Thursdays Five -Tony

5 Books i’ve read (or Re-read) recently that may change the way you think about everyday stuff:

1) The Paradox of Choice – Barry Schwartz

The basic premise of this book is that more choices don’t equal more happiness. In fact just the opposite tends to be true. Let me explain with an example:

Remember your first cell phone? i remember mine; a Nokia whose most exciting feature was Snake. You remember Snake don’t you? The simplest yet most addictive cell-phone game of all times! Back to my Nokia: It was a simple stick of a phone, it couldn’t even text, all it could do was send and receive calls. That’s it. i was completely satisfied with that phone. It did it’s job, did it well and hung out in my pocket for about 2 years if i remember correctly.

Fast forward: Remember the last time you went cell-phone shopping? Touch-screen or not; Qwerty keypad or no; how many mega-pixels is the camera; will it work as an mp3 player; what apps are available for it; web capable or not; unlimited text plan; which data plan do you get; what color do you want your phone to be… i stopped going to shop for phones. My last phone i bought used off a friend, my current one was a Christmas present (oddly enough from the same friend i bought the last one off of). It’s just too overwhelming to pick out “The One”… No matter what phone we buy there is always that tiny comparison shopper in the back of our heads, wondering and wondering if we picked the right one…

2) Simple Church- Thom S. Rainer & Erick Geiger

Remember: i am a minister by profession (i know, it IS hard to believe most days, but nevertheless it’s true), i’m also the kind of guy who honestly wants to be the best i can be at any job i do. Sometimes i read stuff and think, “This is bologna!” Sometimes i read a book and think, “This is a new idea…” Sometimes i read and think, “i KNEW it!” Simple Church was an i KNEW it book. Somewhere deep inside i had this nagging gut feeling that all the “stuff” that we do in the church world wasn’t nearly as important as we thought it was. As cliche as it sounds the premise of this book is “Less is more”.

If you are vocationally spiritual add this to your summer reading list!

3) Buyology- Martin Lindstrom

Great book about what advertising does to our brains! Why we want what we want, even when we rationalize that we don’t want it. Martin Lindstrom has harnessed the power of technology to ferret the truth out of our 3 pounds of gray matter.

Some pretty cool stuff…

4) Flickering Pixels- Shane Hipps

Great read about how technology has shaped our thinking, and the way we engage with spiritual things.

He also hits some real soft-spots in his book: He talks about how Campus Crusade for Christ’s oft distributed Gospel presentation tool of the train of fact, faith and feeling is broken.

There is also a whole chapter about how we, Christians, have been “answering” questions for years that no one is really asking! Like: How do you gap the separation between you and God?

Is there a separation? Of course. We know there is, but heres a news-flash: People who aren’t Christians don’t normally care about that separation.

This book had moments of “i KNEW that” & moment’s of “This is a new idea…”

5) The Bible- Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Paul, Mark, Peter on and on and on.

Yes, The Bible. It’s definitely one of the most challenging books i’ve ever read, ok… THE most challenging book. i think that too often we, again by we i mean those of us who profess to be Christians, read the Bible without really reading it.

We put our kids to sleep by reading them stories of Noah and his ark filled with adorable animals, as the REST OF THE WORLD DROWNS TO DEATH!

We read about turning the other cheek, loving our neighbors, City walls collapsing super-naturally, killing women and children in a holy war, on and on and we read them like we’re reading the Reader’s Digest.

Here’s my challenge for my readers: Read Matthew chapters 5,6 & 7. See if that fits with what Christianity has become. See if that fits with your “Christian” thinking. See if that doesn’t mess your world up!

Happy reading! & if you have read any books lately that challenged/changed your thought processes hit me up with a comment! i’m always looking for a good book to read.

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