Fall 1999 · Vol. 28 No. 2 · pp. 248–61
Recommended Reading
Pick Up and Read!
At wit’s end and searching for peace while sitting in a friend’s garden in Milan, St. Augustine heard what seemed to be children’s voices saying, “Pick up and read, pick up and read.” 1 There were no children in the vicinity of the garden so he concluded it was the voice of God. Finding an open Bible nearby, he read the first text his eyes fell upon, Paul’s words in Romans 13:12-14: “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (NRSV). His life was transformed. Augustine is but one example of the witness of God’s people through the ages to the role of the Bible in human transformation.
Frequently, God speaks life-changing words to us through books written by Christian friends who are wrestling with the Bible’s significance for everyday life. This article describes books which are especially important for pastors and church leaders.
The Bible is the primary book for shaping our identity as God’s people. Yet, frequently, God speaks life-changing words to us through books written by Christian friends who are wrestling with the Bible’s significance for everyday life. As C. S. Lewis once remarked: “I don’t doubt that the Holy Spirit guides your decisions from within when you make them with the intention of pleasing God. The error would be to think that He speaks only within, whereas in reality he speaks also through scripture, the church, Christian friends, and books.” 2 It is my purpose here to draw to your attention some of the friends whose books and essays have shaped my own life in recent years. I will mention books on subjects that are especially important reads for pastors and church leaders, introducing {249} the subject area with a brief comment and then highlighting three books on each subject by means of a brief annotation. My invitation to the reader is simple: “Pick up and read, pick up and read.”
CHURCH
The Gospel and Our Culture Network is responsible for a cluster of books recently published by Eerdmans. 3 These volumes start with the fact that North America is now a mission field. They invite us to rethink the nature and purpose of the church for our new context. The authors reject inherited understandings of the church, for example, the church as a place and the church as a vendor of religious goods and services. Instead, based on the conviction that the mission of the church is best defined as full participation in the mighty work of God in his world (missio Dei), these books, and their authors, argue that the church exists to bear witness to God’s reign in the present missionary context. The church is conceived as a called people sent on a mission to be a sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s reign.
What should be especially interesting for Direction readers is that the ecclesiology of the Radical Reformation is frequently cited as a model for the missional encounter of the gospel with North American culture. For example, Darrell Guder writes: “. . . contemporary voices of the Radical Reformation have an important contribution to make to the formation of a missional ecclesiology in a post-Christian context” (Missional Church, 124). Similarly, Stephen Bevans, in a chapter on models for a missional church, argues that serious consideration should be given to the counter-cultural model for carrying out the church’s mission in our North American context (Confident Witness—Changing World, 153). For pastors and church leaders who sense that North America is indeed a mission field, and that inherited ecclesiologies no longer serve them well, here is a cluster of books that take the ecclesiology of the Radical Reformation seriously, embracing the image of the church as an alternative and/or counter-culture movement. Or, if you are struggling to get a handle on the relationship between the church and the modern/postmodern culture, pick up and read, . . .
George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, eds., The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996. 369 pp.
A collection of essays by Christian leaders who recognize that the North American church is in a disestablished relationship with our culture. Culture is not congenial to nor familiar with the gospel. The authors {250} of the various chapters encourage a missionary spirit in people and especially in pastors. There are three major parts to the book: Assessing our Culture; Discerning the Gospel; and Defining the Church. For pastors, the third part alone is worth the price of the book, especially Alan J. Roxburgh’s chapter, “Pastoral Role in the Missionary Congregation.”
Darrell L. Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. 280 pp.
Here is a book that offers the reader some serious biblical and theological reflection on the nature and purpose of the church, something lacking in most of the literature on the mission of the church in our culture currently being read by pastors. 4 The chapter by Lois Barrett on “Missional Witness: The Church as Apostle to the World,” is a must read for every evangelical Anabaptist who wants a better grasp of what it means for the church to be an alternative community. Also, George Hunsberger’s chapter, “Missional Vocation: Called and Sent to Represent the Reign of God,” is one of the finest essays I have read on the relationship between the kingdom of God and the church and how the church represents God’s reign in the world.
Craig Van Gelder, ed., Confident Witness—Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999. 313 pp.
Twenty-one scholars who are skilled in cutting-edge ministry seek to help us understand what it means to be and do church in the current North American missional context. A motif that frequently surfaces in the various chapters is the church as “parallel culture.” Mary Jo Leddy articulates it best in the final chapter of the book. It is not quite the same as saying the church is a counterculture. Leddy explains: “You cannot live outside a culture. But you can create within it zones and spaces where you can become who you really are. It is in such places that one can speak the truth, where one can gather with others who share that truth . . . . It is in such a culture that we can truly seek to become God’s people” (311). A book worth selling your bed for.
MISSION
Wilbert Shenk, together with Alan Neely and H. Wayne Pipkin, are editors of the Christian Mission and Modern Culture series published by Trinity Press International. 5 While acknowledging the influence of the Christian faith on American culture, Shenk, who currently teaches mission history and contemporary culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, {251} says, “there’s a great deal in this culture that is not only anti-Christian, but anti-religion, and anti-God. We need to prepare for mission to the first world.” 6
As the preface to each book of the series states, these brief volumes (most are under a hundred pages) “examine modern-postmodern culture from a missional perspective, develop the theological agenda that the church in modern culture must address in order to recover its own integrity, and test fresh conceptualizations of the nature and mission of the church as it engages modern culture.” The aim is to help the church understand its missional responsibility to a culture in crisis.
Again, the ecclesiology of the Radical Reformation is frequently viewed by the authors as a model for the current North American situation. For example, Douglas John Hall writes: “A Christian denomination that has its historic links with the Anabaptist traditions could be of enormous help to the rest of us—provided they too are ready to search their hearts and minds to distinguish what is best in their tradition from the sorts of cultural establishments that they also may have been tempted to entertain” (The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity, 33). For those who want to better understand the church’s missional responsibility in today’s culture, pick up and read, . . .
Judith M. Gundry-Volf and Miroslav Volf, A Spacious Heart: Essays on Identity and Belonging. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997. 80 pp.
What does it mean for us to follow the crucified Christ in the midst of ethnic and racial conflict? An important question for anyone who recognizes that ethnic and cultural conflict will persist as a bone of contention well into the twenty-first century. The Volfs invite us “to open ourselves to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of mercy, justice and truth, and help heal our world by embracing others as we remain true to ourselves” (11). I especially appreciated Judith’s exegetical and theological treatment of the stories of the Samaritan woman of John 4 and the Syrophoenician woman of Mark 7//Matthew 15 which she calls “tales about the inclusion of the ‘other’—crossing the boundaries caused by ethnic, religious, social and gender otherness and bringing about a new, inclusive community of salvation” (12).
Paul G. Hiebert, Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts: Affirming Truth in a Modern/Postmodern World. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999. 135 pp.
Epistemology, or theory of knowledge, asks questions like, How do {252} we know what we know? and, How do we know that what we know is true? Our answers shape how we do mission in today’s world. What must new converts know or believe? How do they know? How do we translate and communicate the gospel interculturally without distorting its message? These are some of the questions Hiebert explores. He examines positivism, instrumentalism/idealism, and critical realism, siding with critical realism because it acknowledges a real world that exists independent of human perception, recognizes emotions and moral judgments as critical dimensions of knowing, and provides a basis for knowing persons intimately and as fully human. I know what you are thinking, and you are right: a background in philosophy would help the reader navigate his or her way through this book.
Jonathan R. Wilson, Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World: Lessons for the Church from MacIntyre’s After Virtue. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997. 85 pp.
The church is incarnational. It is called to live faithfully to the gospel in a fully contextual manner. But that means that it can sometimes find itself either unfaithful or uncontextual. Wilson believes the church is currently in danger of compromising its faithfulness to the gospel. His book is really a call for Christians to say what we mean with our lives. Our lives will give weightiness to our words. He also offers insights and practices that will help us as God’s people to live faithfully and witness effectively in today’s culture.
MINISTRY
I serve on the Board for the Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life, an organization committed to the ministry of the whole people of God in the world. Our current president, William Diehl, rightly states our basic conviction:
In a multicultural, individualistic society that is increasingly indifferent and sometimes hostile to Christianity, it will have to be the laity who in their daily lives carry forward Christ’s admonition to “go into all the world.” The mission field is right outside the doors of our congregations, and it is the laity who will have to be the missionaries. There is no other way open to the church. 7
The ministry in daily life movement is growing and so is the literature on the subject. 8 Unfortunately, a recent study of churches in America {253} shows that many church members fail to connect faith with the stuff of everyday life. 9 The same study places the lion’s share of the responsibility on the shoulders of pastors. It is not my purpose to condemn pastors, but rather to encourage pastors to empower and support God’s people for ministry where they work, live, and play. For pastors and lay people looking for help to bridge the Sunday-Monday gap, pick up and read, . . .
Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. Dallas, TX: Word, 1998. 249 pp.
This book is truly a gift to God’s people. The concept of vocation is an abused and distorted subject in many Christian circles. Guinness helps to restore its dignity. He rightly insists that “first and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as inner city or Outer Mongolia). Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him” (31). If you wish to live worthy of your calling in Christ, here is a book that will make a major contribution to linking your faith to daily life.
Gary D. Badcock, The Way of Life: A Theology of Christian Vocation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. 157 pp.
Badcock also offers us some clear thinking on the subject of vocation, a concept at the very heart of our religious experience. Like Guinness, he rejects the current tendency to understand our work as a vocation. At best, our work is our vocation in a derivative and/or secondary sense. Instead, he asserts that “the Christian calling is nothing less than to love God and one’s neighbor, as Jesus teaches” (10). If he is right, and I believe he is, then we must find ways to flesh out Christian love where people work, live, and play. If you choose only one book on this important religious concept of vocation, this is it.
Jim Wallis, The Soul of Politics: A Practical and Prophetic Vision for Change. The New Press and Orbis Books, 1994. 275 pp.
Unlike Liberalism, Wallis refuses to jettison the critical link between personal responsibility and societal change. And unlike Conservatism, Wallis refuses to call for individual self-improvement and a return to family values while ignoring poverty, racism, and sexism. Instead, he calls us to change our lives and our communities. “Transforming individual character, social policy, and our physical environment is the key to change” (xxii). At MB Biblical Seminary this past Spring 1999, I {254} taught a class in which we wrestled with the connections between the reign of God and human transformation. Wallis’s book was required reading. It has been a month now since the semester-long class ended. Moments ago, a student from the class came into my office and thanked me profusely for putting it on the required reading list. Another student, after reading the book, went out and purchased five copies to give as gifts to friends in her congregation, inviting them to join her in dialogue around the issues it addresses. Need I say more?
HOMILETICS
The discipline of homiletics focuses on the task of preparing and designing sermons. It is currently experiencing what one scholar has called a “Copernican Revolution.” 10 In recent years a cluster of new sermonic forms have appeared on the homiletical horizon. Let me map the new terrain. Three new approaches can be identified: first, an inductive approach to preaching; next, a narrative or story form strategy; and thirdly, a method based on the intention and movement of the biblical text. The names of Fred Craddock, Eugene Lowry, and David Buttrick respectively are identified with each of these new approaches. The importance currently given to sermon form differs markedly from the decades when sermon content was everything. At least three factors can be cited as accounting for the emergence of these new sermonic forms: first, the perceived pathology of the discursive or deductive method of preaching; second, the rediscovery of the dynamics of the human listening process; and third, the recent interest in preaching that is biblical in both content and form. If you wish to investigate these new ways of structuring sermons, pick up and read, . . .
Gail R. O’Day and Thomas G. Long, eds., Listening to the Word: Studies in Honor of Fred B. Craddock. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1993. 268 pp.
Craddock has written three important books on preaching, including As One Without Authority (1971), Overhearing the Gospel (1978), and Preaching (1985). Craddock opposes the deductive style of preaching so typical in our pulpits and instead advocates an inductive approach. The real key to understanding Craddock’s approach to sermon structure is recognizing that it is a “problem-solving” strategy. 11 That is, Craddock would have the preacher design a sermon in which the people are given all the information they need to solve a specific problem for themselves. However, it is important to understand that the one problem being solved by the people is the meaning of the biblical text for today. Perhaps the {255} primary strength of Craddock’s homiletical approach is its correlation of the rhetoric of the text and the sermon. Indeed, Craddock urges preachers to create form-sensitive sermons. Listening to the Word is an excellent discussion of Craddock’s approach to contemporary homiletics, treating his contribution to our understanding of text, sermon, and listener.
Eugene L. Lowry, The Sermon: Dancing the Edge of Mystery. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1997. 127 pp.
Lowry’s method demands the attention and study of every serious preacher of God’s Word. He is the past president of the Academy of Homiletics and currently teaches preaching at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. His earlier volumes included The Homiletical Plot (1980), Doing Time in the Pulpit (1985), and How to Preach a Parable (1989). Lowry employs what some would call a “suspense-driven strategy.” His sermons tend to move from “problematic itch” to “resolutional scratch.” He imports narrative theory as the paradigm for developing a sermon with five sequential movements that function almost like an outline for a sermon. The five basic sequential stages to a typical Lowry sermon are: (1) upsetting the equilibrium; (2) analyzing the discrepancy; (3) disclosing the clue to resolution; (4) experiencing the gospel; and (5) anticipating the consequences. The Sermon slightly modifies the above approach. But what is special about this latest book is that Lowry provides the preacher with the answer to the bottom-line question: How does one go about preparing a sermon that uses his strategy? Lowry’s narrative model of preaching has the power to capture the attention of the person in the pew. If the first goal of a sermon is to get a hearing, then Lowry’s narrative plot sermonic form will be heard.
David Buttrick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1987. 498 pp.
Hailed by a reviewer in Christianity Today as “one of the most important books on preaching to appear this century.” 12 Buttrick laments the tendency of some preachers to reduce biblical texts to single propositional truths—an approach that treats biblical passages as if they were still-life pictures. Instead, Buttrick invites preachers to think of biblical passages as “film-clips from motion pictures” (53). Biblical texts have movement, and meaning occurs in movement as it travels from one understanding to another. Accordingly, he urges preachers to favor mobile systems of sermon construction: “Sermon construction ought to travel through congregational consciousness as a series of immediate thoughts, sequentially designed and imaged with technical skill so as to {256} assemble in forming faith.” One scholar describes Buttrick’s homiletical approach as a “motion-picture strategy.” 13 Buttrick’s approach focuses more on how the language of the text functions and less on the meaning of its content. What I find particularly helpful is Buttrick’s attention to the logic of movement in both biblical texts and sermonic forms. If you enjoy Homiletic, then you might also want to pick up and read some of Buttrick’s other books: Preaching Jesus Christ (1988), The Mystery and the Passion (1992), A Captive Voice (1994), and Preaching the New and the Now (1998).
WORSHIP
Worship renewal is a global phenomenon today. New ways of worship are replacing outworn and sterile ones. There is considerable ferment and cross-fertilization between worship traditions. Some ask, “Is this one of God’s terrible springtimes?” 14 Others use battle imagery and speak about the “worship wars” that are raging in our congregations. 15 Still others speak about the convergence of worship traditions taking place. How are we to find our way in the midst of the current sea of change? What is Christian worship? Here are three helpful books to pick up and read.
Marva J. Dawn, A Royal “Waste” of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999. 377 pp.
Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down (1995) was Dawn’s first foray into the subject of the worship life of congregations. In her first book on worship she emphasized the purposes of corporate worship as centering on God, forming Christian character, and building Christian community. Dawn concedes that “much of A Royal ‘Waste’ of Time is written to counteract the claim that we should make our worship services as much like the culture as possible to attract people to Christianity” (323). Her thesis is that the world needs us to waste our time royally in worship. She is convinced that genuine corporate worship will send us out to live in the work-a-day world of Monday for the sake of the neighbor. Indeed, her greatest difficulty with the proponents of turning Sunday morning into the congregation’s key evangelistic tool is that “this notion removes the responsibility of all the members for reaching out to their neighbors by being Church” where they work, live, and play (333). The book was so good, I read it the evening of the day I purchased it. And then, I read it again, a second time—after all, C. S. Lewis once said, an unliterary person is “one who reads books once only.” {257}
David Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992. 315 pp.
Peterson is a New Testament scholar who teaches at Moore Theological College, Sidney, Australia. He covers both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and does it well. In the introduction he posits his definition of Christian worship: “the worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible” (20). The rest of the book tests that hypothesis. One of the most helpful chapters addresses corporate worship. Peterson argues that when the church gathers, God ministers to us and we respond to God as we minister to one another (221). I think it is the best biblical theology of worship available in the English language (of course, what do I know about worship, I can’t even play guitar . . .).
Robert Webber, Planning Blended Worship: The Creative Mixture of Old and New. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1998. 209 pp.
Webber’s been writing books on worship for a long time. As Lester Ruth, professor of liturgics at Yale Divinity School, says, “it is refreshing to find someone for whom ‘tradition’ is not a dirty word” (back cover). For Webber, the expression “blended worship” means three things: (1) worship rooted in the biblical and early church traditions; (2) worship that draws from the resources of the entire church; and (3) worship that is committed to contemporary relevance (16). Planners of blended worship will find much practical help here, including guidelines for the four major movements of corporate worship: the gathering, the Word, the table, and the service of dismissal.
LEADERSHIP
There is uncertainty and role confusion among today’s pastors. Over the centuries the most influential metaphors of pastoral ministry included prophet, servant, and shepherd. In recent years more secular models have been accented: counselor, administrator, player coach, and enabler. The rapidly changing culture is frequently cited as the primary reason for the role confusion of pastors. Another factor may be an inadequate understanding of the church. Eugene Peterson’s writings have proved most helpful to me in sorting things out. Pick up and read, . . .
Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992. 195 pp.
Peterson wishes to avoid the current tendency to reduce pastoral {258} ministry to a secularized professionalism. Using the narrative structure of the book of Jonah, he explores the spirituality of pastoral work. In particular, he looks for resources in the biblical story that will nurture holiness. “Pastors are assigned by the church to care for congregations,” says Peterson, “not exploit them, to gently cultivate parishes that are plantings of the Lord, not brashly develop religious shopping malls” (135).
Eugene H. Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987. 137 pp.
“The pastors of America,” laments Peterson, “have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches” (1). This little book invites pastors to return to the basics of pastoral ministry. Using a metaphor from trigonometry, Peterson sees three essential acts of pastoral ministry as the angles of a triangle. The most visible lines of pastoral ministry are preaching, teaching, and administration. The small angles of pastoral ministry are prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. Peterson repudiates religious marketing entirely. Instead, he calls for pastors to work the angles. It is what gives shape and integrity to the daily work of pastors.
Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989. 175 pp.
Pastors must refuse to be shaped by the context, whether the context is the secular culture or the churched culture. Instead, pastors are to become persons of prayer within the community of faith. As much as possible, they should avoid reducing their roles to “running the church.”
CONCLUSION
George Hunsberger summarizes the missiology of Lesslie Newbigin by speaking about “the three-cornered pattern of relationships” between gospel, church, and culture. 16 He emphasizes the fact that the gospel challenges both the culture and the church. If the church must seek to understand the shaping it has inherited from its context and hear the gospel’s call to alter its life and be transformed for the sake of its mission in the world, then the books mentioned above pull us in the right direction.
NOTES
- St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University, 1991), 8.12.29. {259}
- Quoted in Bruce Waltke, Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion? (Vision House, 1995), 6.
- (1) George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, eds., The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 369 pp. (2) Darrell L. Guder, et al., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 280 pp. (3) George R. Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Cultural Plurality (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 341 pp. (4) Craig Van Gelder, ed., Confident Witness—Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 313 pp. (5) Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, forthcoming).
- For example, books like A Church for the 21st Century by Leith Anderson, The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, The Church for the Unchurched by George Hunter, and Future Faith Churches by Don Posterski and Gary Nelson simply assume the content of the gospel and the nature of the church. As a result, the church’s mission is reduced to soul care and/or social care.
- (1) David J. Bosch, Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 69 pp. (2) Wilbert R. Shenk, Write the Vision: The Church Renewed (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 119 pp. (3) Lesslie Newbigin, Truth and Authority in Modernity (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 85 pp. (4) Lamin Sanneh, Religion and the Variety of Culture: A Study in Origin and Practice (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 87 pp. (5) Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 69. (6) J. Andrew Kirk, The Mission of Theology and Theology as Mission (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 71 pp. (7) Alan J. Roxburgh, The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 71 pp. (8) Judith M. Gundry-Volf and Miroslav Volf, A Spacious Heart: Essays on Identity and Belonging (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 80 pp. (9) Kenneth Cragg, The Secular Experience of God (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 82 pp. (10) Bert Hoedemaker, Secularization and Mission: A Theological Essay (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 82 pp. (11) Jonathan R. Wilson, Living Faithfully in {260} a Fragmented World: Lessons for the Church from MacIntyre’s After Virtue (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 85 pp. (12) Gordon Scoville, Into the Vacuum: Being the Church in an Age of Barbarism (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 102 pp. (13) H. D. Beeby, Canon and Mission (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 117 pp. (14) James W. Brownson, Speaking the Truth in Love: New Testament Resources for a Missional Hermeneutic (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 86 pp. (15) Paul G. Hiebert, Missiological Implications for Epistemological Shifts: Affirming Truth in a Modern/Postmodern World (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 135 pp. (16) Barry A. Harvey, Another City: An Ecclesiological Primer for a Post-Christian World (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999). (17) Jane Collier and Rafael Estevan, From Complicity to Encounter: The Church and the Culture of Economism (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999). (18) Stephen L. Pickard, Liberating Evangelism: Gospel Theology and the Dynamics of Communication (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999).
- Fuller Focus (Spring 1998): 11.
- William Diehl, Ministry in Daily Life: A Practical Guide for Congregations (Alban Institute, 1996), vii.
- See, for example, R. Paul Stevens and Gerry Schoberg, Bibliography of the Laity (Regent College, 1988). It is an extensive bibliography, including the history of the laity, theology of the laity, priesthood of the laity, the laity in the church, the laity in the world, equipping and leadership of the laity, lay spirituality, and Roman Catholic perspectives on the laity as well as annotations on dozens of books on the subject of the ministry of the laity. Also, see Leonard Doohan, The Laity: A Bibliography (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 1987). Finally, see Pete Hammond, Marketplace Bibliography (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1981). Again, an extensive and annotated bibliography for Monday ministry, including books on the tough realities of the working world, on money and lifestyle themes, on political themes, and even books for academicians.
- Robert Wuthnow, The Crisis in the Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe (New York: Oxford, 1997).
- Richard L. Eslinger, A New Hearing: Living Options in Homiletic Method (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1987), 65.
- Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1989), 98. {261}
- Don W. McCullough, “Pulpit Moves,” Christianity Today (14 January 1991): 8.
- Long, The Witness of Preaching, 101-102.
- Don Hustad, “Christian Worship: Is This One of God’s Terrible Springtimes?” Crux 28:4 (December 1992): 29-36.
- Ted Peters, “Worship Wars,” Dialog 33:3 (Summer 1994): 166-73.
- George R. Hunsberger, “The Newbigin Gauntlet: Developing a Domestic Missiology for North America,” in Hunsberger and Van Gelder, eds., The Church Between Gospel and Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 8.
