M. Craig Barnes

Reading the Parables

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“It is easy to use the parables of Jesus as metaphors for our own agenda. But this book courageously plunges us into the role these ‘stories’ played in the first century, and along the way the reader gets a breathtaking new glimpse of the Word of God.”

Saying Yes to God

Christian Living

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Singing God's Psalms

Preaching & Worship

“The Psalms come alive when put to music. From the beginning they were given to express the high drama of life with God through song, which travels deeper into the heart than can words alone. Fred Anderson has long distinguished himself as a scholar of worship who also knows the challenges of putting together the Sunday service every week. This will be an often-used resource for any church committed to joining the deep tradition of making the psalter a hymnbook.”

The Church and the Crisis of Community

Church Leadership & Ministry

“Latini offers a refreshingly serious theology of small-group ministry. We have long needed this book.”

The Continuing Witness of the Missional Church

Evangelism & Missions

“It is impossible to understand the Missional Church movement apart from its pioneers, and no one has been more formative to its theology and practice than Darrell Guder. As he profoundly shaped my life, Dr. Guder has led so many into the profound joy of staying on the move with the gospel. These essays offer a compelling glimpse into ways his own life incarnated the call to be Christ’s witnesses.”

The Crucifixion of Ministry

Church Leadership & Ministry

“I have been in Professor Purves's classes as he lectured on this theology of pastoral ministry. I watched our seminarians move from dismay to embracing it as a surprising new vision of ministry. It was like witnessing the crucifixion and resurrection, which is his point. I have been a pastor long enough to know that without this vision of what Jesus Christ is doing in human lives, no one will last long in the ministry.”

The Story Luke Tells

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“It is wonderful to have one of our greatest current historians of Christianity writing about the church's first historian. Justo González introduces us to the heart and mind of Luke as a theological storyteller, revealing Luke's genius in writing a new history.”

The Undoing of Death

Preaching & Worship

“Fleming Rutledge has an amazing knack for finding your most cherished doubts about the Christian faith. She then lets the gospel encounter these doubts by unveiling your most cherished hopes. By that point in her sermons you realize that you are listening to the Risen Lord and not just the preacher.”

This Odd and Wondrous Calling

Church Leadership & Ministry

“This is not another 'how-to' book that reduces the mystery of pastoral ministry to simplistic formulas. . . The authors are often brutally honest about the church as well as themselves, but always compelling, and in the end so very hopeful about our calling.”

Why Did Jesus Die and What Does That Have to Do with Me?

Theology

“Fred Anderson is a pastor with a gift for making theological scholarship accessible to any thoughtful person who wants to understand the cross and its world changing significance. This book blessedly redeems ‘the atonement’ from being a divisive and exhausted debate to a compelling invitation to receive new life in Christ. It provides careful exegesis of Scripture and the theological tradition, which leads to insight on how this new life is nurtured sacramentally through Christ’s ongoing ministry as our high priest.”