Tuesday, December 9, 2008

A Semester by the Books

My semester is now complete. It was a very busy semester but I think it went very well overall. Here now is a list of all the books I read this semester. Feel free to comment on them if you've read them or want to read them. All but two were required reading. I read the other two to help me out with my preaching class (Boone and Lowry).

  1. Interpreting the Gospel: An Introduction to Preaching; by Ronald Allen
  2. What's the Matter with Preaching Today; by Mike Graves, ed.
  3. Sacred Rhetoric: Preaching as a Theological and Pastoral Practice of the Church; by Michael Pasquarello, III
  4. Preaching the Story that Shapes Us; by Dan Boone
  5. The Homiletical Plot; by Eugene Lowry
  6. Images of Pastoral Care: Classical Readings; by Robert Dykstra
  7. Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue; by Edwin Friedman
  8. Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling; by Charles Kollar
  9. Listening and Caring Skills in Ministry; by John Savage
  10. When Your People Are Grieving; by Harold Ivan Smith
  11. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism; by Walter Brueggemann
  12. Liberating News; by Orlando Costas
  13. The Lord's Harvest and the Rural Church; by Kent Hunter
  14. Transforming Evangelism; by Henry Knight and F. Douglas Powe
  15. Godbearing: Evangelism Reconceived; by Elaine Robinson
  16. Beginning Well; by Gordon Smith
  17. African-American Church Growth; by Carlyle Stewart
  18. Journey to Jesus; by Robert Webber
  19. Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches; by Robert Webber et al.

2 comments:

Troy said...

Nice list. I'd be interested to hear if there was one or two that stood out.

Just Jon said...

For a novice preacher Boone's book was great. Of the preaching books I've read this is the best. He gets into some areas of preaching that other books don't touch which allow you to get deeper into the text.

I also liked Dykstra's Images of Pastoral Care. It surveyed a wide range of classic approaches. I think it frees you from being locked into what you think a pastor has to do in order to properly care for the church. To steal a phrase from my old boss, there's more than one way to skin a cat.