Books like Faith on the Edge — picked by fans

Let's get 'RE&AL' about grandparenting is the mantra of The Grandparenting Effect: 'Relationally Engaged' and 'Always Listening'! Well-documented research, thoughtful advice, engaging stories from a wide variety of grandparenting situations, helpful chapter summaries, ideas for grandchildren from toddlers to adults--plus prayers and bridge stories as well as timely help for conversations with grandchildren about race and cultural differences--this is an insightful and practical book for grandparents (volunteers, too!), pastors, and church educators to bridge the generational gap with wisdom and joy!

This book builds a well-constructed bridge from biblical foundations and educational theories to a multitude of practices in which every person in a congregation is involved in the Christian discipleship of children. The team of diverse writers are bridge builders who have crossed this bridge many times as insightful teachers and well-tested practitioners. From engaging children with age-sensitive and creative ideas for dealing with the ABC's of the gospel to often-neglected areas of children's ministry like grief, disappointment, and racial prejudice, this book will help educators, teachers, leaders, and volunteers in children's ministry give children a head start at lifelong discipleship.

This book is for pastors, lay leaders and professional church educators, and students who want to model congregational life on the kingdom of God instead of marketing strategies designed to appeal to generational narcissism based on individual preference. This is one book that will both encourage and equip congregations to be less 'conformed to the world,' less prone to say, 'I have no need for you.' This is a book that argues persuasively from solid research, as well as the biblical mandate, for congregations to really 'love one another.' This book is honest about the costly demands of intentional intergenerational development as well as its rich rewards.

This is simply the best book on biblical discipleship I have ever read, and I have read it multiple times in disciplining my own children, grandchildren as well as the college students I have taught for many years. The book is a devotional commentary based on the “Psalms of Ascent”, Psalm 120—134. These psalms are pilgrim songs to sing throughout a lifetime, as we journey from where we are and who we are, to being “brought to completion” as mature disciples of the Lord Jesus. This book is as honest as the psalms themselves dealing with both the hazards of the journey in times and places with people who are hostile to faith as well as the discouragements and confusion all God’s people experience when disappointed by God, emptied of hope and asking, “is this journey worth it?” Peterson’s pastoral heart and poignant wisdom in this book is a priceless… show more.

In the 1950s, Robert Coleman, then a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, was assigned to teach a class on evangelism. But he had a problem: he had no idea what to say. So he decided to pore over the four Gospels to discern Jesus’ strategy for winning people to his message. His lecture notes became The Master Plan of Evangelism.

The reach of The Master Plan since its publication in 1963 has been enormous. Billy Graham even wrote the foreword. But Jesus’ model of training a few was so alien to the operating systems of 20th-century churches and traveling evangelists that generations had no idea how to implement it. Not many books have been so widely read and so little applied. Yet if you only read one book on this subject, make this the one. And if you’ve already read it long ago, read it again.

Sarah Young writes as if Jesus is speaking to the reader, “All I require of you is to take the next step, clinging to my hand for strength and direction.” This book speaks to me, especially in difficult years. It brings me to an awareness of God’s comfort and love for me. Simple, short daily readings are based on scripture. Sitting with this book in the morning is like spending time with Jesus. 

There have definitely been times in my life that I wanted to quit! Can you identify? I keep this book handy for days like those, and every time I grab it and read it, my faith gets renewed and I get encouraged enough to keep going. This book shows how to develop faith that won't quit – and if we don’t quit, we win in Jesus! 

This book is now added to my short list of favorites. I believe it is a book for everyone. It is full of factual, logical evidence that explains the reasons why Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection are irrefutable. It is well written and not at all pushy. I wish everyone in the world would take the time to read this short book. It will surely inspire and change people's lives for the better!

If you’ve browsed my list this far, maybe you’re curious enough to peek into Mennonite theology, which truly is upside-down from the world we live in. Even though I’d been Mennonite all my life, this book, which I read decades ago, explained what radical Christian discipleship meant in a way I’d never fully understood. All those things that make the theology challenging—choosing pacifism, taking care of the least in society, living humbly instead of seeking power, turning the other cheek, forgiving when it’s easier to seek revenge—are also what make it transformative. If only living it were that easy.

Pullman sets out – and achieves, with his usual aplomb – to subvert the stories of Jesus, indeed to divide them: his Jesus and his Christ are two entirely separate figures. Pullman uses a deliberate echo of Biblical style, to show how the Bible stories are first and foremost just that: stories. To show how history became myth and then myth became faith. How the very hypocrisies that Jesus himself pointed out – people mouthing religious observances, without the accompanying good deeds – became an almost fundamental structure of the established church.