2009 Preaching Survey of the Year's Best Books for Preachers

Practical advice is offered to ministers in a short volume that fills a gap in the existing literature. In Visit the Sick: Ministering God's Grace in Times of Illness (Day One), Bryan Croft offers the kind of advice that should be passed down from one faithful pastor to another but seldom is. Pastors of long tenure and those just beginning in ministry will alike find this volume to be of genuine assistance.

Facing one of the greatest challenges now found both internationally and here in the United States, Patrick Sookhdeo offers a cogent analysis in The Challenge of Islam: To the Church and its Mission (Barnabas Fund). Sookhdeo, born in Guyana South America to a Muslim family, understands this challenge and offers the kind of analysis that seems all too rare in these days.

Entering into contemporary debates about worship, Bob Kauflin leaps over the mundane and miniscule and goes immediately to the heart of the matter in Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God (Crossway). I have met few persons who understand worship as biblically and comprehensively as Bob Kauflin. This book is, in my estimation, indispensable for preachers and church leaders who want to understand what worship is, biblically defined, and how music fits within worship—all this before one even considers so many of the controversies that mark today's church and contemporary Christianity. As Kauflin makes clear, the problem with most approaches to worship is that it begins with taste rather than with theology. Kauflin reverses this and offers principals that will apply to every church, making it helpful in every congregational setting.

Finally, I will simply mention that I have released four books this year that I hope will be of encouragement and assistance to pastors. These include He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World (Moody Press),Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues with Timeless Truth (Multnomah), Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheists (Crossway) and Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance (Multnomah). I, along with the other authors cited in this essay, will hope that these works serve the cause of Christ and encourage the church and its pastors.