Recommended BooksRecommended Books handwritten

To Transform a City

By Eric Swanson and Sam Williams

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Eric Swanson and Sam Williams have been working together with missional leaders from cities around the world trying to discover examples and principles of city transformation. This book is a call to action for spiritual and societal transformation. Read more.

The PRACTITIONER’S Guide: Building City Gospel Movements

By Tom White

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Built on Tom White’s three decades of experience leading movements of prayer, unity, and collaboration in cities around the world, this book is a must-read for serious practitioners engaged in emerging or existing city gospel movements. Read more

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

By Priya Parker

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Gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive, but they don’t have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. Read more

Seeing Jesus in East Harlem

By Jose Humphreys

Stay put

Written out of Humphreys’ experiences as a Puerto Rican pastor who planted a multiethnic church in East Harlem. A framework to help church leaders take discipleship seriously in their places, calling them to show up, stay put, and see what God is doing in their midst. Read more

The Next Worship

By Sandra Maria Van Opstal

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When multiethnic worship is done well, the church models reconciliation and prophetic justice, heralding God’s good news for the world. Enter into the praise of our king, and let the nations rejoice! Read more

The Economics of Neighborly Love

By Tom Nelson

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If we confess the gospel of Jesus, Nelson insists, we must contend anew with its implications for the well-being of our local communities. Together we can grow in both compassion and capacity. Read more

Beautiful Feet

By Jessica Leep Fick

Beautiful Feet

Join evangelist Jessica Leep Fick and women across the globe on this adventure of sharing Jesus with confidence and love. This upbeat, motivating guide will unleash what God has created in you to boldly and lovingly share Jesus. Read more

Kingdom Collaborators

By Reggie McNeal

Kingdom Collaborators

“These who have turned the world upside down have come here too,” (Acts 17:6). When Paul and Silas came to Thessalonica, they changed the community. How? By collaborating with God to bring his kingdom on earth. Will you collaborate on God’s kingdom work in your community? Read more

Mapping Church Missions

By Sharon R. Hoover

Mapping

Should we prioritize evangelism or works of service? Local ministries or overseas missions? What’s more important: giving our money or giving our time? Crisis relief or building sustainable, long-term ministries? And what about short-term missions trips? Read more

Oneness Embraced

By Tony Evans

Oneness Embraced book cover.

Tony Evans weaves his own story into this word to the church. Evans gives a biblical and pastoral guide for striving for unity across racial and socioeconomic divides. Read more

Tattoos on the Heart

By Father Gregory Boyle

Tattoos on the Heart book cover.

For twenty years, Father Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program located in Los Angeles. He distills his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith. Read more

Church Diversity

By Scott Williams

Church Diversity book cover.

Answers to racial tensions in our culture lie within the gospel of Jesus Christ who unified a multi-ethnic church to Himself. Challenges the church to embrace the multi-cultural unity and ministry revealed in the Bible. Read more

Transformation

By Matt Bird

Book cover: Transformation

Explores fourteen ways that God is at work through His Church in the UK and around the world to bring about transformation, and poses questions to help us consider how we can join God’s mission. Read more

To Change the World

By James Davison Hunter

Book cover: To Change the World

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? Read more

The Neighboring Church

By Brian Mavis and Rick Rusaw

Book cover: Neighboring Church

This book is flows from the practical experience of a local church that is leaning into the neighborhoods that are represented in their congregation in response to the Great Commandment. Read more

The Good City: Transformed Lives Transforming Communities

By Glenn Barth

Book cover: The Good City

This book explains how leaders develop powerful decentralized movements in cities through the formation of cross-sector collaborations that move the needle on critical social issues while strengthening their incarnational witness. Read more

The Art of Neighboring

By Dave Runyon and Jay Pathak

Book cover: The Art of Neigboring

This book draws on the success of a church campaign led by pastors in Arvada, Colorado to start at neighboring movement in their own community. Read more

Center Church

By Timothy Keller

Book cover: Center Church

Quintessential textbook for gospel communication and church engagement in urban settings from one of the most influential thinkers in the missional movement space. Read more

A Gathering Momentum

By Roger Sutton

Book cover: A Gathering Momentum

This inspirational collection of stories, of Christians in the UK bringing cultural, social and spiritual transformation to the places they love, will encourage and amaze. Read more

When Helping Hurts

By Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett

Book cover: When Helping Hurts

A paradigm-forming contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation. Read more

Unlikely

By Kevin Palau

Book cover: Unlikely

The inspiring story of an unlikely partnership between a band of churches and the openly gay mayor of Portland, OR, that led to unprecedented change throughout the city and launched a nationwide movement called CityServe. Read more

A Theology as Big as the City

By Raymond J. Bakke

Book cover: A Theology as big as the city

How does God see the city? What does Scripture have to say about urban ministry? Here is a biblical theology that will constantly surprise and challenge as you get a glimpse of how big God’s view of the city really is. Read more

The New Localism

By Bruce J. Katz and Jeremy Nowak

Book cover: The New Localism

Urban experts Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak reveal where the real power to create change lies and how it can be used to address our most serious social, economic, and environmental challenges. Read more

Show Up: Step Out of Your Story and Into Someone Else’s

By David Staal

Book cover: Show Up

A collection of soul–stirring, true stories about everyday people including a lonely old Army veteran, a boy in a wheelchair, and that strange girl from fifth–grade that will inspire fresh desire in readers to notice the unnoticed people around them and to make time for life at its best, person to person. Read more

I Once Was Lost

By Don Everts and Doug Schaupp

Book cover: I once was lost

How do people come to Jesus in today’s postmodern culture? This book records the insights discovered from listening to the stories of two thousand postmodern people who have come to follow Jesus. Read more

Every Good Endeavor

By Timothy Keller

Book cover: Every good endeavor

This book shows how excellence, integrity, discipline, creativity, and passion in the workplace can help others and even be considered acts of worship—not just of self-interest. Read more

Breaking the Huddle

By Don Everts and Doug Schaupp

Book cover: Breaking the Huddle

This book shows how huddled communities can become witnessing communities and then conversion communities, where evangelistic growth becomes the new normal. Read more