by Eddie Pipkin

Created with ChatGPT (6-2-26)

People are hungry for something edifying to read, watch, or listen to, and summer is a great time to provide people with options which get them thinking or help explore the values of your organization.  So, why don’t local churches and local church leadership take advantage of this easy opportunity to connect with their followers?  It’s a mystery!  But there’s no time like the present to get started.  Just like I like to start every conversation with everybody ever with my one favorite question: “What are you reading right now?”

Or watching right now?  Or listening to right now?  I hope you share some answers in the comments section!

My obsession with those questions has to do with a strong interest I have developed over the past couple of years in getting to know the people in my life more deeply.  Besides just listening to them more closely after making room for meaningful conversations, I’ve found that one of the most compelling ways to do this is to take an interest in the books, articles, movies, TV shows, podcasts, interviews, music, and cultural happenings they have been taking an interest in.  If a friend or colleague enthusiastically recommends something that has had an impact on them, even if it doesn’t seem on the surface like something I would be remotely into, I try to make space to check it out.  I love being able to circle back and discuss it with them later, and if it doesn’t move me like it moved them, it often opens me to a new perspective or helps me have a deeper grasp of their worldview.  Of course, sometimes the recommendation becomes my latest favorite obsession – that’s always a happy and unexpected outcome.  (And it’s a great way to fight the algorithm, which, after all, just keeps feeding you more of the same content for which you have previously shown a preference.)

For local church leaders, there are two tracks for thinking about the value of sharing your favorite things:

  • As discussed in the paragraph above, it’s a great way for curious people to get to know you better and hopefully open a two-way conversation.
  • It’s a way for the organization / church which you lead to share values and provide opportunities for growth within the context of spiritual development.

One is these options is a personalized list of recommendations based on your quirks and preferences (and should be advertised as such) and can thus be less than serious in approach.  This can be from you, other staff members, or key volunteer leadership, or it could be an open exchange, a free-for-all of recommendations and discussion (all of which must, of course, be moderated for safety and propriety).

The other option is a carefully curated series of recommendations in line with your vision for spiritual growth.  The recommendations would feature classic texts on spirituality, theology, and discipleship, material with which every committed follower of Jesus might reasonably want to be familiar.  It can also feature the latest additions to Christian instructive and inspirational writing, a guide to what’s fresh and exciting.

Such lists, prominently communicated and easy to access, are for individual consumption or sometimes group consumption and discussion, but as many opportunities as possible should be utilized to give people a chance to discuss what they’ve read, watched, and listened to with others.

That means that sometimes everyone is doing a book or video series together, either as a dedicated worship series focus or as a churchwide focus across multiple small groups.  There is power in many people focusing on one book (or other media content) at one simultaneously.  There is a depth to the engagement with and exchange of ideas that travels beyond content limited to an hour of worship on Sunday morning.  People can meet a book or movie from many different angles, and being able to consume this material at their own pace in their own environment with their families or partners or small groups – venues for natural, deep discussion – means the message resonates with them in a lasting way.

Sometimes you can make recommendations that are tailored to a particular season.  I’m not just talking about the classic Lenten or Advent read-along here, but seasons of growth, struggle, or challenge within the communities we lead.  If we are embarking on profound change, for instance, there is a reading list for that!  Use it to help everyone get through a pivotal time together.

On the other hand, many of you have embraced summer movie series, with worship themes tied to classics, supplemented by festive family showings and some cinematic fun on Sunday mornings.  Some churches built entire series around The Chosen to great effect, for instance.

I’ve yet to hear of a church building a series or expanded small group experience around a podcast or a local art exhibit or an investigative series in a local newspaper, but why not?  Any compelling content, tangent to gospel themes, would be a worthy candidate, and something different or interesting or a little out of the ordinary might well attract those who are burned out by the same-old-same-old.

We should not only make regular recommendations for the benefit of the minds and souls of our community members, but we should help them access those materials as well.  Gone are the days of the classic “church library,” a dedicated room in the building with physical books to check out, but there are still effective modifications:

  • A pint-sized version of the traditional lending library, with featured books that people can borrow.
  • A book kiosk, often adjacent to the hospitality station, on Sunday mornings and other key times with featured books for purchase (bonus points if you’re able to subsidize such book purchases).
  • Little Free Libraries or something structurally similar on the church campus where people can freely exchange books they have read.
  • If you don’t have physical space for a sharing library, you could occasionally host a special day when people bring in materials for a book swap.  All you need is a coordinator and some tables!
  • Book recommendation links for wherever you share recommendations.  People can invest in their own preferred formats (digital or physical).

In addition to the practice of linking book recommendation to commercial book sellers – and by the way, if you have a local bookshop owner you’d like to partner with, please do so! – it is now possible for churches to set up their own digital borrowing libraries!  You buy licenses for digital titles and can then loan them out to your congregation.  Very few churches have taken advantage of this technology, but it’s there, quite affordable, and a familiar format to many readers.  You can find instructions for setting up a digital lending library at various online sites.

Meanwhile, while composing this blog, I came across some examples of people and organizations  and their recommended reading lists:

Share your own recommendations, ideas, and questions in the comments section!  Happy reading, watching, and listening this summer!