Tod Bolsinger

… And the Church Actually Changed

Church Leadership & Ministry

“Graham Standish offers pastors hope that they can lead change, humor that chides us out of our sullen stubbornness, and wisdom for navigating some of the most difficult terrain of pastoral leadership. This is a fun and insightful book that will inspire as it instructs.”

A House United

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Raised in conservative farm country, educated in liberal graduate schools, and having pastored congregations in settings across the entire country while teaching in both liberal arts colleges and theological seminaries, Allen Hilton is uniquely qualified to convene this most critical conversation. In a world that is becoming more sorted, enclaved, and factioned, Hilton dares to believe that if we really hear the words of Jesus, we can learn to come together in unity for the common good of the world. And not only can we, we must. With a scholar’s insight and a pastor’s heart, Hilton enters the fray and brings empathy, insight, winsomeness, and a bit of prophetic impatience to remind the followers of Jesus that we follow the divisiveness of our day at our own peril. Calling people of faith who have allowed the divisions of tribe and temperament to create chasms of distrust, this book is both bracing and encouraging, challenging and empowering. If you are a Christian leader, yearning to help your people be light in the darkness, make this your next read.”

A Lived Theology of Everyday Life

Christian Living

“Michael DeLashmutt has given us all a rare gift. Most practical theology books are texts that teach about practical theology or treatises on the theology of ministry practices. This book is written by a theologian and priest who believes and demonstrates that God speaks on the ‘practice’ of all of life. For anyone seeking to look at all of life through a God-formed lens this book serves as both docent and tutor—both showing and telling.”

Attentive Church Leadership

Church Leadership & Ministry

“With insight (and lots of stories!) borne of their own work consulting, leading, coaching, and teaching leaders across the country, Kevin Ford and Jim Singleton offer us Attentive Church Leadership, which exhorts church leaders to discern and truly pay attention to what matters most in a deeply disrupted, often anxious, and rapidly changing world.”

Becoming a Person of Welcome

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Calling in Context

Work, Money & Leadership

“Before the end of the introduction you will discover why Dr. Susan Maros is one of Fuller Seminary's most respected and popular professors. By the end of the book, you will realize that almost all your assumptions about how God calls a person will be challenged. Filled with biblical reflections that will cause you to reconsider what you think you know, and stories and studies that will encourage you to rethink what you believe to be settled about the way vocation is formed, this book disturbs and deconstructs, and then provides wisdom and a way for reconstructing perhaps the most personal moments in a Christian's life. I heartily recommend it.”

Compelled

Church Leadership & Ministry

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Creating Cultures of Belonging

Work, Money & Leadership

“Writing in a candid, collaborative, mutually amplifying style that exemplifies the very leadership they commend, Beth Birmingham and Eeva Sallinen Simard offer a book that is desperately needed. In turns both challenging and empowering, it is not only a compelling argument for shared egalitarian leadership in mission agencies but also research-based, theologically grounded, systemic instruction for equipping leaders who default to exclusionary models they have previously seen and in which they have been trained. This is a guidebook to a healthier, more God-honoring way of creating an increasingly effective and flourishing organizational culture. I will be recommending it for my clients, requiring it for my students, and rereading it myself.”

Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“For leaders who care as much about the state of their souls as the fruitfulness of their service, Ruth Haley Barton could be the most trusted advisor. Her wisdom, experience, and honesty shines through and offers an example of the challenge of developing a deeply rooted, healthy way of living and leading. Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest offers spiritual guidance for leaders who know deep in their bones that they need a way of being that is more intentional, reflective, practical, and restorative. Take a deep breath, be prepared for all that will be stirred up, and then bask in the teaching of this profoundly beautiful book.”

Lead Like It Matters to God

Work, Money & Leadership

“In a time of crisis when the very values that make up 'Christian' leadership seem to be woefully rare, Rich Stearns is one of the voices that I most need to speak into my own life and leadership. A former corporate CEO and a twenty-year president of World Vision, Stearns is a tested and trusted leader who offers us a way back to a vision of leadership that is worthy of wholehearted commitment. Like reading the personal journal of a courageously candid mentor, Rich Stearns opens his heart and shares his own experience in the struggle of becoming—and remaining—a leader who demonstrates the values of what matters most to God. I will return to this book again and again.”

Life in Flux

Christian Living

“This book is a life jacket, a compass, a sextant, and a steady voice of calm for anyone trying to navigate the storms of a life in flux. I am going to be assigning it to every one of my students and recommending it to every one of my clients. O’Donnell and Slayton have brought years of deeply attentive listening, wide-ranging scholarship, leadership experience, and their own authentic vulnerability to guide people through the most turbulent moments of life. You’ll want to read, reread, and pass along the wisdom of this book to anyone in your life who is facing rough waters.”

Live the Questions

Christian Living

“Part personal reflection, part Ecclesiastes-like commentary, part Ignatian Spiritual Exercises for training in faith that forms a genuine life, Jeff Keuss's book displays the practiced wisdom and gentle realism that comes from having looked into the eyes of both idealistic students and cynical adults. Life is not about certainty, he writes, but confidence borne of a courageous questioning—a pursuit that is tutored by philosophers, artists, and prophets, and deepened by divinely inspired questioners in the Bible itself. If you are ready for a more authentic faith and a more meaningful life, then Professor Keuss is the right guide and his book is a good tool.”

Preaching the Gospel of Justice

Preaching & Worship

“In a day when many wonder if preaching is little more than a solo performance of self meant to build a platform of personal followers, Dr. Jennifer Ackerman offers us a call, instruction, and demonstration of preaching at its most communal, transformative, collaborative, embodied, and proclamatory. It breathes the gospel. It exudes good news. It teaches skills and gives instructions that are often neglected. Best of all, it practices what it "preaches." In Psalm 85, truth, love, justice, and peace all come together in one lyrical affirmation. This book gives us a glimpse of what that kind of preaching could be, and hope that we preachers can learn to offer it. It is a celebration of what a community of proclamation and demonstration can form in both preachers and their congregants.”

Reciprocal Church

Children & Youth

“Beware. This is not a youth ministry book, but a church leadership book. It is not about keeping our kids, but changing our churches. It's not about discovering a new secret for growing your youth group, but recovering an old truth about transforming your community of faith. With a love for young people borne out of years of ministry and a penetrating theological gaze honed in years of scholarship, Sharon Galgay Ketcham challenges church leaders to grasp the moment and the opportunity that is upon us as we experience droves of young people leaving the church behind. With the wisdom of one who has both worked in churches and walked alongside hundreds of youth and young adults, Ketcham helps us see how the very things that young people are leaving the church to look for is our birthright and calling. Their longing for reciprocal relationships forces us to reconsider everything we assume that the church is supposed to do. Reciprocal Church will require you to rethink everything you think you know about youth ministry and everything you forgot about being the church.”

Road to Flourishing

Work, Money & Leadership

“'When a Christian-led team is working together, it's supposed to flourish while the whole world is watching and thereby lead it to Jesus,' writes Al Lopus, and in this book he gives us a lifetime of experience and insights to accomplish that very task. Filled with stories that instruct and inspire, with insights that both reveal the keys to a healthy workplace and the steps leaders can take, this book is both a trustworthy tool and a great gift.”

Sacred Pace

Christian Living

“As part of a seminary leadership team, I know how important it is to make decisions in God’s timing, rather than our own. The principle of ‘getting neutral’ that Terry has described in this book is so valuable in that process, which is just one of the reasons I have enjoyed reading Sacred Pace.”

Struggling with Evangelicalism

“Part memoir, part sociological study, and part theological reflection, this honest and winsome book is for any Christian who uneasily identifies with historical evangelicalism. Reframing it beyond the brand that has become increasingly problematic, Dan Stringer uses his own life experience, which has stretched beyond North American contexts and assumptions, to both call and equip those of us who inhabit evangelicalism to the shared task of attending to—and renewing—our own space. As one who has been uneasy with the evangelical moniker, even while being firmly part of its institutions and community, I am grateful for perspective he brings in this timely book. I believe many others will be too.”

The Expectation Gap

Christian Living

“Most of us were taught somewhere along the way the idea that Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. But what if my relationship with God has not turned out the way I expected? John Calvin taught that all “true and sound wisdom” comes at the intersection of “the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self.” The Expectation Gap helps us understand how to grow in this true wisdom. Steve compellingly challenges clichés about God and relationships and what it means to be in a growing relationship with God. If you’re open to taking an honest look at yourself, this book will surely encourage you.”

The Gravity of Joy

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“A searingly honest, devastatingly painful, profoundly wise—and beautiful—book. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. Angela Gorrell is a scholar with the courage of the most authentic memoirist. She generously and unflinchingly brings the theological discussion of the most sublime subject—joy—right into the middle of the mess of life and lets it unfold in surprising and wondrously disrupting ways.”

The Resilience Factor

Work, Money & Leadership

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)