When it comes to growing in faith and learning something specific for your life, the best resource for this is obviously the Bible. However, it might be beneficial to add in some additional materials that can deepen your understanding in certain and specific areas.

We thought it might be helpful to survey our staff and find out what books they recommend. Some suggestions are related to their ministry, while others are books that had a significant impact on their spiritual journey and drew them closer to Jesus. Check them out below!

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Cynthia Fluker – Kids Director

• The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family: Over 100 Practical and Tested Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Kids by Kara Powell: Presents more than 100 practical, easy-to-implement ideas to set your family on a trajectory of lifelong faith, including how to: handle mistakes and show forgiveness, connect and relate to your teenager, talk faith with your kids, build faith during downtime or on vacation, make your house a hub of faith, be a family of service, and more!

• “How to Human: Three Ways to Share Life Beyond What Distracts, Divides, and Disconnects Us” by Carlos Whittaker: Carlos describes a radical path of love—one that requires us to become builders rather than demolitionists. One that gets personal. One that moves toward others in faith rather than away in fear. One that, when times get crazy, is willing to get crazier (in a good way). One that understands the big joy of how to human.

Natalie Moore – High School Ministry Director

• “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World” by John Mark Comer: Too often we treat the symptoms of toxicity in our modern world instead of trying to pinpoint the cause. A growing number of voices are pointing at hurry, or busyness, as a root of much evil. Within the pages of this book, you’ll find a fascinating roadmap to staying emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world.

• “Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers” by Dane C. Ortlund: This book draws us to Matthew 11, where Jesus describes himself as “gentle and lowly in heart, and the chapters dive deep into Bible passages that speak of who Christ is and encourages readers with the affections of Christ for his people. His longing heart for sinners comforts and sustains readers in their up-and-down lives.

Teri Goodwin – Director of Creative Services

• “As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God” by Eugene Peterson: This is one man’s compelling quest to discover not only how to be a pastor but how to be a human being. This book offers a never-before-published collection of Peterson’s teachings over 29 years as a pastor to anyone longing for a richer, truer spirituality.

• “Unashamed: Drop the Baggage, Pick up Your Freedom, Fulfill Your Destiny” by Christine Caine: In her passionate and candid style, Caine leads you into God’s Word where you will see for yourself how to believe that God is bigger than your mistakes, your inadequacies, your past, and your limitations. You can deal with your yesterday today, so that you can move on to what God has in store for you tomorrow—a powerful purpose and destiny he wants you to fulfill.

Brian Wurzell – Executive Pastor, Weekend Experience and Creative

• “Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity” by Ronald Rolheiser: As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggests, “Live the questions now.” In Sacred Fire, Rolheiser’s deeply affecting prose urges us on in pursuit of the most holy of all passions—a deep and lasting intimacy with God. He shows how identifying and embracing discipleship will lead to new heights of spiritual awareness and maturity.

• “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer: Tozer calls the reader out of the spiritual apathy or religious intellectualism hindering them, and leads them out into a wild adventure with the God who calls Himself a consuming fire. All those whose hearts cry out, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:2) will find in this classic work a clear path to the real, intimate relationship with the Father that their soul is craving.

Jimmy Higgins – Student Ministries Pastor

• “The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives” by Dallas Willard: Willard presents a way of living that enables ordinary men and women to enjoy the fruit of the Christian life. He reveals how the key to self-transformation resides in the practice of the spiritual disciplines, and how their practice affirms human life to the fullest.

• “Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth” by Richard Foster: The book explores the ‘classic disciplines’ of Christian faith: the inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study; the outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission and service and the corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance and celebration.

Ron Nottingham – Executive Director of Operations

• “My Utmost For His Highest” Devotional by Oswald Chambers: One of the most popular religious books of all time, this devotional will encourage and move you to think more deeply about your relationship with the Lord.