This page contains the resources that I have found useful in my personal and professional life. Admittedly, it is an eclectic list. It contains everything from quotes and books that I like to podcasts, videos, and slideshows.
If you don’t want to scroll through the entire list, you can click on one of the links below and filter the resources by specific category.
I will update this list as I discover new resources. If you have a resource you think I should add, please email me.
My search for approval is over. In Christ I already have all the approval I need. Because Christ’s righteousness has been transferred to me, all the time and energy I once squandered trying to be liked or praised or to achieve something to validate my existence can now be re-directed toward doing things for God’s glory. I no longer live for approval; I live from approval.
The Self-Aware Leader (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017)
Almost thirty years ago, I graduated from Ozark Christian College with an undergraduate degree in Theology, focusing on the New Testament. After three decades, I have decided to return to school and pursue a graduate degree. I had been thinking of this for a while, but when Ozark announced a new Graduate Studies program, I decided it was time. So I enrolled, and am currently in my second term pursuing a Master’s Degree in Strategic Leadership.
Going back to school has been a challenge, for sure. But it has also been a blessing in many different ways. One such blessing is the books I have been exposed to, some that are required for a course, and others that have come through the recommendation of a class or a professor.
Terry Linhart’s book, The Self-Aware Leader, is a required book for a class I am in this semester, called Self-Awareness and the Christian Leader. While it is a relatively quick and easy book to read, and flows smoothly, it’s best to slow down and take it in very deliberately. This book has the potential to be a foundational resource for making sure I stay grounded as a leader.
Often, we go through life somewhat oblivious to certain aspects of our personal or spiritual life; some are more unaware than others. But we all have blind spots, and if we want to grow as a leader — or even as a Christian — we need to identify these trouble areas, and take steps to eliminate them or improve in spite of them.
Linhart covers a wide spectrum of potential trouble areas. From conflict to pressures, from sin and temptation to emotional and relational problems, he addresses many of the areas that people — especially leaders, and especially church leaders — can struggle with. And when you are moving in the right direction… you find joy. Linhart says, “I am convinced that at the intersection of maturity, Christ-centeredness, and contentedness, we find joy. Its presence or absence is telling. When we are joyful, we have no anxiety, fear, need for control, and anger. When there is joy, there is freedom and confidence. … When joy is present, maturity and spiritual depth are right behind” (p. 105).
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life–the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.
Faith For Exiles (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2019)
Sometimes I look at my life and it seems like I should still be my younger self. Have you ever felt that way? A few days ago, it hit me that the 1980s — a time in my life where I moved from childhood into my teenage years — began four decades ago. Four decades! Where has the time gone?
And when I look at all that has changed in that time, one of the biggest things I notice is the generational differences that stand out. I am right in the middle of the Gen X generation. My kids are in what many call Gen Z. In between the two are the Millennials. And frankly, there are some pretty big differences between all three of those groups, and even more when you add in the Boomer generation that was before me.
Now throw all of that mix into the church. How do you accomplish the mission we were called to when so many different groups of people see life so differently? That’s the focus of Faith For Exiles, by David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock. This book takes a look at how we can continue to help people follow Jesus from generation to generation.
The premise of the book is pretty simple: In my generation, and even more so in the generation of my parents, church was a pretty significant force in most parts of our culture. But that has changed. More and more, these younger generations seem to be more aptly described as exiles.
The concept of exile is a common theme throughout the Bible. The nation of Israel found themselves in exile in Egypt, and then later in Assyria and in Babylon. They had to learn to live in a foreign land, learn to maintain their faith in a foreign culture, and learn how to manage to pass that on to the next generations, who were more deeply rooted in foreign thinking. As Christians, Peter calls us exiles as well.
Today could be compared to a digital Babylon, and Millennials and Gen Z’ers live right in the middle of it. To continue to do church like we’ve always done it is increasingly ineffective, and unless we find new ways to engage discipleship in younger generations, we may see many of those people walking away from Jesus.
So how do we help the church adjust to such new thinking… exile thinking? How do we help new generations of believers grasp a hold of Jesus and follow him? How do we help these newer generations thrive in their faith and discipleship?
Based on more than fifteen years of research by the Barna Group, Faith For Exiles is revealing and timely. We would do well to pay attention to what is ahead for the church, and watch how Jesus continues to sustain and grow his church, even though it my be completely different from anything we’ve ever experienced.
Faith For Exiles may be the most important book you read this year. But don’t just read it, look for ways to engage with it, and with people of a generation different than yours, and watch how you grow together as disciples. Pick up a copy on Amazon and read it. You’ll be challenged, to be sure. But you’ll be encouraged too.
Prayer in the time of trouble brings comfort, help, hope, and blessings, which, while not removing the trouble, enable the saint to better bear it and to submit to the will of God. Prayer opens the eyes to see God’s hand in trouble. Prayer does not interpret God’s providences, but it does justify them and recognize God in them. Prayer enables us to see wise ends in trouble. Prayer in trouble drives us away from unbelief, saves us from doubt, and delivers from all vain and foolish questionings because of our painful experiences.
Eclipse Of Heaven (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 1992)
Every now and then I run across a book that has a tremendous impact on my life. Many of the books make an impact, but there is the occasional book that just really hits hard. Eclipse of Heaven by A. J. Conyers is one of those books.
I originally heard about this book through a podcast I listen to regularly, the Every Thought Podcast, from a few of the professors at Ozark Christian College. I was intrigued, so I added the book to my Amazon wish list for reading material and didn’t think too much more about it. But episode after episode of the podcast continued to refer to this book, so I purchased it and started in on it.
This is one of those books that not only makes an impact now, but the implications will last for a long time to come. In this short book, Conyers, who was a professor of theology at Baylor University, address the loss of transcendence that our culture has experienced. And that loss has impacted us in far deeper ways than we might realize.
Written in the early 1990s, this book feels incredibly relevant for the second and third decade of the 21st century. We’ve lost our sense of the divine, our sense of heaven… transcendence. Because of that, our views of the value of life and the meaning of death have shifted. We’ve taken on a much more shallow view of both. Because we no longer live with heaven in mind, our culture has dipped further into moral decay.
This is evident in the way we view community, in the way science has taken the lead in our understanding of the nature of all things, and in the way that religion has faded to the level of a discarded crutch that we once needed. (Although we’re still very much “religious.” Our religion has just shifted from being about God to being about us.)
Our way of thinking has shifted, maybe more deeply than anyone has realized, and we are going to have to regain our focus on what’s beyond this mortal existence, or we run the risk of losing more and more of our humanity. It’s time to refocus our sights upon eternity, and reclaim the hope that we can have because of what God has done on our behalf.
I highly recommend that you read Eclipse of Heaven. But be warned; it will challenge they way you look at life and the way you react to everything around you. If you’re willing to see how this cultural shift has impacted us, and to strive to reclaim the hope that we need, get this book and read it carefully. You can find it on Amazon.