Many of my non-liturgical friends might be unaware that today is Ash Wednesday. If you read last year’s post about this time (“Fat Wednesday and Other Irreverent Ideas”), then you’d know we just began observing this day on the church calendar.

Every worship leader has stood before his or her congregation and wondered what it would be like if we all worshiped more throughout the week. What if our gathering on Sunday morning (or whatever day and time) comprised believers who loved and worshiped Jesus every day — not just for an hour once a week?

Where to begin with my review of Eric Metaxas’ “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy?” How can 500 words or so really do justice to a 600-page analysis of the life of a Christian pastor who stood against Hitler and tried to guard his beloved Lutheran church from Nazi infiltration?

It took me a little longer than usual to get into John Grisham’s latest, “The Litigators,” but when I finally did, I sped through it like I do most of his novels.

I wrote last week about my renewed view of the role of a pastor and how I am prioritizing pastoring my own family. Pastors aren’t the only ones who should pastor their families. All fathers are called to the role of shepherd, to the responsibility of shepherding our children, as well as our wives. A wonderful resource to help with this is Voddie Baucham Jr.’s “Family Shepherds.”

Every pastor, or anyone wanting to become one, should read Eugene Peterson’s “The Pastor.” A fellow pastor friend of mine recommended it, saying Peterson’s writing reminded him of mine. I’m certainly one for flattery so I bought it immediately.

Here at the close of 2011, I’d like to thank you, my readers, for following along at SWYW. I love writing and would even if no one read me, but it’s much more enjoyable knowing there’s a few of you out there.

Something else I appreciate about reading e-books is the ease of looking up words in a dictionary. Before e-books, I would ignore words I didn’t know and just try to understand from the context. But now I can simply tap on the word and discover why the author used a particular word. With some authors I’m constantly tapping the dictionary button.I think many writers, and just about all artists, struggle with feelings of inadequacy.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make my posts more readable. I’m not referring to my writing style, because a reason you might be coming back here is that you already like that. No, I mean the look of a blog post itself.

. As a part of my preparation for a sermon, the last in a series about images of the church as seen in Scripture (see my miniseries “Yes to the Dress” LINK), I read two short books last weekend. The first book was Philip Yancey’s Church: Why Bother? Reading Yancey’s first was a little unfair to Joshua Harris, the author of the second book, Why Church Matters.