More books

Here are some more books on topics related to the missional church. These are all in the University of Otago library.

Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor and Chaos by Tim Keel. Keel is the pastor of Jacob’s Well, an emergent church in Kansas City, USA, that I admire quite a bit and a blogger who I enjoy. In this book Keel describes a number of priorities I think are very important for Christian leaders in our time, including narrative and metaphor, as the sub-title suggests. He does a good job giving his take on the cultural challenges of our time, and there are bits and pieces that help the reader understand the priorities of Jacob’s Well.

The New Friars: The Emergent Movement Serving the World’s Poor by Scott A. Bessenecker. I loved reading about the many ways younger Christians are engaging in service to the poor. The New Zealand based movement, Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor, is described in some detail. The blending of a contemplative approach and a concern for justice seems admirable to me and appropriate for our time.

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren. This 2004 book is an important presentation of the ideas that shape the emergent movement. The subtitle gives the feel of the book: “Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist +anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian.”

StormFront: The Good News of God by James V. Brownson, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Barry A. Harvery and Charles C. West. This is one more book in the “Gospel and our Culture Series,” which has provided several books for this paper. These authors use some interesting language, i.e. “storm” for some of the characteristics of our time.