On My Shelf helps you get to know various writers through a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their lives as readers.
I asked Kevin Burrell—pastor of StoneBridge Church Community in Charlotte, North Carolina, and author of Considering Sparrows: What Birds Teach Us About Who We Are, Where We’re Going, and the Joy of Following Jesus—about what’s on his bedside table, his favorite fiction, the books he regularly revisits, and more.
What’s on your nightstand right now?
It might be best to divide my book-wielding furniture into three places: the nightstand, the home study nook, and the church office end table. It doesn’t always break down this easily, but I’ve realized that my reading unintentionally seems to partition itself by location.
The nightstand is mostly adorned with classic novels (and, admittedly, the Kindle app, so I can read with the lights off and not disturb my wife). Last month I finished Steinbeck’s East of Eden. As a finicky 17-year-old, I had written off Steinbeck after a bad experience with The Grapes of Wrath. But East of Eden is a masterpiece, and it’s caused me to give a second chance to other authors I cavalierly dismissed as a pompous teen (I’m currently rereading Dickens’s Great Expectations).
I also devoured Malcolm Guite’s new book Galahad and the Grail, the first in a four-part series on the tales of King Arthur and Camelot. It’s a massive epic narrative poem that’s so rhythmic that it begs to be read out loud. Seriously, I dare you not to read it out loud. It’s gorgeous, uplifting, inspiringly illustrated, and gospel-minded in the way that a tale of spiritual pilgrimage was meant to be. We should celebrate that books like this are still being written out into the world.
The home study nook tends to be the place for Christian growth books, though addictive books like Galahad often find their way downstairs. Recent visitors to this nook have included Seth Lewis’s The Language of Rivers and Stars, a thoughtful walk through the language of creation as translated by the Rosetta Stone of God’s Word; Russ Ramsey’s Rembrandt Is In the Wind and Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart, which utilize Ramsey’s love of art to ponder spiritual truths and the weight of the human condition; and Andrew Osenga’s How to Remember: Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith, which challenges our modern approaches to music, liturgy, and personal worship.
Lastly, there’s the church office end table, reserved for the ministry-pertinent reading that shapes my preaching and leadership. We’re working through Exodus right now, so I’m helpfully informed by Michael Morales’s Exodus Old and New (thematically associating the exile and exodus of Israel with that of the Christian pilgrim) and Philip Ryken’s gold-mine commentary from the Preaching the Word series. These books tend to follow me around in my backpack, as weighty reminders that Sunday’s coming.
Oh, and did I mention Galahad and the Grail?
What are your favorite fiction books?
I’m solidly on the Theo of Golden bandwagon; rarely does a week go by without me recommending it to someone. But most of my favorites lean further back. Les Misérables has been at the top of my list for a long time. I love to read and reread Tolkien and Lewis, especially The Great Divorce, Perelandra, and The Lord of the Rings (I’m currently savoring it for the fifth time). And then there’s the world of Anniera captured in Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, a four-volume series that’s on par with Narnia and Middle-earth, at least in my estimation.
What biographies or autobiographies have most influenced you and why?
I lean in the direction of the survival/adventure biographies. So, for instance, Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken haunts me regularly; as a story of horrifying injustice and inspiring forgiveness, it confronts my petty reluctances to turn the other cheek. Alfred Lansing’s Endurance, my favorite adventure bio, is a treasure trove of sermon illustrations, and I’m most struck by Ernest Shackleton’s preservation of his entire crew at great personal risk.
And aside from the survival stories, I love the genius of Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad Is Untrue, an autobiographical memoir written in novel form from the point of view of the author’s 13-year-old self, recounting the personal ripple effects of his Iranian mother’s unlawful conversion to Christianity.
What are some books you regularly reread and why?
I used to consider life too short to read the same book twice. But the older I get, the more I want my heart stirred by the sorts of works that resonated deeply once upon a time. I’ve mentioned several already, mostly Tolkien and Lewis. But sometimes I pull a book off the shelf just to reread a favorite scene, like Les Misérables—to replay the heart-soaring emotions of Valjean rescuing Cosette from the Thénardiers. Or The Warden and the Wolf King (the last volume of The Wingfeather Saga), just to let the renaming of the Fangs stir the hope of redemption in my soul all over again.
I used to consider life too short to read the same book twice. But the older I get, the more I want my heart stirred by the sorts of works that resonated deeply once upon a time.
Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions has been a faithful friend. My prayers often meander in the same circles, and weighty things don’t get prayed for because I would never have thought to pray them. Eugene Peterson said that in prayer, the well is deep and we don’t have a good enough bucket. The prayers of the Puritans give me a better bucket to draw deeper from the well.
The Every Moment Holy series does the same; these thoughtful prayers and liturgies find the holy in the ordinary. And while describing them on the surface might sound trite or humorous (like the two liturgies for changing a diaper, or the one for brewing morning coffee), each prayer is actually a profound means of seeing the Lord faithfully at work in the space between.
What books have most profoundly shaped how you serve and lead others for the sake of the gospel?
In pastoral ministry, I prefer the sorts of books that hit you upside the head with a gracious two-by-four. Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling and Lead have both done that to me: the former in wrestling down ministry pride and the latter in pursuing authentic gospel leadership communities.
I’ve led would-be seminarians through Zack Eswine’s The Imperfect Pastor, which offers sweet freedom from the pastoral pressure of being all things to all people all the time everywhere. Lastly, I discovered Eugene Peterson’s pastoral books Working the Angles and Under the Unpredictable Plant early in ministry, and they’ve stayed with me, shaping pastoral priorities and calling me back from the siren sounds of the ship to Tarshish.
What’s one book you wish every pastor would read?
You Are What You Love by James K. A. Smith is a seriously important book for pastors. We are seminary-hardwired to convey orthodoxy—a ministry built on the convictions of didactic truth. As well we should. But although it’s true that often “[God’s] people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6), my pastoral experience over the years shows forth a lot more brokenness in people’s desires than in their knowledge base. They know their Bibles and their theology; they simply want other things more than they want Jesus.
As we develop biblically literate people, we have to challenge their faulty feelings, not just their faulty thinking. Orthopathos, not just orthodoxy—Jesus as the more beautiful song to subdue our competing idols. That affects how we preach, disciple, and measure our ministry faithfulness.
What’s your best piece of writing advice?
Practice analogical thinking. In our pastoral team’s preaching development time, I always start us off with an exercise in sermon illustrations.
As we develop biblically literate people, we have to challenge their faulty feelings, not just their faulty thinking.
It involves two jars, both filled with scraps of paper: the first contains theological or biblical concepts, and the latter contains random objects, concepts, or scenes from ordinary life. Each of us draws a paper from each jar, and then—on the spot—launches into a sermon illustration that connects them. “How is the work of the Holy Spirit like a hair dryer?” “How is original sin like Mount St. Helens?” The result can be comparison, contrast, vignette, allegory, whatever—as long as it makes a salient point.
As you can imagine, some are better than others, and we have some good laughs, but I believe the exercise stretches the way we write sermons. In the end, my book, Considering Sparrows, could be described as 16 chapters of extended sermon illustrations. “How does a hummingbird depict the transformative role of the church in the culture?” “How does a mockingbird picture the importance of modeling in discipleship?” Good analogies stick with people.
What are you learning about life and following Jesus?
Although I’m a slow learner, the Lord has me in a beautiful season right now, with a gracious daily sense of his nearness. This freshness hasn’t been a result of finding the right morning devotional or prayer prompts, although I do both. It’s been more about “the approach”; coming to him at the outset and confessing what I seek, “that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” including this one (Ps. 27:4), admitting my past-day failures to truly seek him with heart, soul, and mind, and then putting my trust in Jesus all over again: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). I’ve been waking up more and more eager to be with him, so that we might rehearse these heart-truths together.
I’m also learning to be less wounded by the criticisms of others. Honestly, the COVID-19 season probably beat a lot of that out of me. While it’s hard to lead through change, or to free my heart from man-pleasing, it’s much easier when you ultimately live your life before an audience of One. The Lord has been gracious to grow in me a more nonanxious presence in ministry.
How have birds—and broadly the Book of Nature—helped you understand God’s Word and ways better?
When I’m writing for my blog, Ornitheology, I’m usually flanked by two bookstacks: commentaries on one side and books about birds on the other. It’s a joy for me to bring these two worlds together, drawing analogies between the behavior of birds and the biblical truths they might represent. If it’s true that “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19:1, NIV), then we should be looking up more often. The Lord has aha moments for us there.
Goldfinches teach me about God’s providential timing, killdeer show me how to take a hit for my church, and kookaburras teach me about the mirth of our Savior. Psalm 19 takes a whiplash turn midway through, to the new topic of the law of God—but it’s really not a new topic at all. God’s “invisible qualities” are revealed in part by “what has been made” (Rom. 1:20, NIV), and so looking at the creativity of the creation should lead us to ponder the character of the Creator. I’m always looking, watching for connections, considering sparrows.
