I just got a bunch of new books in the mail from Amazon, and I'm really excited to start reading them. Included in the list are:

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne, a founding member of The Simple Way, an intentional Christian community among the poor in inner city Philadelphia.

The New Testament and the People of God by NT Wright. A very in depth and scholarly look at the historical context of the New Testament.

Inside Out by Larry Crabb, a book that has come highly recommended to me by Pastor Fran at LifeSpring, and that could turn out to be a good book for discussion with our Vision Team at some point.

But I am most excited about the Gospels for Everyone laymen's commentaries by NT Wright. Wright is one of the few biblical scholars that I know to trust anymore, and this is his attempt at making the gospels accessible to the average churchgoer while still being faithful to the historical and cultural context of scripture. The commentary on Luke especially will be helpful to me as we're planning to do an indepth study/discussion of that book with our Core Group for the new church over the next few months.