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What are the best books for ministry written in the 21st century? We asked seven pastors to pick their favorites. — Ed.

Pastors need to have some sense of the historical context of what’s going on in the church. Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (HarperOne) and Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Baker) will inform, unsettle, challenge, and inspire you.