Resources

This is a links page connecting you with resources and other great stuff I think you might enjoy. I’ll break it up into subsections to make navigation easier.

Reading List

This is a list of some books I highly recommend. These books have been more than informational to me, they have each been somewhat transformational. Of course that is subjective, but I would hope that these resources would also be helpful to you as well. I include a short review for each book. I’d appreciate it if you purchase them by clicking on the links through this site. That helps me pay for the hosting costs associated with this blog every year. God bless!


Victory Over Darkness is the standard when it comes to understanding your identity in Christ and for gaining a basic understanding of how to live in victory in the Christian walk.		      
The Bondage Breaker builds on Victory Over Darkness and helps you appropriate the truths of who you are in Christ. It is a great book to help you overcome negative thoughts, sin patterns, and much more. You may also need counseling, but this book helps give you a biblical framework for how Christ sets us free from these things.		      
The Life Model is a great book that every pastor should read. Dr. Jim Wilder, a professional psychologist and pastoral counselor, lays out a very simple and yet extremely effective view of the lifespan and how to develop a healthy church that encourages true maturity and discipleship, addressing every generation.

In Waking the Dead, Eldredge does a great job integrating all four “streams” of the believer’s life: discipleship, counseling, healing and warfare. For those familiar with Eldredge’s other books, this one will pleasantly surprise you.		      
The Reason for God is an outstanding book that defends the Christian faith in a very reasoned and systematic approach. The book addresses a lot of questions and faulty thinking that plagues many today, particularly the postmodern generation.		      
Why We’re Not Emergent does a great job defining the emerging church (despite the fact that it refuses to be defined), and it points out the many concerns associated with it. This book really challenged me to realize how much of the emerging church is really just fluff and a limited subculture (which is exclusively white, middle-class, and often haughty).

Just Do Something made me laugh hysterically – at myself. Kevin DeYoung talks about how our culture likes to keep lengthening “young” adulthood, which DeYoung calls “adultolescence,” refusing to grow up and always trying to figure out what to do, while doing very little. He points out how hyper-spiritual approaches to finding God’s will don’t work. It’s time to try something new: Give up. A very short and funny read.		      
The subtitle for Already Gone says it all: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it. The book came out only a few months ago and contains up-to-date research, not speculation. This book makes it clear that we are losing kids in Sunday School, not college.		      
Admittedly, Kleinig’s academic writing style makes Grace Upon Grace somewhat hard to wade through (don’t try to read it in bed), but the insight that can be gleaned from it is profound. This book changed the way I think about spiritual disciplines such as prayer, reading the Bible, fasting, etc. I used to beat myself up for not reading the Bible or praying enough, but this book made me adopt a new perspective on why I do those things, and that perspective actually frees me to do them more. Kleinig points out that there is no process for becoming spiritual. Instead, God graciously gives to us every spiritual gift that we need, beginning with the very gift of faith in Christ, our Savior.

Samson and the Pirate Monks is a book calling men to authentic brotherhood. It’s not your garden variety men’s book, rather it’s a simple book calling men to love one another in each other’s imperfection. Larkin lays out a group called the Samson Society that can be a place of authenticity for men. I have yet to see a group like this operating healthily anywhere, but they are out there if you can find one.		      
I first read Wild at Heart my freshman year of college, and it changed the way I perceived God and what it means to be a man. This book offers a refreshing break from the chorus of voices urging men to be more responsible, reliable, dutiful… and dead.		      
Captivating is essentially the women’s edition of Wild at Heart, aimed at understanding the mystery of a woman’s soul. John Eldredge coauthored this with his wife, Stasi. Every little girl has dreams of being swept up into a great adventure, of being the beautiful princess. Sadly, when women grow up, they are often swept up into a life filled merely with duty and demands. Many Christian women are tired, struggling under the weight of the pressure to be a “good servant,” a nurturing caregiver, or a capable home manager. This book encourage women to connect with their deepest desires: to be romanced, to play a role in their own adventures and to display beauty.

Death by Suburb is hilarious and yet very serious. The subtitle says a lot: How to keep the suburbs from killing your soul. The suburbs can be very shallow and often void of any authentic spirituality. This book humorously offers anecdotes challenging you to not give in to keeping up with the Joneses.		      
From the author who brought us Counterfeit Revival, Hanegraaff shares in Christianity in Crisis about the dangers of a cultic movement within Christianity that threatens to undermine the very foundation of biblical faith. This book is bound to offend, addressing the teachings of many famous “Christian” leaders such as Benny Hinn, John Hagee, Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen.		      
The Beginner’s Guide to Spiritual Warfare is a great introduction to a topic that isn’t as complex or scary as many churches like to make it seem. Topics covered include: having a biblical worldview, knowing which God I serve, giving up our reluctance to be a warrior and becoming fit for battle. Here’s how to have confidence in God that the battle has already been won, and know how to stand firm in your faith.

The Adversary is a classic by Mark Bubeck and is a practical handbook dealing with the various aspects of spiritual warfare, answering questions about the nature of Satan’s designs and tactics and teaching readers how to claim the victory Christ has already won.		      
Why We Love The Church is another book that has challenged me to grow and think critically, causing me to reverse my views on not a few important issues. The subtitle to this book, In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, is what made me originally decide to read it. Plus I had just finished reading Why We’re Not Emergent and really enjoyed the authors’ insights. It helped me see that the local church is not just some institutional monster devoid of life and the ability to help people grow in grace with Jesus. In fact, it is often just the opposite.		      
God’s No and God’s Yes is a summary of Walther’s lengthier book entitled Law and Gospel. Originally delivered as a series of 39 lectures in the late 1800′s, this summary of a timeless work deals with how to properly divide law and gospel in all preaching and teaching in the church. Laid out in a series of theses, the author shows how improperly emphasizing one or the other can lead souls to hell rather than to Christ.

unChristian is an eye-opening look at the true state of emerging generations and the church. Kinnaman, currently the president of Barna Research Group, presents some startling statistics based on solid investigation that help us understand the problem in today’s church. Kinnaman offers some good thoughts on how “outsiders” view believers and what we can do to reach this generation for Christ. The strength of this book is the up-to-date, well-documented research.		      
In Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind, David Currie (author of Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic) details the historical development of eschatological doctrines and breaks down key texts in Daniel, the Gospels and Revelation that deal with the end of the world. While I don’t entirely agree with all of his conclusions, this is a must-read in an age where premillenialism and the rapture are buzzwords and are often taken for granted.		      
Pagan Christianity set me on a path of rejecting the institutional church for a couple of years, and it caused me to really study church history and how our Christian practices came to be. Unfortunately, it set me on the wrong path, and my studies in church history set me straight. While Viola and Barna make profound points about some church practices, their church history leaves a lot to be desired. Their “analysis” is a mishmash of outdated secondary sources, out-of-context quotations, unsupported hypotheses, and personal prejudices. Even worse, on those occasions where legitimate experts on the field are cited (i.e., Dom Gregory Dix, Paul F. Bradshaw, Alexander Schmeman) their views are taken so out of context as to have them seemingly ally with the authors when in fact their views are quite the opposite.

Blue Like Jazz was the first book I ever read in the genre of emerging church literature, only I read it long before I knew what the emerging church was. I initially loved the book, and still recommend it as a refreshing book that helps you break out of the mold of how most Christian literature is written. Miller is a sort of Christian beat poet, writing in an authentic way about his many experiences and failures as a believer. I had several “aha” moments as I encountered profound points in his book. At the same time, I recommend this book with a warning: the book has some faulty theology that is dangerous. It has a tendency to present Jesus as little more than a glorified therapist, and the book de facto denies original sin, espousing the popular notion that something inside of us caused God to love us. With these warnings in mind, it’s a great read.

      
Baptized into God’s Family was very instrumental in helping me understand infant baptism and its scriptural basis. Das deals with Bible passages seemingly for and against infant baptism in a fair and reasonable approach.		      
In Christ Esteem, Matzat says, “The call of the gospel is away from self and unto Jesus, because self is the problem and Jesus is the solution.” This book exposes the man-centered lie of self esteem and encourages us to esteem only Christ. Many legalists will tell you that “denying yourself” or “dying to yourself” means to give up what you want. That’s noble, but it’s frustrating and it doesn’t work very well – because it’s at best an incomplete definition. This book gets to the heart of the matter of what “denying yourself” means: Stepping out of the way and letting Christ go instead. He died for you, now let Him live for you.

Biblical Discipleship & Counseling Ministries

  • Your Freedom Net. This is a voluntary public listing of counselors (volunteers, ministry professionals, and mental health professionals) who are trained in any of the following ministries:
    • Freedom in Christ
    • Lydia Discipleship
    • THRIVE
    • Nouthetic
    • Deeper Walk International
    • National Association of Nouthetic Counselors
    • American Association of Christian Counselors
    • Theophostic Prayer Ministry
    • Advanced Training Institute/ Institute in Basic Life Principles
  • Deeper Walk International. Deeper Walk International is committed to heart-focused discipleship. They provide training that helps people overcome the battles and baggage of life and guides them into the deeper walk with God that their heart desires. They offer resources, seminars, and courses that equip Christian workers, pastors, and ministry professionals in the areas of Biblical studies, heart-focused discipleship and biblical counseling.
  • Stephen Ministries. Since 1975, the 45-person staff of Stephen Ministries St. Louis has developed training and resources characterized by excellence, practicality, psychological integrity, and theological depth. Stephen Ministries offers books, courses, videos, training conferences, and ministry systems to fit the needs of every Christian congregation and adult education ministry, as well as to equip individuals for ministry and leadership in daily life.

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