I have tried various kinds of book discussion groups before, some with great success, and some not so much. After watching this video of Matt Brievogel at OneLife, I rushed out and bought one of the books he was using as a dumbbell: The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3)
I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time, but the $45 price tag and 800 page girth were too intimidating. Once I bought it for $10 and started to try to lug the thing around, I was really glad to get some Christmas money and that it went on sale on the Kindle for under $10.
Knowing full well that I’m an excellent starter and not so hot at finishing things, I’m taking Donald Miller’s advice and creating an inciting event for myself. I’ve asked 2 interested brothers to join me in reading the book. We are all busy, and will surely have a hard time over the next 6 months to meet to talk about it, so we are doing a virtual book discussion group. We have a shared Google drive folder and every week we are going to try to stay on the same schedule and share notes, insights, or highlights from the reading for that week.
It is going to be intense, with reading 30-40 pages a week we won’t be done until August, but I think it will be some quality altMDiv experience that I want in my life.
As a prep, I’m reading How To Read A Book until January 1. Several friends have recommended it as a good way to read books on a new level.
Put all of that together with my finding Scribd gives a 30-90 day free trial has given me a good batch of religious reading for the next few months, and yes, they have the NT Wright book there too.
We will not be sharing our notes, but surely I’ll blog some bits on here, and I’ll come up with some consistent tag to help you follow along, unless you want to join us.