III. Are you looking for books that will help you grow deeper in your faith? We recommend the following: 

The following list correlates with one half of the KOINOS Christian Spirituality seminar series. Would you like to see the books related to the other half of this series? Would you like to see books related to other KOINOS series?

For books related to specific Christian Spirituality seminars, click on the seminar's title:

Introduction to Spiritual Formation
Prayer: Conversing with God
Discernment: Hearing the Voice of God
Silence, Solitude, and Sabbath
Spiritual Direction
Hearing the Word
Worship

Introduction to Spiritual Formation

For a deeper understanding of yourself, God and wholeness, read Wilkie Au and Noreen Cannon's Urgings of the Heart: A Spirituality of Integration.

In Invitation to a Journey, M. Robert Mulholland sets the stage for spiritual formation. He helps readers understand that the work of formation belongs to God, that we cooperate with God's grace, and that the context of the work is as important as the work itself. This is especially important for Americans who tend to be so self-centered that we automatically assume that our growth in grace is all about us. 

Marjorie Thompson's Soul Feast invites readers to the practice of the spiritual disciplines. Through these disciplines God's people can live out the spiritual life as God intended it. This is a balanced text which thoroughly integrates theory and practice with a greater emphasis on the latter. Protestants, whose background often doesn't include the spiritual discipline, will be grateful for this chance to rediscover them.

Daniel Wolpert's Creating a Life With God: The Call of Ancient Prayer Practices, with vibrancy and depth, introduces significant prayer practices and doing so. Wolpert makes accessible many ancient Christian prayer practices, dealing with tools such as the Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina, the Examen, and journaling. If these are new to you, you need miss out no longer. If you already use these practices, this book can bring you fresh insight, inspiration and integration.  Each chapter has excellent suggestions for using these prayer methods individually or in groups.

Life of the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen is subtitled Spiritual Living in a Secular World. This book is written in response to a friend’s request for a book for those who knew nothing about the spiritual life. Nouwen responds by writing the most basic message: We are beloved by God. We are the Beloved. He then explains that the Beloved are taken by God, blessed, broken and given to the world.
 

A Renewed Spirituality: Finding Fresh Paths at Midlife, by Lynne Baab, is a well-written combination of ancient practices with a modern application. Baab sought out ancient practices of Sabbath, Celtic and Benedictine contemplative practices to feed her own starved soul. While Baab wrote from a midlife perspective, her book is useful for all ages. Explore with her God’s calling to freedom and wholeness.

Prayer: Conversing with God

Enjoying the Presence of God by Jan Johnson provides ‘daily rhythms’ for increasing our intimacy with God. She offers methods for nitty- gritty prayer like ‘Finding God in irritating moments’ or ‘Loving God in anguished moments’. She offers skills to develop such as hearing God and dreaming God’s dreams and then suggestions for revamping ‘quiet time’. Johnson offers easy reading and practical help for all of us.

Clinging by Emilie Griffin is a poetic and beautifully written piece of musing on prayer. Her appealing chapter titles are: Beginning, Yielding, Darkness, Transparency, Fear of Heights and Clinging. Not a book for beginners, but one which one deepen your understanding of what prayer can become.

The Transforming Power of Prayer by James Houston (of Regent College) is foundational reading  for ‘deepening your friendship with God’. He highlights Paul’s words on prayer as well as insights from many of the ‘greats’ such as Aelred, Augustine, Calvin, Luther and C.S. Lewis to help us understand prayer through the experience of others. Houston is a rich, rich soul and his writing is well worth the time.

Thomas Keating, known for centering prayer, has written an essential book in The Better Part: Stages of Contemplative Living. After describingcentering prayer, he explores what life is like for one who prays contemplatively. He urges us to carry our contemplative praying into a contemplative life. He calls prayer a preparation for action and the perspective from which we interpret the events of our lives. This book is a treasure for those who want to really LIVE life, instead of hurrying through.

The Cup of our Life by Joyce Rupp is a rich group of devotionals using a cup as a symbol for holding our life and all its rich experiences. She envisions the cup (life) as open, chipped, broken, full of compassion and blessing. Her insights and poetic language will enliven a ho-hum devotional life and make you a Rupp ‘groupie’. She’s written several other books just as rich as this one.

Seasons of your Heart by MacRina Wiederkehr is a collection of prayers and reflections for the seasons of life. Wiederkehr’s seasons include: The Season of Wonder, Hope, Love, Mystery and Faith. Poems with fresh and frank insights into spiritual life intersperse short reflections which cover seasons of the Christian year as well. 

The Armchair Mystic by Mark Thibodeaux outlines four stages of prayer: Talking to God (liturgy), Talking with God (spontaneous prayer), Listening to God (meditation) and Being with God (contemplation). Although all four types are necessary, Thibodeaux invites us to go further and experience the latter two stages that most Christians never explore. This book offers a good guide for those wanting to expand their horizons in prayer.

Everything Richard Foster writes becomes a classic. His Prayer is no exception.

Discernment: Hearing the Voice of God

Inner Compass by Margaret Silf is one of the best books of the last decade. She takes the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius and makes them as accessible as Dr. Seuss. Using everyday language and rhythms of life, she helps us learn to hear God’s leading through our moods and hunches. If you want to learn to recognize God’s presence in your life and learn to make decisions accordingly, read this book. 

Hearing God by Dallas Willard is one of the most thorough books I know for learning how God’s voice has been heard throughout the Bible and the centuries—as well as today. God has not changed and we can learn to recognize God’s voice as well as anyone we know. Willard claims that God speaks through many sources but primarily through the ‘still small voice’ that one can only recognize by long familiarity in prayer. And it’s one of Willard’s easiest to read.

Paying Attention to God by William Barry and Patrick Carroll's  Inviting the Mystic, Supporting the Prophet are both books which interpret Ignatian Discernment (see reference to Inner Compass above) in ways that are both accessible and practical. Both offer valuable help in learning to recognize God’s voice and actions in our distracted lives. Barry writes from a perspective of prayer as personal discernment in the midst of the messiness of life. 

Silence, Solitude, and Sabbath

Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in Daily Life by Wayne Muller is one of the best books I’ve found for challenging our workaholic society and inviting us to the Sabbath rest God created. Muller invites us to tranquility, serenity, peace, repose, rest and healing stillness in taking time off regularly and attending to God. Instead of spending time off catching up on chores, he calls us to submit to the rhythm God built into the universe—Sabbath—the ‘spiritual glue’ that holds us together.

Wilderness Time: A Guide for Spiritual Retreat by Emilie Griffin explores the need for retreat time with God. Griffin gives us tips on how to get away and how to spend the time when we do. Using the spiritual disciplines approach, she separates Inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting and study from outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission and service to help us recognize how we can dedicate our retreat time. She then provides three Biblical character retreat plans to pick up and use—so we have no excuses.

Keeping the Sabbath Wholly by Marva Dawn is a Biblical and practical appeal to Sabbath keeping. She invites us to stop, rest, and recreate our lives. She tells stories from her own journey into faithfulness to keep a true Sabbath—one which disconnects from daily norms and refreshes by the absence of daily demands. And she is, as always, Scripturally faithful.

[ Home ] [ KOINOS Seminars ] [ What's New? ] [ Seminar Schedule ] [ The Link ] [ Seminar notes ] [ Ministry Resources ] [ Bookstore ] [ The Nest ] [ Spiritual Formation ] [ Pastoral Retreats ] [ Consulting ] [ Daily prayers ] [ Links to Other Sites ] [ KOINOS Services ] [ Contact Us ] [ Travel Directions ] [ Doctrine Statement ]