Books

Brian McLaren's favorite books for ministry

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.

Ministry to and with children and youth often gets the leftovers of pastoral attention. In Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity (Woodlake), editors David Csinos and Melvin Bray have brought together leaders who are thinking in fresh ways about “the last and least”—who should be the first and greatest in pastoral priorities.