Best Books from 2017

2017 has been a long year!  It has been year full of ministry, friendships, sorrows, joys, and lots of books!  Especially with Seminary, I get the opportunity to do a lot of reading.  At the end of each year, many ministry posts a "Best Books" list.  I know I'm one of the first to click on these links.

These lists are incredible resources.  It helps us to look through the fog and the overwhelming weight of information to see the best of the best.  Often times though, these books are more for scholars than for the average pastor.  I hope, in the sea of books, that my list will help ministry to see what was helpful to other average pastors and ministry leaders.

These are books which left a mark on me, caused me to think, or have become go to resources for me.

Without further ado, in no particular order, here are my top books I've read this year! 

The Mestizo Augustine:A Theologian Between Two Cultures
by Justo Gonzalez

This short, accessible biography will give the reader perspective on the context and impact of Augustine's theology.  It was required reading for my "Theology of Augustine" course at SBTS, and take it from personal experience: This will help shed light on Augustine's writings.  Wanting to know about the most influential theologian on the Western Church?  Start with this biography!

When Your Church Feels Stuck: 7 Unavoidable Questions Every Leader Must Answer
by Chris Sonksen

I rarely receive free books.  When I received this book, I was skeptical.  But, I walked away stunned!  While there are many great books on leadership, and others on church revitalization, few can meld the two together.  Sonksen asks his reader to ask 7 questions that many church leaders cast aside and often assume.  Your leadership, your organization, and/or your church will be better for reading (and doing!) what is within its pages.

Preach: Theology Meets Practice
by Mark Dever and Greg Gilbert

I rarely buy books for other people.  If I want someone else to use their time, I want it to be worthwhile.  This, friends, is worthwhile.  I bought it for two buys in my church!  If you are wanting an approachable introduction to what preaching looks like, this is the book for you!  Conversational, simple, yet profound.  Use this book to help train others to preach (or to improve your own!).

The Compelling Community: Where God's Power Makes a Church Attractive
by Mark Dever

What does "Community" mean?  What is biblical community?  Why does Jesus say that it would be attractive to the world?  Mark Dever investigate these issues from a biblical perspective, often leaving conventional wisdom we have come to treasure in churches.  It was a perspective shift in my short ministry on the measure of "success" and the meaning of community.

Community: Taking Your Small Group Off Life Support
by Brad House

Brad House offers a different perspective from Dever in some areas, but his work has in just 6 years become a standard for small group ministry.  No matter your model, you will be provoked to reconsider what community looks like in your church.  Be careful, this is one of the books with the power to change your whole perspective!

Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team and Staff on the Same Page
by Larry Osborne

This book is already on my reread list for 2018.  Osborne offers practical, timeless principles for leadership.  Every ministry leader should read this book.  Yes, you read that right.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
by Tim Keller

If the average Christian asked me for the one book they should read, I would suggestion this one.  In fact, this has been my most suggested book to church members this year!  For believers it is deep, yet easy to follow.  Unbelievers, I promise, it is much better and thought-provoking than you're expecting.  Pick it up.

Why Trust the Bible?
by Greg Gilbert

9Marks has three books on this list for a reason: they put out great content!  Gilbert offers a succinct resource for believers and skeptics alike.  This resource will help you understand the historical reliability of the New Testament in an easy to understand guide.  (Side Note: His books "Who is Jesus?" and "What is the Gospel?" from this same series are also fantastic).

Rhythms of Grace: How the Church's Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel
by Mike Cosper

As a preacher, I don't tend to read many books on music ministry (sorry worship pastors!).  But, this one has become a standard.  How can we help bridge the gap between the "worship" time, when we are singing, and the "sermon"?  This book is important for those who see their call as music leader as pastoral and who desire to help form the congregation in the gospel through the music they sing.

Getting the Garden Right: Adam's Work and God's Rest in Light of Christ
by Richard C. Barcellos

I'll be honest, I'm shocked this book is on this list!  I bought this book on a whim (and for a deal) from Founders Press.  While I do not agree with everything in its pages, Barcellos has both challenged and confirmed me in my understanding of various issues.  It will no doubt be a standard for covenant theologians, and it is an important read regardless of where you stand on the issues of covenant theology and the Sabbath.  I intend to consult it more into the new year.

Biblical Church Revitalization: Solutions For Dying and Divided Churches
by Brian Croft

Published in 2016, this book should be a gold standard for those seeking church revitalization.  Brian Croft has been there (he even includes the story of how he was almost fired).  He offers a biblically faithful road map toward health.  Short and accessible.  A must read before taking a pastorate in an established church!

Honorable Mentions:

MultiChurch: Exploring the Future of MultiSite
by Brad House and Greg Ailison

Who Moved My Pulpit? Leading Change In the Church?
by Thom Rainer

Planting Church Cross-Culturally North America and Beyond (Reread of the Year)
by David Hesslgrave

Greek for Life Strategies for Learning Retaining and Reviving New Testament Greek
by Bejamin L, Merkle and Robert L. Plummer

Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again
by Mark Devine and Darrin Patrick

A Birthday Reflection: A Year of Restoration and 5 Recognitions

God will destroy us for our good.

It may sound counter intuitive to us, but love is always willing to wound.  A year ago I was wounded.  I was drowning in a sea of despair and barely skimming the surface.  I was gasping for breath.  Sure, I put on the face.  I attended all the social events.  I would even stand and preach the Word of God.  I would do everything I would normally do- but I was not the same.

In the course of the month I had lost everything I held dear: dear friends, a growing ministry, a girl I thought I was spending the rest of my life with, and my health was in a bad place.  I felt betrayed as all of them left.  To this day it doesn’t even seem real.  How does everything you love and pour two years of your life into just turn and walk away?  It began a year of spiral downward that echoed the words of David in Psalm 13, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” (13:1-2).  People of faith suffer real pain.  I asked the Lord every day for a year, “Why?”  I could hear nothing, whether due to my stupidity or His gracious silence.

In my pride I was pretended there was not a problem.  I viewed vulnerability as an enemy, forgetting that confession has always been the pathway to freedom (Psalm 32:5).  The victory I’d preached from the pulpit felt like a distant memory.  “Who am I fooling? Lord, I’m not cut out for this.  I’m throwing in the towel.”  I would try to form cohesive words in prayer as I sobbed.  I was asking for the Lord to not just take me out of ministry, but I often asked him to take me out of this life.

Look how David continues in Psalm 13,

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
    light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
    lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken – Psalm 13:3-4

I need an answer, but little did I know He was not finished with me yet.

No matter how much I desired to let go of everything I knew, He was not letting go of me.  Jeremiah was put in stocks by the priests and he declared, “O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed.  I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me” (Jeremiah 20:7).  But, in the midst of it, Jeremiah would also declare, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot…Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers” (20:9, 13).

The good news has never been about how hard we hold onto God, but how hard God is holding onto us.  Jesus words in John 6 were warm sweet promises to me.  He had given me to the Father and I would not perish.  He has drawn me and He would raise me.  The will of the Father was that all who believed would be raised on the last day.  Jesus’ death absorbed all of God’s wrath toward me.  This suffering was not His wrath, it was for my good.  He was not inflicting me with Hell, but loving His child all the way Home.  He was keeping me, and sometimes keeping us involves taking things away.

Now, a year after my earth shattering heartbreak, I resonate with the words of Joel 2:25, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”  He has down a miraculous work in showing me more about friendship in ministry, giving me a great set of accountability partners, brought me into a new ministry, and brought me together with a helper who is beyond what I deserve.  My health is even far better!

Friends, restoration does not always mean you will be brought back where you were.  God’s exile out is often an exodus into something new.  I would love to say the story went back into a happily ever after, but the story isn’t over yet.  Chapters end so others begin.  Our happily ever happy happens later, not in this life.  But, even as our story unfolds, a few things have be reaffirmed to me even in the face of heart-wrenching despair.

1) Jesus is Lord.  He is Lord of salvation.  He is the Lord of life.  He promises that from beginning to end all His intentions will work toward His purpose.  He is gracious and is going to conform me into His image.  This is going to involve suffering.  God is passionately dedicated to blessing his people, but God blesses the bankrupt in spirit, but the banker (Matthew 5:3).  But in the gospel, suffering is a servant, not a serpent (Romans 8:28-39).  This truth has become even more precious to me.  John Piper says this, 

“Outside of this promise of all-encompassing future grace there are straw houses of drugs and alcohol and numbing TV and dozens of futile diversions.  There are slat walls and tin roofs of fragile investment strategies and fleeting insurance coverage and trivial retirement plans.  There are cardboard fortifications of deadbolt locks and alarm systems and antiballistic missiles.  Outside are a thousand substitutes for Romans 8:28….The confidence that a sovereign God governs for your good all the pain and all the pleasure that you will ever experience is an incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life.”  - John Piper, Future Grace 122-123

      2) The doctrines of grace remain the only bed rock for deep suffering.  To know that my salvation is rooted in the sovereign election of God, the effectual calling of the Spirit, and the particular death of the Son is a firm foundation when you feel as if you don’t control anything.  Because, in honesty- we don’t.    The scandalous grace of God is the only answer for scandalous heartbreak.  Sure, our actions have consequences, but God is control of everything that occurs.  My salvation is never grounded in how I’m feeling from day to day, but in the work of the Triune God- and Him alone.  To the praise of His glorious grace (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14)

            3) Suffering is good for the stubborn.  The Lord has given me a much more vulnerable and pastoral heart through this suffering (something my stubbornness caused me to lack).  People hurt.  Life is far more complicated than I originally lived like it was.  God comforts us, so that we might comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:4).  This means that God will wound us, but never without a purpose.

         4) The church will let you down, but don’t give up on her.  Jesus didn’t.  In fact, nothing that Christians have ever done to me has ever been as bad as what Christians did to Him.  Jesus pursued a wandering bride.  He endured her spitting in His face, pushing Him away, but He still pursued her- even to death.  Most grooms wed their brides with a ring on their finger, but Jesus pursued His bride with two nails in His hands.  Don’t give up on the church, Jesus has not and will not.

      5) The mission of God is not about me.  His mission will be complete whether I am face down in the dirt, or whether I am out on the front lines.  God doesn’t need me.  He could raise us rocks to replace me (Matthew 3:9).  But, God has graciously invited us in and sent us out.  Why not give everything for the sake of the gospel?  It will involve this kind of heart-wrenching, soul-emptying, life-altering suffering I have described, but in the end those who mourn will be comforted (Matthew 5:4).  We will see His face (Revelation 21) and His mission will be accomplished.

In the end, God destroys us for our good.  He builds us up, or moves us away, or leaves us to taste mud with the pigs- all with the goal of building us up and bringing us back (Luke 15:11-32).  Life hurts.  God is good.  The gospel is true.  His mission is urgent.  He may take what is most precious to us to show us that He should be more precious than all of it.  Why should we delight in the gifts when the Giver is so much more satisfying?  In the end, God never answered David’s question.  God’s response in our suffering is not an explanation, but revelation.  God is giving us more of Himself.  In our midst of our questions, answers will not satisfy us, He will.  Even in the midst of devastation, may we find joy in Him more and more each day.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me. – Psalm 13:5-6

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