RECOMMENDED READING

Check out the list below of books our pastoral staff currently recommend. A few copies of each book are available to borrow in the hallway leading to the Education Wing. Please scan the QR code to check out, or fill out the binder.

If you read a recommended book, let us know how you liked it!

"We live forward. Ecclesiastes teaches us to live life backward. It encourages us to take the one thing in the future that is certain—our death—and work backward from that point into all the details and decisions and heartaches of our lives, and to think about them from the perspective of the end. ... Ecclesiastes invites us to let the end sculpt our priorities and goals, our greatest ambitions and our strongest desires." (David Gibson)

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?" (C. S. Lewis) 

"For a painless introduction to the historical context of early Christian life in Asia Minor, this is the book to get ... Longenecker uses the fictitious correspondence as a way of informing the modern reader about everyday life in these ancient times. He composes these letters with skill and helps bring alive - and with great historical accuracy - the conditions under which the earliest Christians lived their faith." (Donald Senior, The Bible Today) 

"The theology that matters is not the theology we profess but the theology we practice." (Francis Chan) 

"So go marry someone, provided you're equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it's not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God's sake start making some decisions in your life." (Kevin DeYoung) 

"Just as evangelicals will fight their own individual sin as they keep in step with the Spirit, so we must fight the collective sin of allowing anything but the gospel to be the cause of our unity." (Michael Reeves) 

"Remember that Satan may be looking over your shoulder and whispering in your ear, “You’ll never become that kind of man. You’ve blown it too badly. There’s no hope for you. You’ll never break out of your old sin patterns.” When Satan tempts you with these thoughts, meditate on the words which were penned by the half brother of Jesus Christ: Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. (James 4:7–8a)" (Gene Getz) 

"...as I read Miracles Today, and I came face-to-face with God being very tangibly at work in today’s world, I found my sense of confidence in God’s future for the world and for me heightened. " (Dr Gary W Burnett ) 

"Spiritual Disciplines are practices derived from the gospel, not divorced from the gospel. When the Disciplines are rightly practiced, they take us deeper into the gospel of Jesus and its glories, not away from it as though we've moved on to more advanced levels of Christianity." (Donald Whitney)

"Scripture does not yield its fruit to the lazy. Like any other discipline of life, Bible study pays off in proportion to how much of an effort you make. The greater the investment, the greater the reward." (William Hendricks) 

Made up of four individual volumes (Epic, Foundation, Context, and Walk), Bible Savvy is a foundational resource for those wanting to better understand the Bible. 

"This mom-to-mom guide will equip you to teach your kids how to form their own biblical beliefs about what is true and what is false. Through transparent life stories and clear, practical applications—including prayer strategies—this band of Mama Bears offers you tools to train yourself, so you can turn around and train your kids." (Nancy Pearcey)

"Part of the hope the Christian faith offers is the knowledge that God will not allow injustice to be the last word. That is a central element in the good news of the gospel. " (N.T. Wright) 

This planet is more than just a stopover on your way to heaven. It is your final destination. God wants you to enjoy your earthly existence, and to think otherwise is to miss the life he intends for you. (Michael Wittmer)

"When we think of Jesus, we tend not to consider him for his intellect. Yet, no one would deny that as the Son of God he must have been the smartest man who ever lived." (Peter J. Williams)

"If our lives are to be shaped by the story of Scripture, we need to understand two things well: the biblical story is a compelling unity on which we may depend, and each of us has a place within that story." (Craig Bartholomew)