For the past couple of years, I've facilitated a readers' forum at Oak Hills Baptist Church. The forum, titled Aslan's Forum, was started in the late 90s by Wendell Hoffman.
The forum was a big reason why my wife and I chose to attend Oak Hills. Moving from the Dallas metroplex to Sioux Falls, I had pretty much given up on the possibility of having a thoughtful, intellectual reading group, or something like Denton Bible Church's Lay Institute. But, when we visited Oak Hills, the sign for Aslan's Forum was stading smack-dab in the middle of the hallway. The group became a real blessing for me.
Now that I'm facilitating the group, the hardest part of the job is compiling the list of books to be read during a given year. I get several helpful suggestions from group members, but much of the process consists of me putting together a list of books that I find compelling, and then tweaking the list in hopes that it is perceived as intellectually rigorous and compelling without being too academic. I'm never sure if I succeed.
The reading list for 2005-2006 was generated with a loose theme centering on the senses. Four of the seven books have some connection with one of the senses. Of course, some of those books are more closely connected with the senses than others. In any event, here's the reading list for the next year. It goes public in September. Anyone interested in participating can obtain more details from the web site for Aslan's Forum.
- October 2005: C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- November 2005: Philip Yancey's Rumors of Another World
- December 2005: Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday
- February 2006: Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son
- March 2006: Robin Jensen's The Substance of Things Seen
- April 2006: Michael Schut's Food & Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread
- May 2006: Richard Mouw's The Smell of Sawdust
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