Preaching Magazine
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Hearts & Minds
Best Books List (2022)
Christianity Today
Award of Merit in Church & Pastoral Leadership (2023)
It’s time to give pastors permission to read books besides the Bible.
Six months into his first senior pastorate, Austin Carty sat in his office reading—not the Bible, not a commentary, not a theological tract, but a novel
by Fyodor Dostoevsky. As the minutes turned to hours, while he sat engrossed in this book, he noticed something: he began feeling uneasy. And then anxious. And then
guilty
. What would someone think if they opened the door and caught him reading
fiction
?
For busy pastors (is there any other kind?), time spent reading feels hard to justify, especially when it’s not for sermon prep. But what if reading felt less like a luxury and more like a vocational responsibility—a spiritual practice that bears fruit in every aspect of ministry, from preaching to pastoral care to church leadership?
Austin Carty believes that this is exactly how pastors ought to think about reading.
The Pastor’s Bookshelf
shows how worthwhile reading is more about
formation
than
in
formation and how, through reading, a pastor becomes a fuller, more enriched human being with a deeper capacity for wisdom and love, better equipped to understand and work for God’s kingdom.