Three members of the BER team weighed in on the subject of new year’s resolutions, their favorite reads from 2020, and what they plan to read in 2021. Here’s what they had to say:
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Do you have one for 2021?
Dave Anderson: What I plan for the new year is:
- Read through the One Year Bible program with our church. One of our members started the One Year Bible Blog and has around 15,000 folks who read the Bible together.
- Use the PrayerMate app to help organize my prayer life.
- Memorize Romans 8. Our family and our church have decided to memorize a portion of Scripture together. This year it’s Romans 8.
Alex Strauch: My resolution for 2021 is to get Biblical Eldership completely rewritten, just like I did with the deacon book (Paul’s Vision for the Deacons) two years ago, bringing it up to date. This is a huge project and it will probably take me two years. But the first year (this year) will be the key year.
Chuck Gianotti: I have made New Year’s resolutions from time to time, usually of the weight-loss and exercise variety. But I have adopted a broader approach (encapsulated in my time management series). At the beginning of the year, I spend a day planning out the next twelve months: how many books I want to read, the content of my daily devotions, my physical, social, spiritual, and intellectual development. Time on earth, before I graduate into glory, is too short to be haphazard and not lived to the max. I have struck from my vocabulary phrases like, “I’m going to kill some time this weekend.” I’ve added, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” “This is the day the Lord has made,” and “Redeem the time, for the days are evil.”
What were your favorite reads in 2020?
Dave:
- Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher
- Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund
- The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church by Al Mohler
- None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God by Matthew Barrett
- The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness by Erwin Lutzer
- Can Science Explain Everything? by John Lennox
Alex: Eckhard Schnabel’s book Early Christian Mission.
Chuck: This past year, I’ve read:
- Fiction books by Charles Martin, often on Audible with my wife while we travel. He is a Christian and a captivating storyteller with great moral content without being overly sermonizing. Christian themes saturate his writings.
- Redemptive Divorce by Mark W. Gaither, which presents a fresh look at difficult subject.
- The Letters to Timothy and Titus, a conservative commentary by Robert W. Yarbrough, espousing a solid complementarian interpretation.
- People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck, a clinical psychologist and author of the book The Road Less Traveled. While I don’t agree with everything in this book, it reminds me to always be on alert for the “father of lies” who so easily masquerades as the teller of truth. (This book should be read with caution, not for new or young believers, but it can be helpful for those involved in counseling ministries.)
What is on your reading list for 2021?
Dave: I’m currently reading The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman, Romans 1 by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (I plan on reading through his fourteen volumes over the next number of years), and Rediscovering Jonah by Timothy Keller.
Alex: When the Church Was a Family by Joseph Hellerman
Chuck: I have made it a habit for 49 years (since I came to Christ at age 21) to read Scripture every day; that is my first and primary reading. Through different periods of my life, the “reading plans” have changed and the amount of time has been flexible, but the commitment has remained the same. I read World Magazine for a balanced, Christian-oriented report on contemporary news. And every year, I read selections from classic books, like The Training of the Twelve by A.B. Bruce, and Our Lord Prays for His Own by Marcus Rainsford.