Guest Blog by Michael Eldridge

Special thanks to Michael Eldridge for his blogs over the past couple weeks while I have been in almost full-time wedding mode. This is our last one from him for a while, but we are sure to call on him again when we need a guest blogger. I have certainly been blessed and I know you have been too. ~Christy

2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

As many of you know, I am currently between ministry positions, vocational ones anyway. This means I’ve spent much of the last six months either preparing in hope for interviews or, more recently, actually engaging in them. You may feel differently about interviewing for jobs, but I’m absolutely energized by the process. The give-and-take of fielding questions, of communicating personal vision, and of attempting to learn as much as you can about your interviewers can be exhilarating, and there’s no end to the interesting questions themselves.

There is one question that I usually dismiss as fairly insignificant. How often do you read, and which authors tend to be your favorite? Quite a few times I’ve been approached with this question, assuming it was asked purely in an effort to get to know me better. There’s more in importance to this question, though, especially for us as disciples of Jesus. We ever remember that our faith revolves not around a religion but a living relationship, one in which personal growth in faith and depth is expected. Maturity is our Lord’s goal, anyway. He is about the work of actually conforming us into his own image (Romans 8:29), a terrifically humbling truth. This growth doesn’t just happen apart from spiritual disciplines, and one of those disciplines is reading. Along with prayer and walking daily through Scripture, reading is critical to the growth of my mind and spirit and can help me ever rightly handle the word of truth.

Oddly, I’ve confided in Dale numerous times lately that I rarely read for fun. The last book or series of books I read on the level of novels were the Left Behind stories by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. When I read, the content generally falls under the categories of either deeper theology and biblical study or the purpose of the church—more pointedly, the local church rediscovering her purpose. To that end, I find myself gravitating to authors like Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Christian Resources, Matt Chandler (who serves as lead pastor of The Village Church in Dallas), Thom Rainer also of Lifeway Christian Resources, David Platt (who serves as lead pastor of The Church of Brook Hills in Birmingham), and especially Francis Chan. A former church planter and pastor himself, Chan has a testimony of God’s movement that ever moves me. Frequently I’ll return to the pages of Crazy Love, for example, to consider whether at this moment my love for our Father is so real that it would cause others to turn in notice. “Could someone look at your life or look at my life and name me a Christian?” he asks there. Following Christ is certainly about more than public display, of course, but love for Jesus that cannot be noticed and touched or doesn’t demand explanation before people isn’t really love for Jesus.

Anyway, lately I’ve found myself walking through books written by Andy Stanley, who serves as lead pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia (just north of Atlanta). Of all the works I’d recommend, I’d point every disciple, pastor, or church leader to Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend.  From every possible angle, my personal vision for how to lead and equip for ministry has been either challenged or corrected, for this reason. Far more often than not, the culture created within our local churches actually hinders the unchurched (and de-churched, if you will) from being drawn into believing Christ, catering to ourselves instead. Environment matters, and most of us are tolerating environments in which God is moving in spite of, not because of… how do we cultivate environments that remove all obstacles from unchurched people connecting to us and our message? This ends up being a difficult question for leaders and churches for it absolutely mandates change and sacrifice, the kinds of which many are unwilling to make. They must be made if were to succeed on mission, however, and even if our local churches are to survive.

That’s enough about me. What about you? What have you been reading? Has it been for fun or for supplementing your journey through the Bible? How has what you’re reading been helping you deepen in your faith?