Faith in Context

Christian Smith: Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults
The best new information available about the religious attitudes and spirituality of the Millennial generation, today's teens and young adults. Released in late 2009 from Oxford University Press.

Rodney Stark: What Americans Really Believe
An important new study of American religion re-visits some old issues and also breaks some new ground, particularly about beliefs and behavior.

John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed: Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
The first major report on polling among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, the result of a special project by the Gallup World Polls. Anyone serious about religion in today's context needs to listen to these voices.

Cynthia Woolever: Places of Promise: Finding Strength in Your Congregation's Location
An essential tool for pastors, denominational executives and anyone else interested in the growth and vitality of local churches. The first book to concentrate entirely on how demographics and other contextual factors relate to church growth.

David Kinnaman: unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters
Important new research on how Christian faith is perceived by nonbelievers in America today by the new president of the Barna Research Group. He documents the fact that Christians are seen as hypocritical, too aggressive in recruiting converts, unfairly antihomosexual, out of touch, too political, and judgmental. Clear evidence of how the alliance of Evangelicals with right-wing politics has severely damaged the mission of Christ. Anyone serious about ministry in America today must read this book!

Scott Thumma: Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches (J-B Leadership Network Series)
This is one of the most important pieces of research on contemporary church life in America today. The title includes the word "myths" because many of the most widely accepted things that you think you know about megachurches prove not to be true.

Philip W. Dunham: Sure Salvation
2007, Pacific Press. A must-have reference book for preachers and Christian workers. It also documents an interesting process of change in faith over the past few decades. See my posting.

Nelson Searcy: Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch
Must reading for those interested in reaching contemporary generations and planting churches in major cities.

Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones (editors): An Emergent Manifesto of Hope
What is an emerging new generation of Christian leadders thinking? This volume is essential reading both for those who feel some affinity to the emerging church and those who are concerned about how it may change conventional theology.

David W. Miller: God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement
A comprehensive and clear-headed description of something authentically new occuring in the contemporary culture: attempts to bring faith into the workplace, to integrate religion with business, spirituality with making a living. Considering how dominate market forces have become, it is an essential frontier for Christ's mission.

Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart: Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream
This is the single most important book on the contemporary and historic cultural position of the Adventist movement in America.

R. Clifford Jones: James K. Humphrey And the Sabbath-day Adventists
The story of a pastor and congregation in New York City in the 1920s that launched a plan for community development, came into conflict with conservative denominational leaders and became independent. Where are they now?

David Augsburger: Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-surrender, Love of God, And Love of Neighbor
Highly recommended for Christian leaders working with discipleship or contextualized ministries. See my post on this book for a summary.

Alvin Toffler: Revolutionary Wealth
The latest major work from the noted future studies expert focuses on how free-market economics has become the most powerful dynamic on the globe and how it is changing itself. Business is squeezing more and more donated labor out of almost everyone and we are all increasingly being moved from paid producers to self-supporting "prosumers." Essential insight to what is happening around you!

N.T. Wright: Simply Christian : Why Christianity Makes Sense
This is a must read and probably a standard tool for Christian workers.

Eddie Gibbs: Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures
The best research to date on the cutting edge of Christian experimentation in church and mission. A must read!

Raewynne J. Whiteley: Get Up Off Your Knees : Preaching the U2 Catalog
Recommended tool for those ministering with Gen X or who are looking for ideas on how to integrate references to popular culture into religious preaching and teaching.

John Brockman: What We Believe but Cannot Prove : Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty
An anthology filled with important pieces in understanding the interplay between faith and science, the modern and postmodern minds.

Holger Jebens: Pathways To Heaven: Contesting Mainline And Fundamentalist Christianity In Papua New Guinea
A careful look at the phenomenal growth of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere. A German anthropologist lived in a village in the highland of New Guinea which were first evangelized by Catholic missionaries in the 1950s. The Adventist Church arrived in 1987 and is growing rapidly among the younger generation in part because of a reaction against modernity.