My 2011 Reading Plan

I love books. Sometimes I think I love collecting books more than I love reading books.  Usually Christmas is a time for my family to get me books that I really want but haven't broken down and bought yet.  Whenever I get the latest copy of Christian Book Distributors catalog my fingers begin to shake and my breathing gets erratic.  I find myself browsing Amazon.com several times a day doing random searches.  My wish list and shopping cart are full of books that I think would be neat to own, but I don't feel compelled to spend money on right now.  It's a sickness that usually is only reserved for those of us in ministry who spend our lives in the arena of words and ideas.  The end of the year is usually reserved to spend the last few hundreds of dollars of unclaimed business expense money on all kinds of commentaries and books that we saw in someone else's library. 

All that being said, I do try to be intentional about what I read.  I try to vary the offerings in areas covering ministry, leadership, preaching, biographies, sports, and popular fiction.  I will be doing a lot of doctoral work in the first three months of the year.  Much of my reading will be confined to research in the area of servant leadership.  However, here is a list of the books I plan to read this year. 

Must-Do's
Slave by John MacArthur
The Confession by John Grisham
Decision Points by George W. Bush
Generous Justice by Tim Keller
Text Driven Preaching by Danny Akin
Spiritual Warfare and Missions by Jerry Rankin and Ed Stetzer
The Grace of God by Andy Stanley
Mint Condition by Dave Jamieson
The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons
Beyond Belief by Josh Hamilton

Like-to's
The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns
Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
For the Fame of God's Name by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor
Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni
Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges
The Millenials by Thom and Jess Rainer
Don't Call It a Comeback by Kevin DeYoung

Might-do's
The God Who Is There by D.A. Carson
Why I Am Not an Arminian by Robert Peterson and Michael Williams
Church + Home by Mark Holmen

I know there will be lots of books that will come out this year I do not know about and others that are already out that will cross my path sometime soon.  These will be added to the plan when possible.