Summer Reading

This summer has been a great time of getting charged up for the new year. For me, that means a ton of reading. I have read about 20 books this summer. I try to alternate between Christian growth books and leadership/management books.

There are a few that have really stood out. I thought I’d post them below. I would definitely recommend them if you are wanting to challenge yourself.

I have been back in the office now for 3 weeks. Our staff returns tomorrow and our students return on August 13th. Thank you Lord for a great summer!

I am usually a fan of John Maxwell’s stuff. One of my favorite Leadership books is “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”. A lot of the principles in this book are similar. One thing I really like in this book is they way that Maxwell talks about developing people. There are a lot of good lessons about teammwork in this book.

This book was the summer reading for our Middle School staff. Our MS Principal told us that one of his former schools read this and implemented some of the ideas in their school. The main idea of the book is giving students choices and helping them be accountable for their actions. This is a long book but definitely worth the read.

Doug Fields is the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church in California. Doug has a heart for folks in student ministry. Most of his material is designed for longevity and success. This book focuses on setting and maintaining a sustainable pace. This is a short book, I read it in about an hour and a half. Good stuff.

I read this book as a part of my Old Testament class for seminary this summer. I have read through the Psalms a number of times and always enjoyed it. C.S. Lewis does a good job of breaking the Psalms in to sections. There are a lot of things he pulls out to talk about the state of the church. I wrote a paper about this book and got an A. I don’t know how good the paper was, but the good thing about summer classes is that there is always the chance that your professor is grading your paper while hanging out at the beach or something. It usually works in your favor!

Our Headmaster gave this one to our Admin Council for us to read over the summer. It was also a quick read. It is a case study of a silicon valley company that has a new CEO. Most of it revolves around examining your leadership style and your management team. It is basically the principle of making sure everyone is working to their strengths and being the most productive they can be. It was a good book.

Well…just in case you are interested, Amazon gift certificates always make a good gift. I love reading and am headed to check out the stack on my shelf to pick the next one!