First, Eugene Peterson's memoir The Pastor. I'm excited about this because I think Peterson's clear thinking on what a pastor should do has been extremely helpful to me in the eight years I've been in ministry. I read a lot on pastoral work and leadership and sometimes the sheer volume of tasks I think I should be doing according to some experts is something beyond overwhelming. When I read Working the Angles and Five Smooth Stones For Pastoral Work I'm able to breathe a little easier and know what my calling and my value is and isn't.

I can't help it, I'm excited about the iPad 2 announcement tomorrow. I didn't get one last year and spent most of the last 13 months telling myself, "You don't need one." That may still be true, but I sold my three year old iMac anyway and am going to get an iPad for one reason: OmniFocus for the iPad. As good as OmniFocus is for the Mac and iPhone, it is flat out sick on the iPad. It's my brain and I'd much prefer to carry it around every day instead of my MacBook Pro. I'm still at the point where I need a computer for Adobe CS5 and video editing, but I don't do that every single day. I do use OmniFocus and when you couple that with the text editing apps I use, OPML, DropBox, and GoogleDocs...well, it'll be much easier on my shoulder and back only having to lug that around. (That's not even mentioning the greatness that is Accordance for iOS).

It's not going to get as big of a paragraph, but I'm most excited about Lent. I'm working on a last minute devotional guide for the church that I think will be a help to my flock. The Lenten preaching focus is going to be on the cross so I'm reading and writing a lot. I'm praying for a lot of fruit. I'm also going to attend two conferences during Lent, one in Dallas and one in Chicago, that I'll be writing up at the end of both. Can't wait to share those.