The most lazily enriching summer of my life has come to an end.

But oh what a summer it was; rejoicing after graduation, reconnecting with family, relaxing internationally, recuperating from busyness via recreation outdoors, realigning the soul through reflective prayer and preaching.

And let’s not forget the signature diversion of summertime bliss: reading. No summer is complete without a stack of good pages (paper or digital) within reach at all times. It’s taken me over a year to finally polish off some titles from last summer’s list, but I’ve enjoyed finishing up the following books in recent months:

Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck, Why We Love the Church: In praise of institutions and organized religion (Moody, 2009)

Michael Gerson & Peter Wehner, City of Man: Religion and politics in a new era (Moody, 2010)

Tim Keller, King’s Cross: The story of the world in the life of Jesus (Dutton, 2011)

Martin Luther King, Jr. & Clayborne Carson (ed.), The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Warner, 2008)

Grant McClung (ed.), Azusa Street and Beyond: 100 years of commentary on the global pentecostal/charismatic movement (Bridge-Logos, 2006)

Brenda Salter McNeil, A Credible Witness: Reflections on power, evangelism and race (IVP, 2008)

Richard Mouw, Abraham Kuyper: A short and personal introduction (Eerdmans, 2011)

Rich Nathan & Ken Wilson, Empowered Evangelicals: Bringing together the best of the evangelical and charismatic worlds (Ampelon, 2009)

Brandon O’Brien, The Strategically Small Church: Intimate, nimble, authentic, effective (Bethany, 2010)

Jenell Williams Paris, The End of Sexual Identity: Why sex is too important to define who we are (IVP, 2011)

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The shape of pastoral integrity (Eerdmans, 1987)

Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (B&H, 2006)

Gregory Wolfe, Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the human in an ideological age (ISI, 2011)

[image by ginnerobot]