Recommended Reading By The Traveling Team
Vision leaks. Starting a library of excellent missions books is a perfect way to keep your world vision fresh and learn from some of the leaders in missions today. The following is a list of both old and new "must-reads" for those wanting to live for God's global purpose.
1. The Abrahamic Revolution
by Todd Ahrend
Understand the missional theme of God's Word, the task remaining in God's world, and our calling to God's work. God's purpose is one continuous and all-encompassing movement to redeem people from every tribe, tongue and nation. You are invited to join the legacy that began with Abraham and will end in God's global glory. Bulk Orders Available.
2. Breaking the Islam Code
by JD Greear
World events won't let North Americans ignore Muslims anymore. Whether those Muslims are villagers in Iraq or neighbors down the street, this book offers profound insight into the way Muslims think and feel. This book will help Christians understand what is deep in Muslims' hearts and behind their theology, which will lead to friendship and effective communication of the gospel, and will help Christians avoid unnecessarily offending the Muslims they interact with.
3. IT’s ALL BACKWARD
by CLAUDE HICKMAN
You don't make a reliable guide for yourself so why start with yourself to find your purpose? To live for the things that will last forever, start with someone who is everlasting and then discover how to live life backward. This affordable, 90-page booklet is a great resource to put the message of missions into the hands of a small group or conference. Bulk Pricing available here.
4. Don't Waste Your Life
by John Piper
It's easy to slip through life without taking any risks and without making your life count, but life ought not be wasted. You don't need to know a lot of things to make a lasting difference in the world, but you do have to know the few, great, unchanging, and glorious things that matter and be willing to live and to die for them.
5. Erasing Hell
by Francis Chan
With a humble respect for God's Word, Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle address the deepest questions you have about eternal destiny. They've asked the same questions and, perhaps like you, sometimes they don't want to believe in hell. But as they write, "We cannot afford to be wrong on this issue." This is not a book about who is saying what. It's a book about what God says.
6. Finish the Mission
by John Piper (et al.)
This is no ordinary missions book. The theme isn't new, but the approach is refreshing and compelling, as contributors David Platt, Louie Giglio, Michael Ramsden, Ed Stetzer, Michael Oh, David Mathis, and John Piper take up the mantle of the Great Commission and its Spirit-powered completion.
7. How to be a World Class Christian
by Paul Borthwick
In The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren cites Paul's books A Mind For Missions and How To Be A World-Class Christian as resources that "should be read by every Christian." How To Be A World-Class Christian opens the window to global Christianity for any person who desires to be part of what God is doing in the world.
8. In This Generation
by Todd Ahrend
Take a journey into the greatest missions movement in history. For anyone today who longs for the evangelization of the world, this is the place to begin. The lessons learned from the historic Student Volunteer Movement provide a priceless well of wisdom and practical methods that God's church can drink from once again. To reach the world for Christ in this generation, look to those who almost accomplished it in their own. Bulk Orders Available.
9. Let the Nations be Glad
by John Piper
John Piper offers a Biblical defense of God's supremacy in all things, providing readers with a sound theological foundation for missions. He examines whether Jesus is the only way to salvation and issues a passionate plea for God-centeredness in the missionary enterprise, seeking to define the scope of the task and the means for reaching "all nations."
10. Live Life On Purpose
by Claude Hickman
The aim of God's entire Biblical story has one mission, reaching all the nations, and one method by which to achieve it: all believers. Finding your life purpose only makes sense in the context of God's plan to reach the world. Discover the part you were meant to play in God s epic plan.
11. Operation World
by Jason Mandryk
This tool guides the reader to pray for every country in the world utilizing its easy-to-follow calendar that allots various days for each country. Operation World presents important divisions within each country's profile: people groups, languages, percentage of languages with Scripture, percentage of Christians, and statistics on missionaries present and missionaries sent. Several prayer points are listed so you can pray specifically and powerfully.
12. Radical
by David Platt
David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being His disciple, and then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard.
13. The Mission of God's People
by Christopher Wright
God is relentlessly reclaiming the entire world for Himself. In The Mission of God's People, Wright shows how God's big-picture plan directs the purpose of God's people, the church.
14. THE GOD ASK
by Steve Shadrach
As a ministry worker, raising support can be a daunting task. It doesn't have to be intimidating though. God has given you a vision for ministry, and now you get to invite others into that vision. Your job is to pray and work hard to discover those whom the Lord has already prepared to invest in you and your ministry. God has done His work. Now it's time for you to do yours. This book will help you embrace the fact that this is not a Man Ask. No. It is a God Ask!
15. A Vision for Missions
by Tom Wells
Wells summons us back to first principles about missions. Human need is not the starting place. The gospel is a call to know and worship God.
16. Ask A Missionary
by John McVay
If you are exploring doing something extraordinary for the glory of God among the nations, Ask A Missionary will give clarity and answers for a journey into missions. Because they have "been there," over one hundred missionaries from around the world, including Elisabeth Elliot, George Verwer, Phyllis Kilbourn, and Bill Stearns, share their insightful wisdom and practical advice on everything from making the decision to go, to stepping into a new life once on the field, and everything in between.
17. Announcing the Kingdom
by Arthur Glasser
Arthur Glasser provides a comprehensive survey of the biblical foundation of mission, taking the reader from the Old Testament into the New showing the fulfillment of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ and the church.
18. Movements that Change the World
by Steve Addison
When Jesus commissioned His followers, He was not just inaugurating the historical church; He was founding a missionary movement. Steve Addison draws from biblical, historical and contemporary case studies to isolate the essential elements of a dynamic missionary movement.
19. The Finishers
by Roger Hershey and Jason Weimer
This book cuts through the clutter of cultural Christianity to call us all back to the Great Commission and what it will take to finish this sacred assignment.
20. Mission in the Old Testament
by Walter Kaiser
Walter Kaiser questions the notion that the New Testament represents a deviation from God's supposed intention to save only the Israelites. He argues that, contrary to popular opinion, the Old Testament does not reinforce an exclusive redemptive plan. Instead, it emphasizes a common human condition and God's original and continuing concern for all humanity.
21. Global Mission Handbook
by Steve Hoke & Bill Taylor
Veteran mission professionals Steve Hoke and Bill Taylor offer a practical guide for preparing for intercultural missions. They provide resources for personal spiritual preparation as well as cross-cultural skills and hands-on missionary training. They outline the process for finding actual placement with a sending church, mission agency or organization with key questions you should be asking along the way.
22. Jesus: The Only Way to God
by John Piper
If the evangelical church at large was ever too confrontational in its evangelism, those days are gone. In our shrinking, pluralistic world, the belief that Jesus is the only way of salvation is increasingly called arrogant and even hateful. In the face of this criticism, many shrink back from affirming the global necessity of knowing and believing in Jesus. In Jesus, The Only Way to God, John Piper offers a timely plea for the evangelical church to consider what is at stake in surrendering the unique, universal place of Jesus in salvation.
23. When Missions Shapes the Mission: You and Your Church Can Reach the World
by David Horner
Why are more churches not engaged in practical, substantial ways of taking the gospel to the nations? When Missions Shape the Mission unpacks a statistical study of traditionally evangelical churches that reveals their anemic level of commitment to the biblical mandate of making Christ known around the world. Veteran pastor David Horner makes the data easy to understand, challenging other pastors to radically assign their best leadership and resources to missions as he looks at where the church is today, how it got there, and where we must go from here.
24. The Key to the Missionary Problem
by Andrew Murray
This book is a cult classic volume on missions. This is a Christ-centered response to the problem of missions and the lack of laborers. If we are indifferent to the very person of Jesus and His work on the cross, why would we be anymore excited about His mission to reach the world? The books builds the case that our problem in missions has to do with our lack of love for Christ Himself. If we will realign our heart and passion on Christ Himself we will be driven to reach the ends of the earth out of that love for Christ. The Apostle Paul said, "It is His love that compels us..."
25. On Being a Missionary
by Thomas Hale
Dr. Hale's practical wisdom is here freely offered to the missionary-to-be and others interested in missions–wisdom hard-earned in Nepal on everything from calling to raising a missionary family to cross-cultural communication. Now revised to include perspectives on the realities of the changing missionary force and the challenges of bonding with a new culture in an increasingly globalized and technologically connected world, this edition of On Being a Missionary addresses current issues while maintaining the wit and warmth of the man who first challenged us with his perspectives on being a missionary.
