What I Read in 2022
John Maxwell famously said that leaders are readers. I’ve taken that to heart and become a voracious reader.
Every year I set a goal to read a certain number of books. I’ve gone all the way to 36 but have settled between 20 to 24. This year, instead of focusing on quantity, I focused on subjects that interested me and read a few pages every day. Somehow, I still got 20 books in.
For this post, I broke the books into categories. Each book has an affiliate link to Amazon so you can easily make your list for next year. Thanks for your support!
What I read in 2022
Church Growth/Structure
This past year, I moved from Children's Pastor to Associate Pastor with a focus on Youth and NextGen ministries. Since my responsibilities have grown, I wanted to see how the greats in our generation built their churches, Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, and Craig Groeschel.
I’ve read their books before, but in my new context with years of experience now under my belt, I found great value in them with applications not just for the church, but NextGen as well.
Starting a New Job
Part of my move out of daily children’s ministry was starting a new job at a new church. Since this is church number 4, I really wanted to do things right and not fall back into my old habits. These two books helped me get a leg up in those first few months by setting me up for success.
Pastoral Succession
Pastoral Succession is a big thing these days and only growing bigger with more and more of our Boomer pastors retiring. I wanted to learn all I could to help these transitions go well.
Leadership
I’m a leadership junkie, so I couldn’t do a year without reading a few books about it. Each of these focused on personality driven leadership and emotional intelligence. It’s the new way of leading and each one had great insights.
Kidmin Resources
For the first time, I have a children’s pastor working for me. I started mentoring him with some books I consider to be Kidmin essentials. (We’re reading that book next). If you’re just starting out or are looking for some books to take your lead team through, these are great first steps.
Fiction
My son turned 7 this year and began a love for reading. We started reading through the Chronicles of Narnia before he went to bed. These classic kids’ tales are great, and I love them more now than ever before.
Sermon Resources
Now that I’m preaching weekly in Youth, I used these last two books as research for sermon series. The Case for Christ is a great apologetic book that deeply impacted my walk with Christ. While The 3 Big Questions is essential for any Youth leader with practical tips based on research from real teenagers. I highly recommend both.
What did you read this year?