Books of Interest

Visit the Presbytery Library and check one out today!

 

 
   

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Places - Matching Sacred Space with Mission and Message by Nancy DeMott, Tim Shapiro, and Brent Bill

This book is designed to be used by congregations who are involved in or are contemplating work on their facilities. This includes renovation, remodeling, expansion, or building. No matter how extensive the project, approaching the work with mission at the forefront is the key to having a final result that strengthens the congregation’s ministry.

Intended for leaders in a congregation’s facility project—from expert builders to novices—this book will help you create a reflective approach to your work, enable you to learn from one another, and make space for discerning God’s direction for your congregation. Each phase of the process—discern, decide, and do—consists of a series of questions that a congregation must address and assumes no particular level of prior knowledge about building issues. This effective process lets congregations begin where they are and provides the help they need to move to the next level. BK C01 098

 
 

Church on the Edge of Somewhere - Ministry, Marginality, and the Future by George B. Thompson, Jr.

George Thompson feels that most congregations today exist in what he calls the "middle of anywhere." They live comfortably with their surrounding culture, focusing their energies on serving the needs of the current members. These congregations have many strengths and gifts that they can exercise without changing a thing. Thompson envisions a deeper, more prophetic call for congregations to explore the meaning of being in the world but not of it—a church on the "edge of somewhere." He sees a church that is deeply engaged in ministering to the community while calling on others to commit to doing the same. By analyzing the interaction between a congregation’s focus of identity and their stance with the world, Thompson has created a helpful grid for congregations to place themselves on today’s cultural map. A congregation that sees itself as existing on the margins of society will look different than one that sees itself as embedded in society. A congregation that hears a call to serve the surrounding community will look different from one that focuses on its internal needs. Knowing where they stand now is the key for congregations to discover where they must go in the future to fully live out their call to be God’s people in the world.
BK CO1 099

 
Behavorial Covenants in Congregations—A Handbook for Honoring Differences by Gilbert R. Rendle

This down-to-earth workbook gets to the heart of modern congregational life: how to live creatively together despite differences of age, race, culture, opinion, gender, or theological or political position. Gil Rendle explains how to grow by valuing our differences rather than trying to ignore or blend them. He describes a method of establishing behavioral covenants that includes leadership instruction, training tools, resources, small-group exercises, and plans for meetings and retreats. An essential resource for all ministers. BK I02 021

 
Tribal Church—Ministering to the Missing Generation by Carol Howard Merritt

Many churches are seeking ways to reach out to the younger generations. Unfortunately this often manifests as either a “come be just like us!” attitude—suggesting an unwillingness to change in order to be inclusive of young people—or as a slick marketing campaign that targets young adults in much the same way secular advertising does.

Carol Howard Merritt suggests a different way for churches to be able to approach young adults on their own terms. Outlining the financial, social, and familial situations that affect many young adults today, she describes how churches can provide a safe, supportive place for young adults to nurture relationships and foster spiritual growth.

Merritt casts a vision of the church that embraces the gifts of all members while reaching out to those who might otherwise feel unwelcome or unneeded. By breaking down artificial age barriers and building up intentional relationships, congregations can provide a space for all people to connect with God, each other, and the world. BK C02 025

 
The Gospel According to Hollywood by Gregg Garrett

Garrett looks at the theological elements in dozens of classic and recent Hollywood films, including a discussion about what the new openness to spirituality in the movies might mean for the future of American Cinema and American religion. This is a new addition to the Gospel according to . . Series, which contains classic and recent films. BK H01 048

 
Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief by Rowan Williams.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams uses classic statements of the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds to guide readers through central elements of Christian faith. Questions such as: What does it mean to believe in God? Can God possibly be almighty in the midst of so much evil and disaster? What does it really mean to follow Christ in today’s broken world? Williams demonstrates that each of the basic tenets of Christian faith flows from the fundamental believe that God is worthy of our trust.

 

    

Healthy Disclosure—Solving Communication Quandaries in Congregations by Kibbie Simmons Ruth & Karen A. McClintock

Knowledge is power, and the way knowledge is shared in a congregation can build up or break down community. When congregational leaders are sensitive to the ways that information should be shared, the congregation can become safe and strong. Congregations can easily fall into patterns of communication that lead to disastrous interpersonal and organizational outcomes. Even in times of crisis, however, congregations can learn and practice new skills and healthy communication management.

Congregational consultants Kibbie Ruth and Karen McClintock show clergy and laity how to appropriately handle information. From proper ways to respond to rumors to relating information about a staff firing to the congregation, Healthy Disclosure is filled with step-by-step ideas for handling different types of sensitive material. It helps clergy and other congregational leaders understand levels of disclosure, including how and when to reveal information, the difference between privacy and secrecy, legal issues related to public knowledge, and the power of secrets from a congregation’s past.  
BK I02 022

 

Great Ends of the Church
 The Maintenance of Divine Worship by Howard L. Rice, Jr.

This book describes the Reformed understanding of worship and how our worship is part of a great tradition that has a pattern inherent in it that we maintain.  At the same time, good worship in our tradition keeps the older forms relevant to contemporary life through new technological means of communication.  This book explains what is important in our tradition and why and what is open to change.  BK H08 022

 

The Great Ends of the Church:
 Preservation of the Truth, by the Rev. Joe Small

In the second book of the Great Ends of the Church Series, Preservation of the Truth, Rev. Joseph Small explains that truth is not a proposition, an objective fact existing outside human experience, but in a fact a person, Jesus Christ,  who is God with us and for us.  BK H08 020

 

The Great Ends of the Church
 The Proclamation of the Gospel for the Salvation of Humankind,
by Catherine Gonsalus Gonzalez

This book is an engaging study that helps readers understand more clearly what it means to be an individual incorporated into the body of Christ.  Questions for the group discussion are found at the end of each chapter.
BK H08 019

 

Great Ends of the Church:
 Exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the World, by Darrell L. Guder

Darrell L. Guder, Dean of Princeton Seminary, addresses the last of the six Great Ends of the Church.  The book looks at mission as the church's great calling and explains that the way we should go about spreading the good news of the Kingdom of heaven is inherent in the meaning of the Kingdom itself.  BK H08 01802

 

The Shelter, Nurture and Spiritual Fellowship
Of The Children of God
ELIZABETH F. CALDWELL

The Great Ends of the Church express basic convictions that can help our church remember its foundations with renewed appreciation.  In this fine addition to the Great Ends of the Church series, Elizabeth F. Caldwell fills out the contours of the particular mission form sketched by the second Great End, "Shelter, Nurture and Spiritual Fellowship of the Children of God."  Each chapter of her book focuses on biblical texts and a connection with one of two recent confessions of your church, The Confession of 1967 and A Brief Statement of Faith.  Caldwell is not naive about the challenges this end can present, even in the best of times.  In each chapter, Caldwell identifies challenges that this end often presents before showing it is precisely in the process of meeting these challenges and responding to it's mission in the context of hope that faith is shaped.

This book is great for both individual and group study.  Caldwell has provided questions at the end of each chapter crafted to guide reflection upon the meaning of "being at home with God who is our shelter, who nurtures us from the moment of our first breath until the last one on our lips and who surrounds us with the children of God of all ages, colors and faith traditions."  From the strength of this nurture and shelter, God sends us out as God's good stewards active in mission. BK H08 021