I got an urgent request for books that I would recommend for my colleagues at a forthcoming staff conference. A title is something but I have found for myself that a book is significant for its quantity and quality of quotable material, i.e. how much makes it into my journals. So here's my speedy top three with a quotation.
Gordon T Smith, Beginning Well: Christian Conversion & Authentic Transformation,
The [saving] work of Christ make conversion possible; even more, the actual focus and dynamic of conversion is that an individual comes to faith in Christ Jesus. Conversion is the act of believing in Jesus, choosing to follow Jesus and being united with Jesus as Lord and Savior. To be converted is to become a Christian. And the purpose of conversion is that we may ultimately be transformed into the image of Christ Jesus … In fact, conversion is the fruit of an encounter with the risen Christ himself, as witnessed to and experienced within a Christian community. Conversion is not the result of an encounter with truth or principles or spiritual laws; rather, it comes from meeting Jesus.Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life
...But what unites persons like C.S. Lewis and Sadhu Sundar Singh ... is their common evangelical conversion. Each has a personal encounter with the transcendent Christ ...It is an experience of "interior longing" triggered by some ordinary experience, yet the "object" of the desire is not found in those experiences... The experience of Lewis and Sundar Singh exemplifies a pattern of spirituality in which the transcendent and historical dimensions of the Christian faith are brought together without watering down either one or the other.Daniel Taylor, The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & the Risk of Commitment
Certainly these are the goals of the church, realized here and there, now and then. The parallel reality, however, is at the same time the church is an institution which operates, consciously or not, like other human institutions... The primary goal of all institutions and subcultures is self-preservation. Preserving the faith is central to God's plan for human history; preserving particular religious institutions is not. Do not expect those who run the institutions to be sensitive to the difference. God needs no particular person, church, denomination, creed, or organization to accomplish His purpose. He will make use of those, in all their diversity, who are
ready to be used, but will leave to themselves those who labor for their own ends.
