there are three books that have changed my life…
well four if you include the Bible – i generally use the New International Version translation but also have a copy of the Message by Pietersen which is a paraphrase but is nice to read alongside the NIV – 2000 years old and after multiple readings of portions, chapters, books and the whole thing i am still constantly blown away by the Truth that it contains, always pointing to Jesus who is the ultimate Truth.
the first one is a book called “No Compromise” which i read close to 20 years ago i imagine and then reread about ten years ago so almost time for the next reading – it is the true life story of Keith Green, a talented musician who was hungrily searching everywhere for truth (parties, girls, drugs, drink, spirituality) and came to a point of there only being two more things to check out and one of them was Jesus – he never looked back – a highly controversial character because he lived large and real and passionately and was misunderstood by a lot of people (especially christians) but really challenged me on living a life free of compromise…
the second is a book called “The Irresistible Revolution” by a guy called shane claiborne which is all about living as an ordinary radical – shane’s search for people who actually believed the stuff they read about and claimed to believe in the Bible and who actually lived – or tried to – it out. The book contains a lot of stories of holy mischief and real life encounters like the time shane and a bunch of friends from college moved into an abandoned church building where a bunch of homeless people had been living and were about to be thrown out (just because) – they helped bring media attention and affect the situation in a positive yet revolutionary way – lived and worked with mother teresa for three months, including a month in a leper colony and went to Iraq to protest America’s involvement at the height of the bombing… life changing and partly responsible for me choosing to move into a township for a year and a half.
the third is a book i recently read by John Wimber called ‘Everyone gets to play’ which is a little harder to get hold of apparently, but well worth it – basically looking at the basics of Jesus following, John Wimber (who started the Vineyard movement/denomination) speaks in simple but challenging terms and unpacks what it means to be a Christ follower in such a brilliant and comprehensive way.
Other books that i have really enjoyed and recommend include ‘Blue Like Jazz’ by Don Miller, ‘The Hole in the Gospel’ by Richard Stearns (president of world vision), ‘Red Moon Rising’ – Pete Greig/Dave Roberts (the story of the 24/7 prayer movement), ‘As easy as drinking water’ – Afshin Javid (amazing story of a muslim who had a face to face encounter with Jesus), ‘In His Steps’ – Charles M Sheldon, ‘Street Pastors’ – Les Isaacs, ‘They Like Jesus but not the Church’ – Dan Kimball
The secular author i enjoy the most without a doubt is Terry Pratchett and i highly recommned the Discworld series (starting with ‘the Colour of Magic’) which has close to 30 books and is still going strong. He is a brilliant writer and using satirical fantasy he takes on a variety of topics (from Shakespeares plays to religion to woman in business to the postal and banking systems to opera and fashion and soccer and communication and much much more). My favourite is still ‘Moving Pictures’ which is a take on Hollywood altho it is hard to have a favourite cos so many of them are so, so good. My only problem is i have read them all and am in a constant wait for the next one to be published…
and then recently i have been reading and enjoying (mostly) a guy called Ted Dekker (‘Thr3e’, ‘The circle series’, Blink…) who writes Christian Thrillers and whose writing i generally describe as Stephen King if he was a Christian. What i like about them is that altho they contain spiritual aspects, the writing is phenomenal and there is a solid absence of the cheese that a lot of christian movies/music/books have ungoing for them. ‘Thr3e’ is still my favourite of his (was the first one he read) but the majority of his books i would recommend.
