EPISODE · Mar 31, 2026 · 41 MIN
445 What your bookshelf says about your ministry: reading as leadership formation (Rory Shiner)
from The One Thing · host Reach Australia
You can usually tell what’s going on in a pastor’s ministry by what’s on their bedside table. Not the books they recommend, but the ones they are actually reading, half-reading, or quietly avoiding.Rory Shiner opens up his own reading habits and presses the question most of us avoid: are we still being shaped, or just repeating what we learned years ago?Are we still the kind of people who are learning, so that when we open the Bible we are not simply repeating ourselves, but speaking with fresh clarity shaped by a life still being formed by God’s word?In this episode:What your current reading habits reveal about your ministryWhy finishing books is often the wrong goalThe kind of reading that actually feeds preaching over timeWhy reading ahead matters more than scrambling each weekWhat poetry, fiction, and biography give you that ministry books cannotHow shallow reading shapes shallow instincts in people workWhy curiosity fades in ministry and why it is worth protectingToolbox:Biblical Critical Theory by Christopher WatkinCollected Poems by Les MurrayPoems Chosen by Paul KellyThe Discarded Image by C. S. LewisOne Forever by Rory ShinerForgiven Forever by Rory ShinerRaised Forever by Rory ShinerThe World Next Door by Rory ShinerCredits: This episode was brought to you by Lending Hands Mortgage Brokers The One Thing is brought to you by Reach AustraliaTo pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp GroupFor ideas or questions please email [email protected]Support Reach Australia's online library
What this episode covers
You can usually tell what’s going on in a pastor’s ministry by what’s on their bedside table. Not the books they recommend, but the ones they are actually reading, half-reading, or quietly avoiding.Rory Shiner opens up his own reading habits and presses the question most of us avoid: are we still being shaped, or just repeating what we learned years ago?Are we still the kind of people who are learning, so that when we open the Bible we are not simply repeating ourselves, but speaking with fresh clarity shaped by a life still being formed by God’s word?In this episode:What your current reading habits reveal about your ministryWhy finishing books is often the wrong goalThe kind of reading that actually feeds preaching over timeWhy reading ahead matters more than scrambling each weekWhat poetry, fiction, and biography give you that ministry books cannotHow shallow reading shapes shallow instincts in people workWhy curiosity fades in ministry and why it is worth protectingToolbox:Biblical Critical Theory by Christopher WatkinCollected Poems by Les MurrayPoems Chosen by Paul KellyThe Discarded Image by C. S. LewisOne Forever by Rory ShinerForgiven Forever by Rory ShinerRaised Forever by Rory ShinerThe World Next Door by Rory ShinerCredits: This episode was brought to you by Lending Hands Mortgage Brokers The One Thing is brought to you by Reach AustraliaTo pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp GroupFor ideas or questions please email [email protected]Support Reach Australia's online library
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445 What your bookshelf says about your ministry: reading as leadership formation (Rory Shiner)
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