Top Ten Books of 2006.

I have been asked to consider which of the books I read last year would be considered my favorites. While I enjoyed most of the books I read, I liked them all for varying reasons, so it is exceedingly difficult to pick favorites. Further, I am a firm believer in the fact that where you are in life has a lot to do with what books are beneficial and interesting for you, so you may very well pick up these books and find some of them lame. All the same, if you were to read ten books in 2007 from the pool of ones I read in '06, the following come with my highest recommendation (in no particular order):

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
I read this on the flight from Chicago to Tokyo and then reread it on the beach in Cambodia. Some great food for thought: is your theology a trampoline or a brick wall?

Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf
The subtitle provides a pretty good summary of what this important book is all about: "giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace." If famous Anglicans carry any weight for you, the Archbishop of Canterbury named this the Lent Book of the Year.

Practitioners by Various Contributors
This is one of the more innovative books I have ever read. A lot of people out there talk about God and they talk about changing the world. These practitioners actually get their hands dirty in an effort to transform culture rather than just talking about it. I find that inspiring.

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne
Shane is a dude who makes his own clothes and lives in the worst neighborhood in Philly. He gets arrested for sleeping outside with homeless people and does crazy things like spending three months with lepers in Calcutta. He calls himself an extremist for love. Don't write him off as a saint, though. He's just an ordinary radical.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider
Billions live in poverty and this is not because of a lack of resources. Without the guilt trip, Sider makes a passionate plea for us to take seriously Jesus' teachings about money and the poor.

The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs
This world-renowned economist has committed the rest of his life to ending extreme poverty. He believes it can be done and he tells us how. Though I am one with absolutely no interest in economics, I tore through this 350-page book in only a couple of days. Your global poverty paradigm will take a beating, and you may just be left thinking, "Wow. Maybe it is possible after all."

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
I'm kind of embarassed to only have one dead guy on my top ten list this year, but this book was fantastic. If loving God and loving others is what the Christian life is all about, and you want to be a better lover in the broad sense of the word, this book couldn't be any more relevant.

The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
400-page books with small print have a way of sitting on one's shelf for a while, but when I finally picked it up this fall in Cambodia I was hooked. Willard integrates the concept of the Kingdom with personal spiritual formation in a way I've never encountered before.

Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven, But Nobody Wants To Die by David Crowder
The author's band released an album taunting death and the devil and then everyone they knew started dying. This book weaves thoughts on death together with the history of bluegrass, in an amazingly powerful way you will have to read to believe.

The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright
The first seven chapters were hard but rewarding work, but then chapters eight and nine were sheer adrenaline. I marked up those pages with reckless abandon and wanted to shout Yes! over and over. Read it.