Few gifts are more meaningful than a thoughtfully chosen book. It’s a gift that can offer hope, wisdom, and even fun. As you consider your Christmas gift, here are a few books you might want to consider for loved ones.
Christian Living, Prayer, Wisdom
My co-lead pastor, Greg Lavine, and I lead discipleship groups that run concurrently through the school year. We take a group of men or women through a year of study that includes theological and spiritual formation. Currently we are in a stretch focused on the practice of prayer. In one of the weeks we use two books of compiled Puritan prayers: Valley of Vision and Piercing Heaven. The idea of utilizing Puritan prayers might sound as exciting as watching someone else fill out their tax returns, but I have found these books vibrant guides.
Biblical Studies, Culture, Leadership
What is distinctive about femininity and masculinity? Our culture is confused about what is distinctive about what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man. Some have Christians parachuted in trying to provide clarity only to overstate or misstate how the Bible speaks to this question. The truth is that God’s Word blows up our narrowly defined cultural constructs and categories.
So long as we go hunting in scripture for proof of our expectations about masculinity and femininity, we are likely to create two-dimensional cut-outs in place of God’s three-dimensional realities.
Recommendations, Relationships, Social Media, Suffering, Worship
The wilderness was never meant to last forever: Christopher Cook says, “The wilderness was never meant to be your home. For many of us, however, it has become one (a dysfunctionally comfortable one at that). Not because God’s promises changed, and not because your story was disqualified, but rather, because somewhere along the way, you might have stopped listening to the voice of the Lord and trusting His nature and His ways.”
The great friendship collapse: In this video, Derek Thompson explains why we spend more time than ever and what the impact that has had on us.
Church, Christian Living
What is the greatest threat to our faith? There is truth in the danger of all of the above. Jim Davis and Michael Graham commissioned the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America” by leading sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. They report their findings in The Great DeChurching. Over the past twenty-five years, forty million Americans have stopped going to church? What were the reasons they stopped attending? All of those cited above were mentioned as reasons. But three quarters of those surveyed shared the same single reason: life changed.
Identity, Reading, Recommendations
Do you want to know God better? Know yourself better. You, after all, were made in his image. Do you want to know yourself better? Know God better.
My wife Angel and I wrote Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity in order to combat the lies we are tempted to believe about who we are and press into God’s Word to hear his truth.
Many have asked when the audiobook will release. We are delighted to share that the Trading Faces audiobook is now available!
