Although the pandemic has slowed down many things, insightful authors have released some promising titles in the past six months. So, as the year comes to a close, I’d like to recommend six new books you might find particularly helpful as you pursue God’s preferred future in 2021.

Rich theology meets leadership for innovation and mission.

Scott Cormode, noted Fuller scholar and thought leader, just released The Innovative Church: How Leaders and Their Congregations Can Adapt in an Ever-Changing World (Baker Academic, 2020). Cormode brings useful material about innovation, adaptive change, systems theory, and more into meaningful theological and biblical frames, helping church leaders become persons who shepherd and steward the people whom God entrusts to them. This is not a quick read – but taken chapter by chapter, Innovative Church, packs plenty of thoughtful and practical wisdom into each paragraph. You will benefit from Cormode’s work.

The Bible matters – especially when we actually read it closely!

Esau McCaulley, a New Testament professor at Wheaton College who happens to also be in ministry, writes for the church. In his new book, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (IVP Academic, 2020), he explores the Black church tradition in reading Scripture that brings the text into conversation with our present contexts to hear the word of the Lord. Far too many of our churches have much to learn about diversity and the limited vision of our particular social location. McCaulley provides promising insight by using the Bible!

Being a Christian means being a disciple of Jesus.

Mark E. Powell, John Mark Hicks, and Greg McKinzie authored an important work that speaks into the past and future of Churches of Christ. The authors take a look into the early generations of the Stone-Campbell tradition and identify key elements that matter for vitality and health today. Their book, Discipleship in Community: A Theological Vision for the Future (Leafwood, 2020), creates marvelous points of discussion for congregational leaders, small groups, or Bible classes to identify what really matters about our past and how we leverage it for the future. (Disclosure: I do have a short response chapter at the end of the book.) We are, after all, by virtue of our baptism, called together into discipleship. This book offers elements of our heritage as a resource for embodying our faith.

Church is different now, and it will be different next year too!

Thom S. Rainer’s book The Post-Quarantine Church: Six Urgent Challenges and Opportunities That Will Determine the Future of Your Congregation (Tyndale Momentum, 2020) is a glimpse into that new reality. No need for me to say more!

The path of leadership is fraught with many challenges – challenges that actually foster growth.

Tod Bolsinger, whose book, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory (IVP, 2018), has been widely read and utilized, has just released a new title. While Canoeing the Mountains is primarily about congregations and systems and mission, Bolsinger’s new work focuses primarily on the leader. With Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change (IVP, 2020), Bolsinger has hit another home run. With theological depth and poignant reality, Bolsinger offers remarkable wisdom about the challenge and longing of leadership. Both of these books are must reads for leaders.

Evangelism is not an ugly word; it is a desperately needed word.

With declining churches and an increasingly secular culture, I pray that communities of faith will awaken again to the church’s mission to partner with God in God’s project we call kingdom. One thing that will need to come onto the table is evangelism. Yet evangelism has often been manipulative and self-serving. How do we sort through all of this? Priscilla Pope-Levison’s book, Models of Evangelism (Baker Academic, 2020), is a useful place to start.

If anyone is curious, yes, I have more books to suggest! However, this is enough to invite you into the community of leaders and learners who are actively seeking God’s wisdom through reading and reflection. So as the year ends, take some time to read and to share and then to act! God is on the move!