It seems like I've gone through a bit of a wave in terms of there being either incredibly few or insanely numerous books that seem to pique my interest at any given time. There's no way I'll get through this list that sorta grabs my attention for right now. I've got enough on the bookshelf to work through for the rest of January as it is. But for the sake of noting a few items worth checking into down the road, here's a short list of new reading material that may or may not find it's way on my bookshelf afterwards ...

» Spotting the Sacred: Noticing God in the Most Unlikely Places - Bruce Main

Caught this one at the bookstore over the weekend and it was one of those that just quickly finds a toehold of interest within. The author has a website that gives a bit of insight into the book, not the least of which is a full first chapter available for previewing. The basis of the book is one that I've always appreciated and tried to find ways to appreciate more: that God is in our everyday, ordinary lives and that too often we miss that.

» Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People - Jim Cymbala

Perhaps the leading contender for my reading interest off of this list. What initially struck me about this book is that it seemed like one of the most relevant on the bookstore shelves. Sure, there's a good deal of purpose that can be derived from reading an author long since gone on this topic. And there's several authors that write on this topic that seem to reside in a mostly shuttered world of church surroundings (or at least tend to write in a way that indicates as much). Nothing wrong with that, but for those of us who don't live our lives like that, it strikes me that the concept of faith is one that is a bit underserved. I've picked this up a couple of times to see if the text still hits me the same way. So far, so good.

» Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith - Rob Bell

I've mentioned before that I backed into appreciating this book.

» Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology - Eugene Peterson
» Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading - Eugene Peterson

Brennan Manning sorta turned me onto reading the book of Luke with a newfound sense of discovery. Just to see what more there was to appreciate about the book, I printed off Eugene Peterson's "The Message" version of the book for some Christmas reading. I'm well aware of the diversity of opinion on Peterson's paraphrase of the book. There are elements of the criticisms that I'm inclined to share and there's about 98% of them which strike me as the usual sort of bunk that divides Christian from Christian, yet so many of us seem to get a kick out of engaging in. There were a few great moments in Luke that Peterson illuminates rather well, if only to shed new light on some random aspect that maybe a more common translation nudges aside in our mind.

Yet, with that sense of initial trepidation, I cracked open these two books at the bookstore this past weekend and found both of them leaving me wishing I had more time to just sit and read the entire thing right then and there. I'm a bit more inclined to opt for the second book just due to the fact that the topic is a good fit for me and there seems to be precious little available on the topic. But they both look good.

» Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons - Frederich Buechner
» The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God - Dallas Willard

I mentioned earlier that I'm kinda in the mood for one deep, heavy-thinking type of book that maybe forces me to slow down while reading a bit. I happened upon a few Buechners and Willard's The Great Omission and it didn't really seem like a good fit for what I was looking for. So I'm hoping to run across this other title at some point to see whether or not it's the one for me.

Buechner, I flipped through a few books while out Christmas shopping. I'm willing to confess that the busyness of the season didn't exactly help me take a moment to really sift through anything very intently. What makes me curious about the title here is that it's a new collection of 37 of Buechner's sermons. It's due out March 1 (shortly before Marcos' book). Maybe it'll speak to me, maybe it won't. At least I've got time to tell whether it does or doesn't.

Oh, speaking of Marcos' book ... Amazon and Christianbook are presently taking pre-orders. My hunch is that once it comes out, there'll be a pretty sweet pricetag on the book at the Lakewood bookstore, though. I'm reminded that Jim Graff's "The Significant Life" was sold for $11 the Wednesday he came to preach. Of course, I'm regretting that I didn't get a few as gifts, also.