Church Leadership Book Reading, Year 1
This past year I began hosting a monthly book club with the leaders (mostly elders) of my congregation aimed at theological and biblical development, conversation starters for ministry, and growing in a shared, cohesive vision for our church. This was a new idea for our church, but it seemed to have gone well. For year one I was aiming mostly at what church life and mission looks like. We’ll pick up again in September for year two. Below are the books we read together.
- Devoted to God’s Church: Core Values for Christian Fellowship, Sinclair Ferguson.
- Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Timothy Keller.
- On the Incarnation (with preface by C. S. Lewis), Athanasius.
- The Necessity of Reforming the Church (with introduction by Robert Godfrey), John Calvin.
- Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, Carl Trueman.
- The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything, Colin Marshall & Tony Payne.
- Four Views on the Church’s Mission, Jonathan Leeman, Christopher Wright, John Franke, & Peter Leithart.
- Talking About Race: Gospel Hope for Hard Conversations, Isaac Adams.
When dealing with the world and its issues, you have no books written by secular writers. For all of your books are written by Christian writers who will speak not just for Christianity, which is appropriate, but for unbelievers too.
In other words, yous guys (I put that Eastern reference in there for someone who identifies as a Texan) are not listening to unbelievers as a group. Yous are not allowing unbelievers to speak for themselves as a group. Yous seem content to only listen to what believers say about unbelievers. Is that fair?
Other than that, I like Athanasius as a choice for reading about the Incarnation. Keller is a good choice too. Though I would give a list of subjects and let your guys read a variety of Christian approaches to better facilitate discussion and avoid group think while remaining faithful to what the Scriptures say.
Hi Curt,
That’s a good observation. Part of the reason for that is the books that were selected were to help our leaders think biblically and theologically. With the exception of the Trueman book (and our congregation is very, very aware of the non-Christian perspective on those issues), all of the works were speaking to how to be a Christian. In future years we’ll probably tackle books by non-Christians in order to better understand our world, but that is not the need in my context.
Rev Shaffer,
Thank you for your response.
I do have one other question that does not have to do with any particular post. Why do you describe yourself as a Texan at heart? I went to college in Oklahoma and met quite a few Texans.
Ha! Because though I was born in Yankee territory, the majority of my childhood and early adulthood were spent in Texas.