My Theology Reading List

This Feb and March I took a class at my church on becoming a small group leader. I finished it on March 10th. Since the 1970s my church Hope Chapel has people lead Bible Studies at individual houses known as “mini church”, where different people open up their homes to a once a week fellowship study. There we discuss and re-cap the weekend sermon together, and people can ask questions if they didn’t understand things from the sermon. Also people sing worship together, bring food to eat together, and pray with each other. Also friendships grow. People meet according to which city or neighborhood is closest to them. There are over 100 of these small groups all meeting at different houses. I myself am a co-leader at one of these small groups. To be officially trained, I had to take a 6 week course. While taking the course, each of us was given 7 books to read to help us. Most of these books were Published by 9 Marks. I am going to share the books I am reading with you my WordPress Audience.

This book is about the importance of Corporate Prayer in church services and how few churches are consistent about it. The author is also humble about his shortcomings in prayer and admits he is not the prayer warrior he wants to be. He also has a great sense of humor. Written in 2018. I am currently reading this book.

Ray Ortlund’s 2014 book The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ, discusses the importance of having sound Gospel Doctrine and actually living it out. He emphasizes what true and effective Gospel Culture looks like and how powerful it is. A healthy church not only teaches Biblical Doctrine but also applies it. This was the 1st book out of the collection that I started reading and I recently finished it.

Jeremy Kimble’s book How can I get more out of my Bible Reading? is the most recently written book out of the 7. It was written in 2021. This short book was no more than 50 pages and I was able to read it in 2 hours. Kimbel writes about 3 things to keep in mind when reading the Bible. 1. What is the Bible all about? 2. What is the book about? 3. What is the passage about?

Another thing he writes about is the importance of belonging to a church and knowing what their statement of faith is.

The Life of God in the soul of the church: the root of spiritual fellowship

This book’s emphasis is that Spiritual Fellowship is not just about Us and Jesus. Spiritual Fellowship is also meant to be shared with the community of believers in our local church. Our faith is not meant to be individualistic. Book written in 2012

Corporate Worship : How the Church Gathers as God’s People

Matt Merker’s book was written recently in 2021. This book offers biblical insights and practical suggestions for making worship what it is meant to be: a foretaste of God’s people worshiping together for eternity in the new creation

Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ is Essential

This book also came out in 2021. It’s context it discussing church fellowship in these times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rediscovering church after so many churches had to close its doors and rely on live streaming services. This seems to be a great book and it is great that some Christians took the time to write on these times we are in, when many Christians stopped attending church since 2020. The past 2 years have been a major challenge for the church.

Discipling: How to help others follow Jesus

Mark Denver’s 2016 book discusses what biblical discipling is and how it should function in the local church

Evangelism: How the whole church speaks of Jesus

I was just given this book as of April 14th by Pastor Jared Blue from my church. Jared is the pastor who went to Honduras in 2001 and appeared in 3 videos with me, which I shared a few months ago. He taught the class I was in and decided to give me this book to read with the 7 others. Book is from 2014.

Pastor Jared Blue and I.

Jared’s position at my church is the community life pastor. He is in charge of the Bible Studies I mentioned and helping leaders find a host home and helping new members of the church find a bible study close to them. He also has many other responsibilities too.

So far I have only read 2 out of the 8 books. I recommend all of the books if you are interested in reading these. The Rediscover Church book is the most timely and relevant.