Resources

Understanding the Bible

This semester we are walking through the book of Philippians.

• Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters by N.T. Wright
• Philippians by N.T. Wright
• Philippians by Moisés Silva
• The Letter to the Philippians by G. Walter Hansen

Recommended Reading 

Getting Started

• The Bible
• Apostles Creed
• Nicene Creed
• Heidelberg Catechism
• John Stott, Basic Christianity
• C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
• Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking
• Eugene Peterson, Answering God
• Jerry Sittser, The Will of God As a Way of Life
• Debra Rienstra, So Much More: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality

Classics

• Augustine, The Confessions
• Athanasius, On The Incarnation
• Irenaeus, Against Heresies
• Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care
• Teresa of Avila, The Collected Works
• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
• Augustine, City of God
• Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
• Ignatius Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises
• Blaise Pascal, Pensees
• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Martin Buber, I and Thou
• Bonaventure, The Souls Journey into God/The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis
• John of the Cross, The Collected Works
• Soren Kiekegaard, Purity of Heart
• Karl Barth, The Church Dogmatics
• Hans Urs Von Bathasar, The Glory of the Lord
• Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theological

Reshaping the Imagination

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov; Crime & Punishment; The Idiot
• David James Duncan, The Brothers K; The River Why
• George Elliot, Middlemarch
• George Bernanos, Diary of a Country Priest
• George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin
• Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory
• C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces/The Chronicles of Narnia
• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (trilogy)
• Sigrid Undset, Kristen Lavransdatter
• Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose/Crossing to Safety
• Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
• Susan Howatch, Glittering Images
• Richard Adams, Watership Down
• Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Flannery O’Connor, Everything that Rises Must Converge
• Chaim Potock, The Chosen/My Name is Asher Lev; The Gift of Asher Lev; The Promise
• Leaf Enger, Peace Like a River
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
• Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
• Frederick Buechner, Godric
• Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych
• Tony Morrison, Beloved
• Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
• Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies
• Shusako Endo, Silence
• Kathleen Norris, Dakota
• Walker Percy, The Second Coming
• Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
• Ivan Doig, This House of Sky
• Walter Wangerin, The Book of the Dun Cow
• Anne Tyler, Saint Maybe
• William Shakespeare, anything
• Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
• Forrest Carter, Education of Little Tree

Poetry

• Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems
• Dante, The Divine Comedy
• John Milton, Paradise Lost
• Richard Wilbur, Poems
• Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems    
• George Herbert, The Temple
• John Donne, The Holy Sonnets
• Luci Shaw, A Widening Light
• Czeslaw Milosz, The Collected Poems
• T.S. Elliot, The Four Quartets/The Wasteland
• Wendell Berry, The Timbered Choir
• Seamus Heaney, The Collected Poems
• Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall
• Garrison Keillor, ed., Good Poems

Prayer

• The Psalms, (The Bible)
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer
• P.T. Forsyth, The Soul of Prayer
• Frederic von Hugel, The Life of Prayer
• Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, I am an Impure Thinker     
• Friedrich Heiler, Prayer: A study in the History and Psychology of Religion
• C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
• Jacques Ellul, Prayer and Modern Man
• Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer
• Steven Chase, The Tree of Life
• James M. Houston, The Transforming Friendship
• Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Hearts True Home
• The Book of Common Worship
• John Bailie, A Diary of Private Prayer
• David Adam, The Edge of Glory: Prayers in the Celtic Tradition
• John Oliver Nelson, ed., The Student Prayerbook
• Ben Patterson, Deepening Your Conversation with God
• Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind Fresh Fire
• Wesley L. Duewel, Mighty Prevailing Prayer

Spiritual Theology

• Martin Thornton, Pastoral Theology: Reorientation
• Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places; Eat This Book
• Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Spiritual Care
• Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
• Benedict, The Rule
• Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Christian Character
• Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life
• Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man; The Prophets

Spiritual Direction & Disciplines

• Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
• P.T. Forsyth, The Cure of Souls
• Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
• Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
• Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship
• Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life/Letters of Spiritual Direction
• Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction/Seven Story Mountain
• Keith Anderson, Spiritual Mentoring
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
• Martin Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel
• Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
• Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being
• Eugene Peterson, Under The Unpredictable Plant; Five Smooth Stones; Subversive Spirituality; Working the Angles; The Contemplative Pastor
• Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
• Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey, Now and Then, and Telling Secrets
• A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God and Knowledge of the Holy
• Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos
• Dorothy Day, The Long Lonliness
• Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines
• J.I. Packer and Loren Wilkinson, eds., Alive to God: Studies in Spirituality
• Basil M. Pennington, Lectio Divine: Renewing the Ancient Practice of Praying Scripture

Worship

• James Torrance, Worship Community and the Triune God of Grace
• Evelyn Underhill, Worship
• Marva Dawn, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down/A Royal Waste of Time
• Annie Dillard, Teaching A Stone to Talk
• J.G. Davies, Westminster Dictionary of Worship
• Robert Weber, Ancient Future Faith
• Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism
• James F. White, An Introduction to Christian Worship
• Don E. Saliers, Worship & Spirituality
• Edward Folwy, From Age to Age
• Frank Senn, Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical
• James 0’Connor, The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist
• Tim Dearborn and Scott Coil, Worship At the Next Level: insight from contemporary voices

Mission & Evangelism

• Stanley Hauerwas  & William Willimon, Resident Aliens
• Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture
• Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community
• James Davidson Hunger, Cultural Wars
• Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian
• David Bosch, Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture
• David Bosch, Transforming Mission: paradigm Shifts in Theology and Mission
• Darrell Guder, Missional Church: Toward an Ecclesial Christian Ethic
• George Hunsberger & Craig Van Gelder, The Church Between Gospel and Culture
• Patrick R. Keifert, Welcoming the Stranger: A Public Theology of Worship and Evangelism
• Robert Weber, Liturgical Evangelism
• Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom? How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice and Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas.
• Norman Kraus, The Community of the Spirit: How the Church Is in the World
• Sherwood Lingenfelter & Marvin Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally: an Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships
• John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus
• Charles VanEngen, Mission on the Way: issues in Modern Theology
• Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church
• Hippolytus, The Treatise on the “Apostolic Tradition.”

Vocation

• Richard Bolle, How to Find your Mission in Life
• Robert Coles  & Brian Mahan, Forgetting Ourselves On Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition
• Craig Dykstra, Growing into the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practice
• Gill Farnham & Ward McLean, Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community
• Os Guiness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
• Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior During the University Years.
• Gregory L. Jones and Stephanie Paulsell, ed., The Scope of Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher.
• Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
• Sharon Daloz Parks, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning , Purpose, and Faith.
• Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living.
• Mark Schwen, Exiles in Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America
• Gerald Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life