IVP Kindle sale! There are five books on sale right now. Four of them are $2.99 and one for $4.99
The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church From Western Cultural Captivity by Soong-Chan Rah – $2.99
227 pages, 14 of 21 reviews are 4 or 5-star
2010 Golden Canon Leadership Book Award winner!
The future is now. Philip Jenkins has chronicled how the next Christendom has shifted away from the Western church toward the global South and East. Likewise, changing demographics mean that North American society will accelerate its diversity in terms of race, ethnicity and culture. But evangelicalism has long been held captive by its predominantly white cultural identity and history.
In this book professor and pastor Soong-Chan Rah calls the North American church to escape its captivity to Western cultural trappings and to embrace a new evangelicalism that is diverse and multiethnic. Rah brings keen analysis to the limitations of American Christianity and shows how captivity to Western individualism and materialism has played itself out in megachurches and emergent churches alike. Many white churches are in crisis and ill-equipped to minister to new cultural realities, but immigrant, ethnic and multiethnic churches are succeeding and flourishing.
This prophetic report casts a vision for a dynamic evangelicalism that fully embodies the cultural realities of the twenty-first century. Spiritual renewal is happening within the North American church, from corners and margins not always noticed by those in the center. Come, discover the vitality of the next evangelicalism.
185 pages, 16 of 19 reviews are 4 or 5-star, Lending Enabled
Copastors Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken tell the story of how God took their thriving, consumer-oriented church and transformed it into a modest congregation of unformed believers committed to the growth of the spirit–even when it meant a decline in numbers.
As Kent and Mike found out, a decade of major change is not easy on a church. Oak Hills Church, from the pastoral staff to the congregation, had to confront addiction to personal ambition, resist consumerism and reorient their lives around the teachings of Jesus. Their renewed focus on spiritual formation over numerical growth triggered major changes in the content of their sermons, the tenor of their worship services, and the reason for their outreach. They lost members.
But the health and spiritual depth of their church today is a testimony of God’s transforming work and enduring faithfulness to the people he loves.
Honest and humble, this is Kent and Mike’s story of a church they love, written to inspire and challenge other churches to let God rewrite their stories as well. Read it for the church you love.
135 pages, 13 of 15 reviews are 4 or 5-star
How do people come to Jesus in today’s postmodern culture? Not by a mechanical, linear process of cookie cutter conversions. Nor by a nebulous spiritual wandering that never culminates in decision and commitment.
Over the last decade, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp have listened to the stories of two thousand postmodern people who have come to follow Jesus. While their stories are diverse and varied, certain common themes emerge. Postmodern evangelism is a mysterious and organic process that nevertheless goes through discernible phases, as people cross thresholds from distrust to trust, from complacency to curiosity and from meandering to seeking.
Everts and Schaupp describe the factors that influence how people shift in their perspectives and become open to the Gospel. They provide practical tools to help people enter the kingdom, as well as guidelines for how new believers can live out their Christian faith.
Practicing The Way of Jesus: Life Together in the Kingdom of Love by Mark Scandrette – $4.99
220 pages, 13 of 13 reviews are 5-star, Lending Enabled
Take a casual survey of how people practice their faith, and you might reasonably conclude that Jesus spent his life going door to door offering private lessons, complete with chalkboard and pop quizzes. We think about God in the comfort of our own minds, in isolation from one another; meanwhile the world waits for a people to practice the way of Jesus together.
Mark Scandrette contends that Jesus has in mind something more lively for us: not a classroom so much as a kingdom, where our formation takes place not only in our heads but in our hearts and our bodies, and in the company of one another, in a way that blesses the world we’ve been entrusted with.
In Practicing the Way of Jesus Scandrette draws from his experience as a spiritual director and leader of an intentional community, as well as the best contemporary thinking on kingdom spirituality, to paint a picture of life lived together, in the way of Jesus–which is another way of saying life lived to the full.
Small Faith–Great God by NT Wright - $2.99
177 pages, 11 of 11 reviews are 4 or 5-star
In the midst of life’s challenges, so often our faith feels small and weak. In this book one of the world’s premier Bible teachers, N. T. Wright, reminds us that what matters is not so much our faith itself as Who our faith is in.
Faith, says Wright, is like a window. The point is not for part of the wall to be made of glass. The point of a window is to allow us to see through it–and let light into the room! Faith allows us to see our situation and our own weakness in light of God who is powerful, holy and loving.
Wright also looks at the character of the faith God calls us to. He unfolds how dependence, humility and mystery all have a role to play. God beckons us to lean on him as we seek to be constructive citizens of the world, to speak truth in love without hypocrisy and to risk submitting to one another in love.
Wright doesn’t ignore the messiness and difficulties of life, when hard times come and the unexpected knocks us down. He opens to us what faith means in times of trial and even in the face of death.
Through it all he reminds us, it’s not great faith we need: it is faith in a great God.
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I have not read any of these books, so they may not be any good. Some of the IVP Kindle Sale books from previous Free Book posts or previous Kindle Deal posts are still available. If you want to see all free books as they come out you should follow Books on the Knob on their RSS or Twitter Feed. Or Ireaderreview or the many free book threads on Amazon’s Message Boards.
As always please check to make sure the books are still free or on sale before you “buy” them. Prices can change quickly. This may be a one day offer. Pick it up quick. If you do buy a book and realize later you have been charged for it, here is a guide on how to return a kindle book.
