15 Books I Could Write for Pastors Today

I’m in the process now of writing my next two books, one that focuses on temptation and the other on trusting God with wandering loved ones. It seems to me, though, that I could write these books for pastors today:

1. Humility: How I Learned I Really Wasn’t God’s Gift to the Church. I was a 20-year-old pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in Ohio. Surely, everyone else saw how significant I was to the kingdom. I was wrong, on so many levels.
2. Rookie Preacher: Why My Early Sermons Should Be Destroyed. I can only trust that God has supernaturally consumed any remaining cassette tapes of those sermons that had great passion but often little biblical exposition. They were bad… 
3. Fundamentalism with a Capital “F”: Being Mean and Leaving the Gospel Out at the Same Time. I’ve been there, too – preaching against everyone else’s sin to earn a loud “amen” while failing to talk much about the forgiving love of God. I was sure I had all the answers and all the rules. 
4. In a Hurry: How I Messed Up My Church by Pushing Change Too Quickly. I was sure I’d done my homework and laid the groundwork, but I misread the congregation. I did it more than once, actually. 
5. Hanging in There: Why It’s Important that My Calling Was So Strong. Several times in almost 45 years of ministry, I’ve returned to God’s clear word to me in 1974: “I want you to preach my Word.”  
6. Like Spurgeon and Others: Discouragement, Depression, and Ministry. I’ve been there, running the race under God’s call but seemingly hitting an emotional wall.
7. Searching for a Barnabas: The Struggle of Finding a Friend in Ministry. I’ve written elsewhere about our need to find a Barnabas when we’re in ministry. The need is real. 
8. Grabbed by the Globe: A Local Church Pastor Hearing the Call of the World. A single conversation with a women’s missionary leader, coupled with a friendship with global workers with the Voice of America, began to move my heart toward the nations. God has continued to broaden that perspective through many means.
9. Get Me to My Knees: Finding Help in Learning to Pray. It’s been the toughest spiritual discipline to learn for me . . . and it’s been other pastoral heroes who’ve modeled prayer for me. I’m deeply grateful for them. 
10. Just Let Me Go to My Corner: Confessions of a Ministry Introvert. If I had my way, I’d write this book during a churchwide fellowship dinner . . . . while everyone else is enjoying the time! 
11. Can I Please Take That Back?: Dumb Things I’ve Said from the Pulpit. Actually, this book could become a series, I’m afraid. Check out this post to see some things I wish I’d never said when preaching.
12. Obedience: A Professor of Evangelism Doing Evangelism. I may carry the professor title, but still I must make myself to tell others about Jesus. Obedience demands I push beyond my excuses.
13. Chuck’s Believe It or Not: True Stories of Ministry in God’s Church. Most of us could write our own version of this book, as it’s hard to make up some of the stuff we deal with in ministry. And yet, God loves us all. 
14. Gratitude for My Wife: God’s Gift of a Ministry Partner. The older I get, the more I realize the gift I have in my wife, Pam. It’s great to have her walking by my side. 
15. Joy in the Morning: Why I’d Do It All Over Again. I wouldn’t trade my years of pastoral ministry. In fact, I’d go back there in a heartbeat if God so called. 

What books could you write today?