The Pastor’s Bookshelf: Why Reading Matters for Ministry

by Austin Carty

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2022

Overview

It’s time to give pastors permission to read books beside the Bible—even fiction.

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 bore 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 information 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.

Key Features

• Encourages pastors to read freely
• Shows 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
• Explores how worthwhile reading is more about formation than information

Contents

Part One: All the Reading We Don’t Remember: Reading for Formation

• On Formation
• Formation vs. Information
• On Information
• Developing Wisdom
• Learning to Love

Part Two: Not Just a Luxury: Reading for Ministry

• Reading for Preaching
• Reading for Pastoral Care
• Reading for Vision Casting
• Reading for Leadership

Part Three: For Whatever Reason: How to Become a Pastor-Reader

• Reading as a Pastoral Visit
• Reading as a Spiritual Discipline
• Reading with a Proper Spirit
• Choosing What to Read
• How to Mark and File What You’ve Read
• Reading Scripture as a Pastor-Reader
• Postscript

Praise for the Print Edition

One remarkable feature of Carty’s writing in this volume is how much of it is done in conversation with others, particularly parishioners and others who are on the receiving end of ministry. Carty hopes to encourage pastors who read, but not merely as a form of gratuitous self-improvement, but reading done among, with, and for the people of God.

—Thomas G. Long

Product Details

• Title: The Pastor’s Bookshelf: Why Reading Matters for Ministry
• Author: Austin Carty
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Pages: 168
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subject: Clergy › Books and reading
• ISBNs: 9780802879103, 0802879101
• Resource ID: LLS:PSTRSBKSHMNSTRY
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:30:09Z

About Austin Carty

Austin Carty is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina. He holds an MDiv from Wake Forest University and a DMin from Emory University. He is the author of High Points and Lows: Life, Faith, and Figuring It All Out and The Pastor’s Bookshelf: Why Reading Matters for Ministry, which received the 2023 Christianity Today Award of Merit and was named Book of the Year by Preaching magazine.