As promised (or threatened, depending on how you look at it), here's a partial list of my reading for this semester. These titles come from the two church planting classes I'm taking as independent studies, Intro to Church Planting and Cultural Setting for Ministry.Better still, these classes include about 1000 pages of additional, discretionary reading in the
field--which is where 
you come in. Care to point me to books on church planting that you found especially helpful and to the point? (I've already got everything by Ed Stetzer and Mark Driscoll.)I realize I'm just scraping the surface here. If you have reading tips, shoot 'em at me.
Because of the wide range of things needing to inform the church planter's philosophy of ministry, I've also included, along with books/manuals on church planting, books that aren't strict church planting books, but ones I think you should read for the osmosis of it all [then there are books on the gospel and preaching that I'll leave til another time]:
ReplyDeleteChurch Planting Manual – Keller, Tim & Thompson, Allen
The Emerging Church - Kimball, Dan
Ancient Future Faith – Webber, Robert
Organic Community - Myers, Joseph
Glocalization – Roberts, Bob
Transformation: How Glocal Churches Transform Lives and the World – Roberts, Bob
The Missional Church - Guder, Darrell
The Shaping of Things To Come – Frost, Michael & Hirsch, Alan
The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church - Hirsch, Alan
Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture - Frost, Michael
The Great Giveaway - Fitch, David
The Emotionally Healthy Church – Scazzero, Peter
Ministries of Mercy – Keller, Tim
The Dangerous Act of Worship – Labberton, Mark
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger - Sider, Ronald
I would also scour the Acts 29, The Resurgence, Redeemer PresbyterianSovereign Grace, Desiring God, 9 Marks websites for video/audio to supplement your book quest.
Kudos to you and God bless!
also check out forge [hirsch/frost], NAMB, and Church Planting Resources sites...
ReplyDeleteI would also add the organic church by neil cole
ReplyDeleteBrad, I'm obviously the new kid on the block in terms of CP, so thanks for pushing me in the right direction. I intend to get to everything you listed eventually. That said, you have any favs? Choosing 3 or 4 books for this semester is going to be the hard part.
ReplyDeleteRob, thanks for the tip. I like Neil Cole's approach to discipleship.
Understood...
ReplyDeleteThis would be my short that majors more on the philosophical than the practical per se:
Emerging Church - Kimball
Shaping of Things to Come - Frost/Hirsch
The Missional Church - Roxburgh
The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church - Hirsch
I would put the Church Planting Manual by Keller down, but it is nuts and bolts, process oriented material that would be best as you get closer to actually 'visioneering' your plant...
aj, The Missional Church is by Guder not Roxburgh. Roxburgh has a book called The Missional Leader. I always get them confused. Sorry...
ReplyDeleteThanks, dude. That will help me narrow it down. I really appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteI also highly recommend "The Forgotten Ways." Probably the best book I've read in a long time. Also, John Burke's "No Perfect People Allowed" is very practical. Oh, and read Francis Shaeffer's "The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century." It's timely even though it was written 30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matt. I think The Forgotten Ways is moving up to the top of my list. I keep hearing good things about it.
ReplyDelete