BOOKS I WILL BE RECOMMENDING
At the Evangelists conference this evening I’ve been invited to give a few words. As time is short, I want to be able to make the best use of the time. Speaking to these guys who are passionate about getting the great good news out, I thought I’d strongly recommend some resources that have helped me massively in the last year. They fall into the categories of the three kinds of book I can’t resist – public speaking, leadership (in this case, church leadership) and devotional.
1) If I could only point you to one book on how to preach better, Communicating for a Change by Andy Stanley would be IT. All my team have read this book. He reminds us that our purpose is not merely to INFORM but TRANSFORM, and gives some great hints and a process for how to do that better, no – a lot better!
If you’d allow me two in this category, I’d also tell you to invest in The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, by Carmine Gallo; currently on offer at Amazon, anyone who will ever have to give a talk will benefit fron this masterclass.
2. In the Leadership category, i started over Christmas and almost finished on the train here The Apostolic Congregation by George Hunter III. I do not want to finish this book! It’s like every page is so packed full of helpful truths I’m savouring it slowly, I will be so sorry to end it, but alreday happy to implement from it. Chapter 5 alone is worth the price of the book.
3. Devotionally – I was challenged by J John in a series of texts back and forward while I was in the USA last year that I was in danger of becoming a conference junkie. Hardly fair in my opinion as I only went to two I wasn’t speaking at and only went to four in total! However the last one, at the last one, Catalyst I received a massive sense as I processed all the great teaching that what I really needed to do was spend more time just praying and reading the Bible. As I had come to that conclusion, annoyingly, J John texted me – “You just need to spend more time praying and reading the Bible.’
Amazon don’t seem to know who the author of that one is, but those of us who do, need to read it more and more!
Nuff said!