This is a snippet of an email sent to members of the worship team at Lakeview Christian Center – a great bunch of friends and servants, and a fine group of musicians to boot.   I try to encourage the team to be “readers of good books”.  We want to be a worship team full of people who desire to learn more and more truth about the God we worship, so that we might lead others in God-centered, doctrinally-anchored songs that rise from grateful hearts.  We certainly don’t want to worship in a way that we’re simply stringing together tired cliches that say lots about how we feel and precious little about the One we’ve gathered to worship.

So, this little list is from a recent exchange with the team.  Since I’ve sent this, they’ve been chiming in one by one to let the other team members know what books have affected them the most this past year.  Seeing the solid things they’ve been reading and hearing how it has affected them is a great encouragement to the whole team.

Hopefully, as we’ve talked about before, we are cultivating the art of good reading – first and foremost, God’s Word, but also – and we learn this value from God’s Word – faithful teachers and Christian leaders (whose fruitful labor lives on in books) …

Though not in any particular order, these would be the five best books I read in 2009.

Just Do Something (DeYoung, Kevin)

Pivoters [our ministry to 18-30s] always ask questions about life, marriage, calling, majors, decisions, so I read anything on this topic that I can get my hands on.  DeYoung’s book is far and a way the best treatment I’ve come across on the topic of how to discern God’s will.  It’s also a perfect book for someone who says “I don’t like to read” since 1) the book is pretty short 2) DeYoung’s writing is solid, engaging, and at several points humorous and 3) every Christian immediately recognizes how relevant this subject is for his/her life.

The Reason For God (Keller, Timothy)

Keller’s defense of Christian faith is beautifully written and cogently argued.  He does an excellent job arguing for the biblical worldview and Christian faith as well as deconstructing some of the pillars of 21^st century skepticism.  I love Keller’s writing.

Instructing Your Child’s Heart (Tripp, Paul D.)

The re-enacted conversations of how to discipline and correct children with the gospel are alone worth the price of the book.

Keeping Holiday (Meade, Starr)

Meade’s book is a kind of modern day Pilgrim’s Progress.  The characters and story development effectively communicate truths like – our inability to fulfill God’s requirements, Christ’s provisions for us, the Christian standing always with “the wind in his face” (opposition to the world, flesh, devil), false promises of sin, the ways that God “speaks” and draws us to Himself, the power of grace, the traps of religion, and more.  Short book.  I read it to the boys.  They begged for more every night.  So did I.

The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin, John)

I have tons of quotes from Calvin’s Institutes, but have never gone through the whole thing.  It is widely regarded as one of the grandest works of Christian literature in all of church history.  All of Calvin’s theology is bathed in Christ-centered devotion.  He is no rationalist or dusty theologian.  It was a riveting read that brought me to tears on many occasions.  His letter to the King of France in 1536 (at the front) is Christian statesmanship par excellence.  I trust Calvin’s magnum opus will be on my all time top 10 list when I’m 90, if I’m alive.  Ref21 blog has a reading plan that will take you through it in a year.  You’ll have to put on your thinking cap, but the journey is well worth the effort.