it down. Life is too short to read a book you don’t like or isn’t teaching you anything. If it’s poorly written or boring or not challenging, it’s off the list. Don’t feel the need to finish every book you start or to read every chapter of a book; they may not all be relevant.

Books don’t challenge your heart. Similar to point 3, but you should be challenged or convicted from a book. You should find ways to improve your preaching, leadership skills, or your faith, being a spouse or parent. If not, put it down. If a book does not put the magnifying glass up to your heart and life, it isn’t worth the time.

You never read a novel. I love novels. I love stories about spies or lawyers in particular and have recently started to read more and more historical books. As you can see, I always have a historical book on the reading list.

Every book you read is for a sermon. This doesn’t apply to everyone. But if you’re a pastor, this is easy to do because you have to write a sermon each week and are always creating content for social media or classes. You should read books that have no application in a sermon. It also sometimes happens that you are reading a book that you discover something that will work in a sermon, that’s great too. If you are doing a series on marriage, you should be reading a book on money or grace just to keep growing in other areas.

Every book you read is by a pastor. You should read books by CEOs, bankers, doctors, trainers, money managers, scientists, not just pastors or speakers.

Links for Leaders 4/28/17

It’s the weekend. The perfect time to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading. Here are 6 articles & podcasts I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Ever wonder what is holding you back in your life or leadership? Here are 7 things that if eliminated, will raise the lid of your life and leadership.

I always tell leaders and couples they need to find someone older, further down the road than they are and learn from them. Here’s a list of 22 things one pastor learned after 42 years in ministry. This is gold. Thanks for sharing Ron.

It is easy as a leader to keep running faster and faster and not deal with the things in your heart and soul. Chuck Lawless has 10 questions every leader should ask each week, that I found to be incredibly helpful.

As kids get older, they need certain adults in their life to help them grow and mature, not only as people, but as followers of Jesus. A parent plays a crucial role in this. Kara Powell shares some great insights on this podcast about who these adults are.

We all know that the best work is accomplished when we are able to focus and concentrate. We don’t have our best ideas when we are multi-tasking and running from one thing to the next, but we rarely make time or schedule time to focus. Here are 3 ideas from a great book called Deep Work that will help you with that. 

If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know that I love books and think reading is the key to growth and success in life and leadership. But how important is reading? Does it really move the needle that much? Here’s the answer.

The Top Blog Posts of 2013

This has been a week of sharing my “Best of” lists.

It started with the top sermon downloads from Revolution Church, then my almost best books & almost best albums of the year. Then I shared my favorite books and favorite albums of 2013. Today is the last list: the top blog posts of the year. To make this list, it had to be a blog post published in 2013, of which there were thousands to choose from. One of the things I love about this list is how many blog posts Katie wrote (which is a new addition to my blog this year).

Here they are:

13. I Can’t Compete With Your Perfectly Coiffed Hair & other Perfections

12. What Now for our Family (And How You can Be a Part of our Lives Now)

11. Adoption Trip Update #3

10. What do Stay-at-Home Mom’s Do All Day?

9. The Most Important Minutes to a Guest on a Sunday Morning

8. The Five Stages of Discipleship

7. My Arms are Too Short

6. The Power of Habit

5. Bring our Child Home from Ethiopia & Serve a Widow

4. Meeting our Son who we Didn’t Know Much About…

3. What our Family Does on Halloween

2. 21 Skills of Great Preachers

And the most read blog post of 2013 was:

1. Finding an Accountability Partner as a Pastor

The Best Books I Read in 2013

book

It’s that time of year again, time to share my top lists of the year. Monday, I shared the top sermon downloads from Revolution Church. Tuesday I shared the books that almost made my “best of the year” list. And yesterday I shared the albums that almost made my “best of the year” list.

To see my list of favorite books from past year, simply click on the numbers: 200920102011 and 2012.

To make this list, it does not have to be published in 2013, I only needed to read it in 2013. As always, this list was hard to narrow down, but here are the top 13 books of 2013. Buckle up book worms:

13. How to Deliver a TED Talk | Jeremy Donavan

If you speak for a living or are a pastor, this is a must read book. Donavan takes the best and worst of TED Talks and breaks them down into do’s and don’ts for speakers. You can read my review here.

12. Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret: Why Serial Innovators Succeed Where Others Fail | Larry Osborne

I love Larry Osborne’s stuff. It is so simple and straightforward. In this book, he looks at why some churches and organizations works and others don’t. His chapter on mission statements is worth the price of this book. You can read my review here.

11. Eat Move Sleep: Why Small Choices Make a Big Difference | Tom Rath

Health books are everywhere. Good health books are hard to find. This is one of the great ones. Two things stood out in this book: One, every choice we make matters. They all impact every part of our life. Two, Tom Rath looks at how to eat, move and sleep so that those choices make the most positive impact in our lives. You can read my review here.

10. Sex & Money: Pleasures that Leave You Empty and Grace that Satisfies | Paul David Tripp

There are some authors you should read everything they write. Tim Keller is one of them and Paul David Tripp is another one. No matter the book, you should read their stuff. Tripp takes the two biggest temptations and sins in our culture and shows how they leave us empty. Definitely a convicting book. You can read my review here.

9. Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge | Henry Cloud

The primary message of this book for leaders is you get what you create and what you allow. You can read my review here.

8. Chasing Francis | Ian Cron 

I read this book one Saturday night, one of those hard, dark Saturday nights many pastors have. I could not put this book down as it resonated with me on so many deep levels. So, when you have that dark night, this is a book to read. Here’s my review of it.

7. The Pastor’s Justification: Applying the work of Christ in Your Life & Ministry | Jared Wilson

This book is very similar to Paul David Tripp’s book Dangerous CallingA challenge to pastors to apply the gospel they preach to their own lives and hearts. A great book for doing the deep dive for a pastor and confronting their idols. It also helps that Wilson is hilarious in this book. You can read my review here.

6. Discipleshift: Five Steps that Help Your Church to Make Disciples who Make Disciples | Jim Putnam, Bobby Harrington, & Robert Coleman

The effects of this book will be felt at Revolution for years to come. As we’ve moved more and more towards a missional community model, this book has helped us hone our system of making disciples. This graph has been huge for us. You can read my review here.

5. Give them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus | Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson 

If you are a parent or will be a parent, this is the one parenting book you have to read. It shows you how to parent to your child’s heart, which is the only way to change a child and see them become who God created them to become. You can read my review here.

4. Leadership as an Identity: The Four Traits of Those Who Wield Lasting Influence | Crawford Loritts

What set this book apart was that it had very little “here’s what a leader does” advice. This book is all about what influences and shapes a leader. Ultimately, what shapes a leader will eventually come out in their actions. You can read my review here.

3. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World | Paul Miller

This is the book on prayer.  So good. I love the idea of prayer cards and have since created them on Evernote to use. You can read my review here.

2. In Search of Deep Faith: A Pilgrimage into the Beauty, Goodness, and Heart of Christianity | Jim Belcher

This book almost made the jump to #1, it was close. This book is part parenting book, part history, part travel, and faith. It shows the roots of Christianity and how to bring those into your family. One thing Katie and I want is for our kids to know the history of Christianity and that it is not a faith that just appeared in the last 100 years. You can read my review here.

1. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action | Simon Sinek

I love leadership books, so it makes sense that one of them is #1. A leadership book was #1 last year too. This book was insanely good. If you are a leader, this is the one book you have to read in 2014. So good. You can read my review here.

Tomorrow you’ll get my last list of the week: the top 13 albums of the year.

Why my Book Reviews Tend to be Positive

book reviews

I review a lot of books. When I was in seminary, I read 1 book every 5 days for 3 years and have continued that pace for the last 9 years. If you are a leader and you aren’t reading at least one book at a time, you are falling behind and short changing your church and those you lead.

I get asked a lot why my reviews always seem to end with “if you are a leader, you should read this book.” Or, “if you are a parent, or married, you should read this.” All my reviews tend to end with “you should read this book.”

Here is a principle that guides my reading and leads to write “positive” book reviews:

You don’t need to finish every book that you start.

Now, if you are a list person and love crossing things off your list, this will be difficult. But every book doesn’t need to be finished. Sure, someone took the time to write it and you took the time to buy it, but you don’t need to finish it.

For me, if a book has not grabbed me by page 40-50, I put it down. It isn’t worth finishing. If you can’t convince me to read it by then, it isn’t going to get any better.

So, I start a lot of books that I never finish, that never get reviewed. Doing this, helps me to read only the best books.

How to Get the Most Out of Reading

I get asked a lot about reading. What I read? How I choose the books I do and how I find time to read. I thought I’d share a few tips.

I am always blown away when I meet pastors or business leaders who don’t read. If you aren’t reading, you aren’t growing. If you aren’t growing, you are not reaching your potential as a leader, human, Christian, husband, wife, father or mother. As a Christian, if you aren’t growing and learning, we often miss out on what God wants to do in our lives because reading and growing keeps us humble. Anytime you meet a leader who is doing great things, I bet they are a reader.

First, how to choose a book worth reading. Listen to people you trust. For me, if I hear from multiple blogs, tweets or friends about a book, I put it on my list. One thing I’ve learned is that who we read shapes us, so read authors you respect, leaders you want to become like. This doesn’t mean you should never read those you disagree with, but we’ll get to that. The choice of a book is crucial. Books get expensive and there is nothing worse than starting a book and realizing it isn’t worth finishing. If you are curious about what I’ve read recently, you can go here. I review every book I read as a way to help with this. If you start to read a book that isn’t worth finishing (typically, if I am not into a book by page 60 and feel like it is a waste of time, I stop reading it), put it down. Don’t waste your time. And don’t feel bad about not finishing it.

Second, always be reading. I have stacks of books in my office that I want to read. I have a stack on leadership, marriage and personal spiritual growth. Take a book and highlighter everywhere you go. Never go to a meeting or an appointment without one. We waste so much time waiting for people or getting into the dentist or doctor’s office. This is the perfect time to read. Studies show the average person can read at least 1 page a minute (without skimming). If you have to wait 10 minutes, you just read 10 pages.

Third, have a plan. This goes back to the stacks. Ask yourself, what do I want to grow in? What do I want to get better at? Is it health? Leadership? Marriage? Communication? Education? Right now, we are working on our budget for Revolution and I asked our staff members, “In 2011, what is one thing you want to grow in?” I do this to help them create a plan of growth for the year. If you don’t have a plan, you won’t know what to read. If you don’t have a goal, you won’t know if you reached it. Also, set a goal for how many books you want to read in a year. For 2010, my goal was to read 100 books and I am almost there.

What things help you get the most out of reading? How do you choose books? What book are you reading right now that is worth reading?