Archive for June, 2007
Earl Creps. Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders. Jossey-Bass, 2006. 240 pp.
There are two key dynamics that scholars of the church have labored for years to discover: (1) leaders with a missional heart find a way, no matter how unconventional, to connect to culture; and (2) this heart is present (and absent) in every conceivable model of ministry.
Missional leaders see the world through the eyes of Jesus and see Jesus in the world. They assume the role of helping the body of Christ understand itself and make of it much more than a missionary sending agency, as if the “mission field” existed only somewhere else to be reached by someone else. Rather, these leaders cannot conceive of the church apart from living the mission of God to touch the world with redeeming love in Christ. . . .
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Rick McKinley. This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God. Multnomah, 2006. 192 pp.
Discovering the Kingdom
When Jesus was on earth, He painted a radical vision for His followers. He called it the “kingdom of God.” His kingdom is a heavenly reality that lands smack in the middle of everyday life. Even here, Jesus said–in the harshness and mess of earth–His kingdom is the way things really are. His announcement was nothing less than revolutionary.
Maybe it was the clash of opposites or the paradox that Jesus’ kingdom exists in parallel with many lesser kingdoms, but either way, His followers were not quick to pick up on the revolution.
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Paul Bramsen. The Way of Righteousness: Good News for Muslims. CMML, 1999. 544 pp
Line Upon Line
God’s revelation to the children of Adam is progressive, “precept upon precept, line upon line . . . here a little, there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10) God’s Book begins with “In the beginning, God” and goes on to reveal His complex Person and His categorical plan by which He can count sinners as righteous.
The Way of Righteousness radio series presents the message of God’s prophets in consecutive order. Through the narratives of the people, patriarchs and prophets of the Holy Scriptures, listeners can discover for themselves God’s uncompromising system of forgiveness: how He has provided a way by which the fallen children of Adam can be delivered from sin’s curse and restored to happy fellowship with their Creator.
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Randy Alcorn. Heaven. Tyndale, 2004. 516 pp.
Bookstores overflow with accounts of near-death and after-death experiences, complete with angels giving guided tours of Heaven. A few of these books may have authentic components, but many are unbiblical and misleading.
We Christians who believe God’s Word are partly to blame for this. Why? We have failed to explore and explain the Bible’s magnificent teachings about Heaven. No wonder a flood of unbiblical thinking has rushed in to fill the vacuum. Because the human heart cries out for answers about the afterlife, our silence on Heaven is particularly striking.
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Arthur Bennett. The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. Banner of Truth, 1983. 223 pp.
These prayers are drawn from the largely forgotten deposit of Puritan spiritual exercises, meditations and aspirations. They testify to the richness and colour of evangelical thought and language that animated vital piety in an important stream of English religious life. It is hoped that their publication will help to redress the neglect of this vast ocean of Puritan spirituality. . . .
The book is not intended to be read as a prayer manual. The soul learns to pray by praying; for prayer is communion with a transcendent and immanent God who on the ground of his nature and attributes calls forth all the powers of the redeemed soul in acts of total adoration and dedication.
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Blaine Allen. When People Throw Stones: A Leader’s Guide to Fielding Personal Criticism. Kregel, 2005. 176 pp.
A Terrorist?
No, not really. But in your less-than-better moments, you have thought that, have you not? They were so nice. So unassuming. So service oriented. And then boom! With words strapped to bombs, those whom you serve let it rip. Innuendo. Gossip. Criticized before others. An outright frontal attack. When the smoke clears, it feels as if your life, your family, and for sure your ministry, lie in a bloody ruin. You expect it from those who make no claim to know the Lord, but from those who say they are His followers?
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Andy Stanley & Bill Willits. Creating Community: Five Keys to Building a Small Group Culture. Multnomah, 2004. 192 pp.
Five Keys to Building a Small Group Culture
- People Need Community
- Leaders Need Clarity
- Churches Need Strategy
- Connection Needs Simplicity
- Processes Need Reality
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David Eckman. Sex, Food, and God: Breaking Free from Temptations, Compulsions, and Addictions. Harvest House, 2006. 256 pp.
Addiction is always the backward use of what God intended to be much easier and happier. Addiction is the misuse of the good. What this book offers is the way to step out of temptation, compulsion, and addiction . . . and step into the world of using what is within us for our good, especially food and sex. Leaving addiction behind will bring a person into a world that eventually will feel good and complete and happy. What this book is about is how to enter that world and stay there.
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Karen Mulder & Ginger Jurries. The Compassionate Congregation: A Handbook for People Who Care. Faith Alive, 2002. 275 pp.
This handbook is intended to help ordinary pewsitters–as well as pastors and officebearers–be caring and compassionate friends to persons going through a crisis. Section 1 of The Compassionate Congregationconsists of first-person accounts of crises faced by individuals whom the authors interviewed. Here you will find stories on nearly two dozen topics, including abortion, abuse, AIDS, aging, cancer, death, depression, illness, substance abuse, unemployment, and much more.
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Philip Graham Ryken. Galatians. P&R, 2005. 290 pp.
Galatians is a letter for recovering Pharisees. The Pharisees who lived during and after the time of Christ were very religious. They were regular in their worship, orthodox in their theology, and moral in their conduct. Yet something was missing. Although God was in their minds and in their actions, he was not in their hearts. Therefore, their religion was little more than hypocrisy.
The Pharisees were hypocrites because they thought that what God would do for them depended on what they did for God. So they read their Bibles, prayed, tithed, and kept the Sabbath as if their salvation depended on it. What they failed to understand is that God’s grace cannot be earned; it only comes free.
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