Top Ten Books of 2022

Here are the 99 books read in 2022 - my top ten are highlighted... do LMK your top reads!

12/22 - Inside Job

Stephen Smith

This is a Christian, IVP, book on vocation, by a retreat leader in Colorado who describes the importance of taking care of your inside - spirit and soul - as the key to any sort of success

12/22 - Body of Work

Pamela Slim

The best book I’ve read - secular mind you - to help you figure out what to do, vocationally, and how to get there. Written by a life coach and HR consultant who’s really talented.

12/22 - Just Courage

Gary Haugen

Gary’s an Ivy League lawyer who founded the evangelical International Justice Ministry to free sex slaves and sweatshop slaves. The book is aimed at young people he’s trying to recruit to his ministry - mostly lawyers he wants to send to far flung places

12/22 - Living in Christ’s Presence

Dallas Willard/John Ortberg

This is the product of a Santa Barbara conference at the end of Dallas’ life. Ortberg interviews him after every chapter. It’s them is to focus on the inner voice of Christ, being evangelical it is more interested in personal piety vs social justice.

12/22 - Being Human

Rowan Williams

This 3rd in a trilogy is dense reading. However the nuggets on the importance of love and living into our humanity - vs ‘we’re just complex machines’ is formidable. A Cambridge Don, he is conversing with the secular atheist at every turn.

12/22 - Shaping the Prayers of the People

Samuel Wells and Abigail Kocher

This is an excellent, practical book! I will use it often. It offers a theology and examples of why and how to do the POP with grace and conviction.

12/22 - The Healthy Churches' Handbook

Robert Warren

No relation to Rick Warren, this CofE vicar turned consultant offers a course in mainline church diagnosis and a path forward to health and growth out of his context.

12/22 - Saint Benedict on the Freeway

Corinne Ware

A wonderful book on how to center on the inner life by an ECUSA theologian and retreat leader. Helps us put Benedict’s insights into daily use.

12/22 - The Perfect Stranger's Guide to Funerals and

Grieving Practices - Stuart Matlins, ed.

An interesting, probably dated, book listing every religious tradition and 2-pages on what to do when someone of that persuasion dies.

12/22 - Frameworks

Eric Larson

Eric’s an evangelical and tries to help non-Bible reading teens pick up the Bible. It is, hence, simplified and somewhat misleading. I would not use it to teach much - though the ways he classifies some information is helpful - ie showing Jesus’ travels.

12/22 - Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World

John Spong

12/22 - Essence of Prayer

Ruth Burrows

12/22 - The Attentive Life

Leighton Ford

12/22 - The Power of Regret

Daniel Pink

12/22 - Four Birds of Noah's Ark

Thomas Dekker

12/22 - Praying with Our Feet

Lindsey Krinks

12/22 - Almost Innocent

Shanti Brien

12/22 - What We Talk About When We Talk About God

Rob Bell

12/22 - Hear Us, O Lord

Washington National Cathedral

12/22 - The Well of Being

Jean-Piertr Weill

12/22 - I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet

Shauna Niequust

12/22 - Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor

Halevi

11/22 - Revive Us Again

William Barber

11/22 - Start with Hello

Shannan Martin

11/22 - Death Rehearsal

Doug Pogorski

11/22 - The Happiness. Curve

Jonathan Rauch

10/22 - Unreasonable Hospitality

Will Guidara

10/22 - Fully Alive

Timothy Shriver

10/22 - Survival of the Richest

Douglas Rushkoff

10/22 - Christianity Rediscovered

Vincent Donovan

This book really helped me re-think evangelism and birth in me a renewed hunger for sharing faith. I have never felt more comfortable as an evangelist until after I read this book.

9/22 - Making Your Case

Antonio Scalia and Bryan Garner

9/22 - The Unjust Steward

Miguel Escobar

9/22 - Left Turn: Life Unimagined

Jen Eikenhorst

9/22 - Vital Signs of Faith

Kate Moorehead Carroll

9/22 - Fatal Moments

Gwendolyn Gilliam and Susan Chesser

9/22 - Do I Stay Christian?

Brian McLaren

9/22 - Capital without Borders

Brook Harrington

An amazing book. Brook, an Ivy league academic, wanted to find out more about the 1% but could not. She figured out it’s wealth managers who are in the know - so she went to school, and became one. Its insights into how the rich are getting richer at an incredible rate is a wake up call to us all.

8/22 - Divine Presence Amid Violence

Walter Brueggeman

8/22 - Jesus Wears Socks with Sandals

S. James Meyer

8/22 - Caste

Isabel Wilkerson

This is simply the best book on race relations in America I’ve read. She gives wonderful background and insight into how American slavery and Indian caste systems parallel.

8/22 - Fanocracy

David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott

8/22 - The Beauty of Dusk

Frank Bruni

8/22 - A House Built on Live

Ed Walker

8/22 - The Me I Want to Be

John Ortberg

7/22 - American Gospel

Jon Meachum

7/22 - Think Again

Adam Grant

7/22 - A Primer for Forgetting

Lewis Hyde

7/22 - Grit

Angela Duckworth

7/22 - Let Them Eat Tweets

Hacker and Pierson

Two liberal academics parse the foundation of Trumpism without spending much time on Trump, rather how the wealthy are crafting the Republican Party to carry out their desires for lower taxes and greater accumulation of money, resources, and power.

7/22 - A Chronicle of Grief

Mel Lawrenz

7/22 - Lamb (The Gospel According to Biff)

Christopher Moore

7/22 - Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu

6/22 - The Way of Love

Scott Gunn

6/22 - Cleopatra (skimmed)

Phyliss Schiiff

6/22 - One on One with Andy Grove

Andy Grove

6/22 - Witness Essentials

Daniel Meyer

6/22 - The Lessons of History

Will and Ariel Durant

6/22 - Woven Voices

Anika Paris et al

6/22 - Hallelujah Anyway

Anne Lamott

5/22 Mary in the Redemption

Adrienne Von Speyr (skimmed)

5/22 - In Praise of Shadows

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

5/22 - Evangelism for Non-Evangelists

Mark Teasdale (skimmed)

5/22 - The Creation Care Bible Challenge

Marek Zabriskie, Ed.

5/22 - Adolf Hitler, Volume 2

John Toland

5/22 - Reading Jesus' Bible (skimmed)

John Goldingay

5/22 - Corruptible (skimmed)

Brian Klaas

5/22 - The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Shannan Martin

4/22 - The God We Never Knew

Marcus Borg

4/22 - Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 and 2

John Toland

In these two volumes, Toland tells an insightful picture of the 20th century’s best known and most treacherous leader, giving insight into his life-long antisemitism, incredible luck (a dozen failed assassinations?), unswerving dedication, and impressive stamina he brought to his megalamoniacal cause.

4/22 - God Got a Dog

Cynthia Rylant and Marla Frazee

4/22 - The Grain of Wheat

Hans Urs von Balthazar

4/22 — Summoned

Daniel Allen, Jr (Skimmed, not a good book, too evangelical)

4/22 - The Fidelity of Betrayal

Peter Rollins

4/22 - Every Creature a Word of God

Annika Spalde and Pellet Strindlund

4/22 - Pocket Neighborhoods

Ross Chapin

3/22 - Good News for All Creation

Vegetarianism as Christian Stewardship

Stephen Kaufman and Nathan Braun

This book opens my mind about my place in creation and how I can practically and honestly help make the world better one meal at a time.

3/22 - The Art of Social Media

Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick

3/22 - A Joyful Heart

Martin Thornton

3/22 - Teach Us to Want

Jen Michel Pollock

3/22 - Night

Elie Wiesel

3/22 - Hackiversity

Kyle Winey

3/22 - The Passionate Intellect

Alister McGrath

3/22 - Finding My Voice

Beth Knobbe

3/22 - The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

Ron Heifetz et al. (skimmed)

3/22 - The Singer

Calvin Miller

3/22 - The Character of Virtue

Stanley Hauerwas

2/22 - Becoming a Just Church

Adam Gustine

2/22 - Taking It to the Streets

Harry Louis Williams II

2/22 - Speaking of Race

Celeste Headlee

2/22 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons

Edwin Robertson, ed.

2/22 - Proverbs Commentary

Rabbi Mission Scherman

1/22 - Let Every Heart Prepare

Barbara Cawthorne Crafton

1/22 - Discover Joy in Work

Shundrawn Thomas

1/22 - Becoming Curious

Casey Tygrett

1/22 - Josephine Butler: A Very Brief Biography

Jane Robinson

1/22 - Insurrection

Peter Rollins

1/22 - Stillness

Ryan Holiday

1/22 - People Pleasing Pastors

Charles Stone

1/22 - Herod the Great

Adam Kolman Marshak
Adam has made his academic career out of studying this complex character, whom he describes as cunning, brilliant, and not far from the beliefs and practices of other leaders of his time.

How Are You Going to Get Healthy in 2023?

If your mind immediately went to diet and exercise then that's a sign of where we need to start.

You see, you and I have been sold a bill of goods that says our health is primarily gauged by how we look, what we own, who we know, and the experiences we've had.

Invest in these things, we're told, and you are one of life's winners. So we do that, individually and communally, and this is what we have:

A country that's got more than enough resources to feed, clothe, educate, house, and care for its sick and elderly - but doesn't.

An expensive and expansive government that rewards greed, fraud and deception, placating those who have enough and ignoring those who don't.

An increasingly divided and isolated society where loneliness runs rampant, one recent study claiming its effects equal a two pack a day smoking habit.

Our systems are broken because we're broken.

We reward with 'likes' the skinny, rich, and suntanned - who, on the inside are insecure, unhappy, and flat out scared - so that the popular and prosperous are held up as models and examples to a populace that is too slow to awaken to the fact that being well adjusted to a sick society is not a sign of health.

Getting healthy starts inside, when we connect with that voice and urge that points us to goodness, kindness, and love.

It starts by standing up to that sick society, boldly declaring our disinterest in its values and aspirations, and looking at effective and practical ways to order our lives toward the good, toward the light.

The Jesus Way is that path.

We know instinctively that love is the answer and that reading, watching, listening to, and hanging around the things that point us to the light is what works.

So what will this look like for us in 2023?

What are our next steps?

How will we define, and strive, toward true health?

Change the Diapers!

My friend was in the grocery store once when a man in front of her suddenly collapsed in a fit of cardiac arrest.

Luckily, she knew where the portable defibrillator was kept, allowing her to keep the man alive until a rescue crew arrived, who would later tell her that had she not acted, that man would not have made it.

If she hadn't done something, that man would be dead.

This weekend when you and I celebrate Christmas we find God in the form of an infant - a needy, dependent, frail, and defenseless, baby.

If he was like mine, more than once his parents would awaken to his crying in the middle of the night, to find he'd thrown up all over himself.

"Is it your turn to change him or mine?" the conversation might begin, as the parents live with the fact that human babies are the neediest creatures in the animal world - taking literally years to learn how to care for themselves - meaning if they won't change him, who will?

Sooner or later you and I figure out that God has put into motion a world that grants us a great deal of autonomy, control, freedom, and responsibility - we can choose to get the defibrillator or the diaper - or not.

The message of 'hope' that we get at Christmas, then, is God's hope that you and I will change the diaper. Nobody's going to make us, we won't be forced or coerced, but gently reminded that when we were once laying in that crib, someone fed, clothed, and protected us - and that, in doing so, they added to their own meaning and fulfillment as caregivers and lovers.

So we think about all the people in our circles who need diapers and defibrillators... Or a visit, a text, $100, a pat on the back, or a place to stay.

If you're like me, God is asking you to do something difficult right now... something selfless, and sacrificial that just might change the course of someone's life - and might give us a sense of fulfillment, purpose, and joy, that we've played a role in God's plan to heal the world.

So don't ignore that generous urge.

In that baby Jesus we see that God needs us to fulfill the plan, and that we need God to fulfill ourselves.

Advent Bargains

Ever make a bargain with God?

My friend did.

She was having problems with a coworker, and said a prayer: "God, if you resolve this problem, I'll believe in you and start acting like it!" Sound familiar?

To her surprise, she was suddenly struck with an urge, that she attributes to God, to apologize to this coworker.

"Apologize!?" She said to herself, "But I didn't do anything wrong!"

However, she thought she was hearing a voice of truth. So she came up with an apology. She would say she was sorry for not working harder to understand her coworkers point of view.

When she called the coworker and made her apology, her co-worker broke down in tears and said she was the only person at work who understood her.

From that point on, my friend never had problems with that coworker.

Trusting God's voice is at the heart of Sunday's Gospel when we run into this character named Joseph, who is not known for anything he wrote or said, but for his simple acts of obedience - of believing what the Divine voice had told him - which led to the greatest adventure of his life.

In a dream, an Angel comes to Joseph and tells him to believe something preposterous, that his fiance is pregnant not only by someone else, but by God! And Joseph unquestionably received this and acted accordingly.

And it makes me wonder what impossible things God is asking me to believe?

How about that God will take care of everything?

Or believing that I am loved, accepted, and enough for myself and for God?

Or believing that everything I do, no matter how small, is significant, and matters to God and God's plan?

These things may sound quite trite and simple compared with what Joseph was asked to believe, and maybe that's the point?

Maybe God is telling us that faith is simple, sure not easy, but simple, it's believing that voice we’ve all heard, taking it at face value, and obeying it.

What is that voice saying to you and me?

How is God trying to assure, comfort, guide, or instruct us?

In taking that voice more seriously, might there be an adventure for us, to rival Joseph's?

Lots of Hyphens

I was talking about religion the other day...

(I know it's a surprising admission from a priest...)

And my friend said something I hear a lot, ”At the end of the day the only thing that matters is whether or not you're a good person."

I immediately thought of how this suggests some kind of heavenly point system. Faithful spouse, check; honest worker, check; thoughtful neighbor, check; Kind to puppies, check... Just do these things and you're a 'good person' and eligible for God's favor.

This hits me sideways because God isn't one whose favor I earn, buy, or have to work for. God's all-consuming, ever-present, over-the-top love (I know, that's a lot of hyphens) does not hinge on my performance.

I'm not out to do good to get God's favor, I do good because I already have God's favor.

Shattering divine preconceptions is at play this Sunday when the imprisoned John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus because John is not recognizing God in him: "The Messiah I'm looking for would raise an army, overthrow the government, and get me away from this prison food!"

But Jesus' idea of liberation is much greater. He tries to tell this to John, recounting how the good news of liberty, healing, and freedom is being proclaimed in word and deed. Jesus is saying that John's conception of who God is and how God works needs some fine-tuning.

And that's what Advent is all about.

Too many of us are walking around with a burden on our backs: If I just work harder, be more generous, say more prayers, go to church more often, etc.

We think that God has high standards because I do.

And we fail to see that we're engaging in a kind of spiritual narcissism, that God can't accept me until I accept me.

Jesus wants us to know that no matter what we've done, are doing, or will do, we are loved and accepted by God.

You mean God loves sinners?

Well, yes

Even when they're sinning.

Is there another time?

This means our Advent preparation is trading these less-helpful conceptions of God for this idea that God is on our side!

God is that obnoxious fan in the stands, cheering us on so loudly, not caring what people think.

The only work we have is to wake up, look around, and accept that love.

We're worth coming down from heaven to be with!

Chris Yaw

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