Reading List (hopefully)

I got a lot of books for my birthday and I am looking foward to reading them (please note that my reading of these books is not an endorsement of any of these authors):

1) The Jesus of Suburiba: Have we Tamed the Son of God to Fit our Lifestyle? – Mike Erre.  Mike is the pastor down at Rock Harbor in Costa Mesa.  I went to their church a lot while I was down at Azusa Pacific and I really enjoyed it.

2)  Jesus wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile – Rob Bell and Don Golden.  This was a gift for my birthday from my friend Wes.  I have never actually finished a Rob Bell book yet.  I started both Velvet Elvis and Sex God, but didn’t have time finish them.  Because I didn’t own them, I was never able to come back to them.

3) The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant – J.D. Crossan.  Crossan is the most liberal of my authors I am reading right now.  I started reading this book at Archives earlier last semester.  I really enjoyed the first two pages, and am interested to see where Crossan lands at the end of this book.  Sarah was with me when I was first reading it and, as a good girlfriend, logged it in her memory and bought it for me all the way from China.

4) Surprised by Hope – N.T. Wright.  I am also interested to read this gift from Sarah (two books must mean that she really loves me).  I loved “The Challenge of Jesus” when I first read it.

5) The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation – Arthur Ferrill.  I was reading about the fall of Rome on wikipedia and his theory sounded very intersting, so I bought the book.

On top of all my reading for my credential classes, I don’t know when I’m going to have time to read all of these, but I look forward to some interesting interaction with these texts here on the blog…

Suburbs, Jesus and Amazon Kindle

There is an interesting conversation going on at common root on the issue of ministry in the suburbs.  Read it!  The suburbs is often a place that many people (including myself) as a boring place to do ministry because most people already are Christians or they are turned off to Christianity for whatever reason.  It is incredibly difficult to create a community in this land of genemerica (as Mark calls it).

Also interesting is some thoughts over at Juris Naturalist about the new Amazon Kindle.  Just as iTunes has taken many record stores out of business, so also Amazon Kindle has the potential to take publishing companies out of business.  There is no way that they will be able to compete with a machine that can hold so many books in its hard drive.  Textbook companies will start facing many of the same problems that the music and move world now face with torrent files.  Students will be illegally sharing copyrighted books that they scan into their computers via pdf files.  And if you can write on the screen to take notes, the kindle is basically the same as having a book in hand.  This will revolutionize the way that universities do class and how students read their textbooks.

It is also one more step in the decentralization of authority in the world.  Now someone could write a book, distribute it through kindle via e-mail or blogs and people read the book virtually free of charge.  Soon enough, it may be enough that people begin self-publishing books and getting them out into the world through the internet rather through any one company.  It will certainly be interesting to watch as these new ideas arise.