Today’s post is written by Mark Clark. Mark is Senior Pastor of Village Church in Vancouver, a close friend, and co-creator of our courses The Art of Better Reaching and The Art of Better Preaching.

By Mark Clark

Religious people live, on average, seven years longer than non-religious people.

“Hold on, what?” you might be saying.

Fair enough. Let’s back up.

In his book Think Again organizational psychologist Adam Grant says that we can’t be afraid to be influenced by actual data in forming ideas versus what we thought was the case, or what we feel is the case or what we would rather be the case, in any given scenario.

For example, would we be open to changing our views on something we really believe in if data arose that said our prior conclusions had been wrong? Oftentimes we reject such data for a plethora of reasons, the most powerful of which is that we have become comfortable in our beliefs about things, and contrary data messes with that.

“When it comes to our knowledge and opinions,” Grant says, “we often favor feeling right over being right… we favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.”

This is a scary thought, but is proven over and over again in the realm of psychology, and as a pastor, I have seen it over and over again in ministry – whether that be people who hold hard against a theological conclusion that the Bible is clearly laying out because they have prior ideas, or behaviors that don’t line up, or people who have an interpretation of a passage and can’t stand the thought that maybe that isn’t saying what they thought it was.

We see this right now in our political debates online, whether they be about actual politics or the downstream discussions popular right now about vaccines, COVID orders, church and state debates, etc.

People have their views and they believe and promote data and ‘facts’ that support those views and ignore contrary data. It’s true about all of us.

People have their views and they believe and promote data and ‘facts’ that support those views and ignore contrary data. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

The lack of humility on one side or the other should be your first clue that maybe the person you are staring at isn’t open to think again or look at an issue from a different angle at all.

You know what they say: to a hammer everything is a nail.

To some people right now every idea, news story, piece of information they receive is only meant to fit into the narrative they have decided is true already, and that’s that. There is no convincing them otherwise. It’s a scary place to be, to be honest.

Jesus warned against people who aren’t so much deceived by others, though of course that is a part of this kind of person’s situation as well most times, but those who are self-deceived. And therein lies part of the problem: we don’t know what we don’t know.

Thus, I would say humility and open-mindedness to data and ideas is central to us as we find our way through this new world.

Which brings us to my point:

I want to turn this idea of ‘thinking again’ and aim it at an idea so rooted in the post-Christian west that I am sure it will mess with our brain a little. It is the idea that religion is good, indeed, great for society as a whole.

Of course the popular narrative of the western world over the last one hundred years or so, and especially the last 30 or 40 has been that religion is ‘poison’ as the famous atheist Christopher Hitchens used to argue. That religion creates war and atrocity, judgmentalism and racism, intolerance and ignorance, across the populace. Images of people denying science, hating others, doing violence against people, rule the day.

I grew up with this narrative. Not explicitly told me by people of course, but by osmosis. Through my education, reading, movies, television, the news, general conversations with friends.

This is the assumed truth of our western story. Atheism, or at least agnosticism, produces a better, more progressive society. Religion, a stunted or even backward trending society. So much so that in Universities and in the public square today it is just part of the unspoken story, and because it is thus, it also in some ways, goes unchallenged too.

This is the assumed truth of our western story. Atheism, or at least agnosticism, produces a better, more progressive society. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

But what if the data said otherwise?

What if your anecdotal story of that one religious uncle you know, or that one group on Facebook that time, was all called into question by the facts? Would you be willing to change your mind?

I don’t imagine a short blog post like this will do that, but let’s at least start the conversation. I would like to think you are open to ‘think again’ when it comes to this question, and I think you should, and here’s why.

The data tells us we’ve been wrong all along, and that story of the triumph of secularization is just plain false when we ask the question: how religion impacts and affects the cities, neighborhoods, communities, nations and individuals it exists within.

More pointedly, when the question is: does it have a positive or a negative impact on culture, the overwhelming reality is that it has a positive, not a negative one. In fact, it isn’t even close. The atheists are wrong. And by a long shot.

A STARK CONTRAST (see what I did there?)

Rodney Stark is one of the most celebrated and respected sociologists of religion in the world. “He has written over 30 books, and more than 140 articles on subjects as diverse as prejudice, crime, suicide, and city life in ancient Rome, and has twice won the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.”

In one of his books which I read recently he sketched out some fascinating conclusions based on detailed sociological data that are so contrary to popular opinion and the assumed narrative of the post-christian west that most will greet them with a filter of suspicion, or outright disbelief, but as we said above, that doesn’t mean they aren’t true – only that we may be victims of our own self-selected confirmation biases, fooled by our own carefully curated news, opinions and information, if not about a number of things in our lives, certainly in regard to the areas Stark explores using America as a microcosm example of the west at large.

So what areas does he explore and what are his conclusions? And what does it mean for us?

HIS CONCLUSIONS

There are a hundred and one things his data concludes which you can read for yourself in more detail, but here are some of the more interesting ones. And again, let’s remind ourselves, his conclusions are based on actual research done by an actual sociologist and his colleagues, not what passes today as research – i.e. a google search, and a scroll of your Facebook feed, and that website which has those Youtube videos by that doctor.

In his rigorous and pointed style Stark shows that the academic literature routinely ignores evidence of religion’s beneficial social effects. He demonstrates that religious people:

Are the primary source of secular charitable funds that benefit victims of misfortune whatever their beliefs
Dominate the ranks of blood donors and other prosocial behaviors
Are much less likely to commit crimes
Far more likely to donate their money and time to socially beneficial programs and to be active in civic affairs. (The impact of religious people on volunteering alone is an estimated $47 billion annually in the United States alone!)
Enjoy superior mental health – are deemed happier, less neurotic, and far less likely to commit suicide
Enjoy superior physical health – have an average life expectancy more than seven years longer than that of the irreligious
Read more than their irreligious friends and neighbors
Are less likely to believe in the occult, UFO’s, Bigfoot, etc.
More apt to marry, less likely to divorce, and report higher degrees of satisfaction with their spouse.
Religious husbands are far less likely to abuse their wives or children. This is of course contrary to the story that religions create systems of oppression in the home because of ‘male patriarchy’.
Religious fathers are more likely to be involved in youth-related activities such as coaching sports teams or leading Scout troops, etc.
Religious couples enjoy their sex lives more, women are more likely to have regular orgasms, and sex happens more often.They are also far less likely to have an affair.
Religious students perform better on standardized achievement tests, are far less likely to drop out of school, obtain better jobs upon graduation, and are far less likely to be on unemployment (the studies for all of these and especially this one and all surrounding crime stats, etc., factor in races/geographies across the U.S.)
In 247 studies done between 1944 and 2010: religion has a positive effect on society in regard to crime, deviance and delinquency.
Crime rates in the US compared to the decidedly less religious countries of Western Europe are glaringly less in many categories, with the exception of homicide rates: Denmark has nearly two-and-a-half times as many burglaries per 100,000 people, and is exceeded by Austria, Switzerland, the U.K., Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands. The same is true for theft, and assault rates.
Urban stats going from present-day back to the 1920s shows that the higher a city’s church membership rate, the lower its burglary, larceny, robbery, assault and homicide rates.

Stats going from present-day back to the 1920s shows that the higher a city’s church membership rate, the lower its burglary, larceny, robbery, assault and homicide rates. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

I point all of this out to not only because it plays a fascinating role in forcing us as individuals to constantly be open to re-thinking what we thought was true and why we thought it was so (a much-needed posture of humility is needed in this regard on both sides of the political aisle), but also to challenge the powerful, overarching narrative of our time – that God and religion have no place in society and that the real hope for us is fill in the blank: education, technology, the arts, science – as if those are antithetical to religion.

Not only is that a simplistic, reductionist narrative to sell the public, it is blatantly wrong.

The data not only doesn’t back it up, it actually draws the opposite picture.

That without religious people and groups, society as a whole, including most importantly, the marginalized, would be far worse off.

Without religious people and groups, society as a whole, including most importantly, the marginalized, would be far worse off. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

We see this reality play out over and over again. Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times wrote an article years ago wherein he explored the work of an unknown evangelical Christian doctor who ran a hospital in Angola, where the child mortality rate was the highest in the world. He raised his family in one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Kristof writes:

“Most evangelicals are not, of course, following such a harrowing path, and it’s also true that there are plenty of secular doctors doing heroic work… But I must say that a disproportionate share of the aid workers I’ve met in the wildest places over the years, long after anyone sensible had evacuated, have been evangelicals, nuns or priests.”

That of course doesn’t mean that religion is true, that is for another day – but it is to say, importantly, that skeptics need to be careful in their argument against Christianity and religion based on a purely social argument.

They need to tread far more carefully when they want to argue that somehow religion is toxic to a culture. It is not. See even the latest arguments from thinkers like David Berlinski, in his The Devil’s Delusion, a secular philosopher /scientist who sees a connection between many of our social ills and atheism, especially in the realm of the question of meaning, and how people absorb suffering.

Sure, ‘this’ or ‘that’ version of religion could be toxic, admittedly, it could lead to racism, or oppressive attitudes toward women, or minorities, etc. That is still true, and something we need to always be fighting, especially given that the central story of Christianity in particular is its central figure, Jesus, dying and serving to raise others up, not being opposed to any, but loving all.

Bad versions and applications of religion are everywhere, and we need to be weary of them.

Stark’s point is not that we should ignore those proclivities, but that we do need to get a far clearer and fuller picture of the positives of religious impact on the west in a cultural moment when the narrative around it is almost exclusively negative.

Bad versions and applications of religion are everywhere, and we need to be weary of them. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

CONCLUSION

I am not a sociologist, but I am a pastor which means I have a lot of conversations with people who are opposed to Christianity. A lot of them over the years point out how bad the idea of God is for the world.

That story is popular and well-told over and over again so much so that it lives in our consciousness as a fact.

I share this data to simply ask the skeptic to be willing to stop doing what they ask religious people to stop doing on the daily: spreading false-hood.

The idea that religion is bad for society simply isn’t true and it isn’t true in a hundred different ways. Are you willing to adjust your framework of the world and the question of God and the church around data versus what you have heard, or want to be true?

We all have to be willing to doubt our doubts and at least take a second or third look at the question of God as it relates to the experience of individuals, societies, cities, nations, towns, which of course, include your own communities, and be open to the idea that in the end the God hypothesis may prove to be harder to leave behind than we once thought, or, in the spirit of today’s arguments, we may not want to leave it behind at all, because it may be our only way to accomplish socially what we all desire.

You ever wonder why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., cited the prophets of the Bible in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, versus an atheist manifesto?

Because his larger vision, his dream, could only be accomplished by it being built on a foundation of transcendence.

That is what gave humankind it’s equality. The fact that it was made in the image of God. Not the state, or reasons of the social class, or because it was a more enlightened primate, or whatever other reasons for equality and justice we construct.

His argument, like Wilberforce and so many others before him, was that social good and flourishing was rooted in God. As others have pointed out, it wasn’t that America needed less religion, but better religion.

If we are going to reach the post-Christian west, we need to hold tightly to idea not that individuals alone need to come to know God, but that in knowing him there will be a horizontal impact on the world around it.

A good and flourishing impact that brings shalom even to people who don’t agree with it. Life-giving, not toxic. Serving, not taking. Loving, not judging.

Facts don’t adjust because we feel they should.

We are better to adjust in light of them instead of burying them beneath bias. The truth will set us free, Jesus said. Seems like it is setting others free as well.

Whether they appreciate it or not.

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Is Your Church Ready For Future Evangelism? Take The Free Church Outreach Assessment To Find Out.

Almost every church leader wants to grow their church by reaching more people.

As culture continues to change rapidly into a post-Christian era, though, itu2019s left many leaders feeling like theyu2019re not accomplishing their mission. For too many churches, things arenu2019t going as hoped.

After you complete the assessment, youu2019ll receive a detailed breakdown of your results and get access to a free teaching series that will help you take practical steps forward in each of the five areas.

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Take the Church Outreach Assessment now!”,”container_class”:””,”element_class”:””,”wrap_styles_border”:0,”wrap_styles_width”:””,”wrap_styles_margin”:””,”wrap_styles_padding”:””,”wrap_styles_float”:””,”wrap_styles_show_advanced_css”:0,”label_styles_border”:””,”label_styles_width”:””,”label_styles_font-size”:””,”label_styles_margin”:””,”label_styles_padding”:””,”label_styles_float”:””,”label_styles_show_advanced_css”:0,”element_styles_border”:””,”element_styles_width”:””,”element_styles_font-size”:””,”element_styles_margin”:””,”element_styles_padding”:””,”element_styles_float”:””,”element_styles_show_advanced_css”:0,”cellcid”:”c8551″,”key”:”the_pivot_ready_cheat_sheet_1602862985838″,”drawerDisabled”:false,”wrap_styles_background-color”:””,”wrap_styles_border-style”:””,”wrap_styles_border-color”:””,”wrap_styles_display”:”block”,”field_label”:””,”field_key”:”the_pivot_ready_cheat_sheet_1602862985838″,”id”:”1023_1″,”beforeField”:””,”afterField”:””,”value”:”

Is Your Church Ready For Future Evangelism? Take The Free Church Outreach Assessment To Find Out.

Almost every church leader wants to grow their church by reaching more people.

As culture continues to change rapidly into a post-Christian era, though, itu2019s left many leaders feeling like theyu2019re not accomplishing their mission. For too many churches, things arenu2019t going as hoped.

After you complete the assessment, youu2019ll receive a detailed breakdown of your results and get access to a free teaching series that will help you take practical steps forward in each of the five areas.

When youu2019re done, youu2019ll be far more equipped to accomplish your mission.

Donu2019t be discouraged. You can still reach people.

Take the Church Outreach Assessment now!”,”label_pos”:”above”,”parentType”:”html”,”element_templates”:[“html”,”input”],”old_classname”:””,”wrap_template”:”wrap”}];nfForms.push(form);

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Want more?

For more on how to interact with the post-Christian west as a Christian leader see our upcoming course The Art of Better Reaching.

If you want more help responding to the skeptics, check out my book, The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptics Challenges to Christianity.

I’d love to hear about 1 thing you’ve had to ‘think again’ about in the last year. While you’re responding below, please be kind. This is no place for outrage or toxic behavior.

The post Think Again: Why Religion is Good for Us appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: Think Again: Why Religion is Good for Us

The post Think Again: Why Religion is Good for Us appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Craig Etheredge: Be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have.

Questions

The restaurant was packed and busy, but we didn’t notice. We were deeply engaged in conversation. “But how can I believe that the Bible is true?” he asked. “I think it is just a bunch of good sayings and thoughts, but not without error, and I’m sure it has been changed over the years.” I had been inviting this person to church for months, and we had struck up a solid friendship. He knew where I stood with Jesus, and I knew where he stood. Often he would say things for the shock effect, but I never reacted. He liked that. On this day, we were tackling the questions he had about God, the Bible and eternity.

Many people have questions. The days when people just accept the fact of God’s existence or the reliability of the Scriptures are all but gone. Due to our pluralistic culture and the ability to travel and access information, the world is filled with many and various thoughts about God. Therefore, most people you share the Gospel with will have questions.

Now for many Christians, this scares them to death. Most of us feel woefully unprepared to lay out detailed arguments and intellectual support for the simple Gospel message. That kind of stuff is left to the scholars and experts. But you don’t need to be afraid of questions. In fact, questions are our friends. The more questions asked, the more we are talking about Jesus. The more we talk about Jesus, the more opportunity there is for God to work on people’s hearts.

In my experience, most questions that spiritually exploring people ask are either smokescreens or roadblocks. Just as a magician may throw smoke to cover up what he is doing on the stage, some people ask questions just to divert the conversation to something other than the simple Gospel message. These are stall tactics. Other people pose questions simply because they love to debate. They love the back-and-forth dialogue. They love to hear and make arguments. Some have a desire for learning, but they have no intention of actually placing their faith in Jesus. In each case, the person is using his or her questions as a smokescreen, but internally, there is no real desire to find truth.

There are also people who ask questions that are roadblocks keeping them from taking their next step toward Christ. They just can’t get past these questions, and therefore, they are stuck in their pursuit of Jesus. I truly believe my friend was hitting roadblocks the day we had lunch. He really had some issues he had to work through before he could legitimately pursue Jesus.

As you talk to your lost friends, it is important to pray God will give you discernment to know if their questions are smokescreens or roadblocks. For those who are throwing up smoke but have no real interest in investigating Jesus, you may not want to spend much time with them (Matthew 10:14 ESV). There are many people out there who are eager to hear the Gospel. Jesus said the field is “ripe for harvest,” (John 4.35 NIV). When those who are truly seeking get stuck on an issue, you want to help them explore the claims of Christ and find answers to their spiritual questions.

The Apostle Peter gives us some good counsel on this subject. “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” (1 Peter 3.15 NIV). Peter was encouraging a church that was in the middle of intense persecution. They lived in a hostile environment. Peter’s message was, “Be sure you are putting Christ first in your life.”

The strongest evidence for Jesus is your changed life. As people see how you live and how you love Jesus, it will help them deal with the questions they are facing. Peter goes on to say, “Be ready to give an answer.” Other versions say, “Be ready to explain it;” “Make a defense;” “Give the reason for the hope that you have.” We need to be ready and prepared to answer key questions of the faith.

Remember, if you are asked a question to which you don’t know the answer, it is perfectly appropriate to simply say, “I don’t know. That’s a good question. Let’s look into this together.” Then you can do some research, find sources and unearth answers that address this particular problem. You do not have to have every answer ready all the time. You just need to be prepared to share the Gospel clearly and be available to help your friend work through these vexing questions.

Don’t ever forget that you have the truth, and you have the Holy Spirit. You don’t need more than that.

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By Craig Etheredge. Used with permission.

The post Roadblocks or Smokescreens? appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: Roadblocks or Smokescreens?

The post Roadblocks or Smokescreens? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Jim Putman:

A few months ago I sent out an email to my readers asking them to share their number one problem when it comes to making disciples. I received many, many emails. A number of different themes came up as I read through them, but one thing in particular stood out.  A large number of you feel personally responsible when the people you are discipling either lose interest in, or turn away from God.

While it is very important to recognize that we do have a part in the discipleship process, it is equally important to recognize that we don’t carry the full responsibility for it alone.

Don’t let Satan try to tell you that you are not good enough, smart enough, or spiritual enough to disciple someone – it’s a lie.

The truth is there are three roles in the discipleship process. There is our role, their (the disciples) role, and God’s role. The Key Truth that I want you to take away from this is that we can and should only take responsibility for our part.

Now, I am certainly not saying that we can’t grow and become more skilled at what we do. We can. But there are a number of possible reasons for why a person might not respond positively to the gospel message, or to our encouragement or direction. For instance – in the case of witnessing to a lost person, perhaps we were trying to force something on the person that God was not in on. I’m not saying that God wants anyone to be lost – he doesn’t. But He does know each person’s heart. We may be only one in a series of steps they will go through before they surrender to God. Or it could be that God IS working in their heart, but they are the one holding back and refusing to respond.

We even have an example in the Bible of this happening to Jesus. In Matthew 19:16-22, a rich young man came and asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, knowing the young man’s heart, responded to him with truth and love, putting his finger right on the problem. The young man didn’t respond to the offer to become a disciple of Jesus. He chose to stay with what he knew and was comfortable with, rather than follow Jesus. Had Jesus failed because the man didn’t follow Him? Had he done His part perfectly? I trust you know that answer to those questions.

God is not dependent on our perfection to win someone He is working on. He is also not dependent on us to disciple someone perfectly.

God is not dependent on our perfection to win someone He is working on. That is so important I want you to read it again! God does not need us to perform perfectly in order to win someone to Him. He is also not dependent on us to disciple someone perfectly. This is where we go wrong every time. We forget that the people we disciple are not our disciples; they are Jesus’. And He will never stop working on them.

We forget that the people we disciple are not our disciples; they are Jesus’. And He will never stop working on them.

Don’t let Satan try to tell you that you are not good enough, smart enough, or spiritual enough to disciple someone – it’s a lie.  We can’t do the other persons part and we certainly can’t do God’s part. But we can only do our part- and God has, and will continue to, equip us for our part and for the work He has called us to do.

Subscribe to the Discipleship.org email list here to get blogs like this delivered to your inbox each week.

By Jim Putman. Used with permission.

The post It’s Not Your Fault appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: It’s Not Your Fault

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By Craig Etheredge: Not only will this world resist you, but this world will also tempt you. The culture will oppose you, and if that doesn’t work, it will try to lure you away from following Jesus by enticing you to sin. Jesus experienced both.

Those who opposed Jesus resisted Him outright, but He also was tempted. In both Matthew 4 and Luke 4, we see Jesus facing temptation from Satan himself. We will take a deeper look at these passages tomorrow, but know this… if Jesus faced temptation, you will too. Where do these temptations come from? We know that temptation to do evil does not come from God. “God never tempts us to do what is wrong” (James 1:13; Luke 11:4 ESV).

Look at how James answered that question: “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death,” (James 1:14-15 NLT).

Satan tempts by stirring up our own wayward and wicked desires to do wrong. Notice the aggressive language. When you give in to temptation, you are “dragged away.” You are no longer in control, but you are under sin’s control and that one temptation can lead to devastating results. Thoughts lead to actions. Actions become habits. And habits destroy lives.

You probably know people who thought they could play with temptation only later to be consumed and destroyed by it. There are three main areas where temptation strikes. “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world,”(1 John 2:15-16 NLT).

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The areas in which we are most vulnerable to temptation are physical pleasure, the constant craving for more things, and pride for what we have and what we’ve done. John is saying, “these longings don’t come from God, but are shaped by the culture around us.” Behind it, all is an intentional plan to destroy you and draw you away from Jesus.

Peter warns, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour,” (1 Peter 5:8 NLT). The struggle is real. The enemy is resolute and determined, but you can stand under temptation because God has provided you a way out.

Notice what Paul says about every temptation you face: “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure,” (1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT).

The temptations you face are common to everyone. Your enemy is not very creative. He uses the same temptations over and over. We all face them, but notice – God is faithful. Faithful means 100 percent. That means that God is faithful 100 percent of the time!

Faithful to do what? God is faithful to ensure that you are never tempted beyond what you can handle in His power. He is faithful to show you a way out every time you are tempted. There will always be an exit sign; you just have to take it.

By Craig Etheredge of discipleFIRST. Used by permission.

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Source: The Lure of Temptation

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by Jim Putman: If you have read my books or posts or listened to my sermons, there should be no doubt in your mind that I believe discipleship begins with and is sustained by relationship. However, disciple makers also must be ready to give an answer, defend the faith, and teach their disciples the truth of the Bible in a world determined to provide a culture that is dramatically different than the one Jesus left for us.

The Bible needs to be our starting point, and it needs to remain our compass and guide for every step along the way. We live in a time when we have access to unlimited resources for spiritual growth- but we need to be wise in what resource we choose and make sure it is aligned with God’s word.

I have put together some resources that I believe are both helpful and aligned with the Bible’s teaching – you won’t know everything when you begin to disciple people, but the following resources are a good starting place.

I have listed several books for different topics below.

Sharing with the Spiritual Dead:

Unbelievers often have serious questions about complex issues. Many times our best answers will be our stories of how God has changed our own lives – we also need to be ready with answers to some of the tough questions spiritually dead people might ask us about faith and life itself.

(I am linking the books to Amazon – however we are not affiliated so feel free to purchase them wherever)

Defending the gospel:

I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. 
The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus
The Reason For God; Belief In The Age Of Skepticism
Know Why You Believe 
Evidence That Demands A Verdict
The Case For Christ 
Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense 

Authority of Scripture:

God Wrote a Book
The Last Word: Scripture and the Authority of God

How Christianity Differs from Other Faiths

So What’s the Difference?
Basic Christianity
Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Dealing with Past Hurts

Healing is a Choice
Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts
Shattered Dreams: God’s Unexpected Pathway to Joy
Where Is God When It Hurts?
Sharing with Spiritual Infants:

Spiritual infants need a disciple maker to share life with them, to help nurture and protect their new spiritual life. They will need help to see two key aspects of their new faith.

The spiritual realities behind the world they see (a Biblical Worldview)
How spiritual transformation happens

Developing a Biblical Worldview:

How Now Shall We Live?
Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews
The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog
Can Man Live Without God

Spiritual Transformation

The Purpose-Driven Life
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ 

Jim Putman, author of this blog, has written with Chad Harrington a primer called The Death of Discipleship about the danger of pride and importance of humility in disciple making. Download this free resource here.

Connecting with Spiritual Children

Children are generally eager to learn, and a wise disciple maker will help connect them with teaching that will help them grow. Spiritual Children should not be spoon-fed – this is a time where they are beginning to learn how to feed themselves. Offer suggestions and guide them, and if necessary, help them digest the bigger pieces of what they are learning.

Who They Are in Christ

The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness
The Ragamuffin Gospel

How to Have a Relationship with God

Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God
Power Through Prayer
The Pursuit of God

Maintaining Healthy Relationships

The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts.
Love and Respect
The DNA of Relationships

How to Spiritually Feed Themselves

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
Bible Study Methods

The Importance of Connection:
A Growing Understanding of the Church

The Safest Place on Earth: Where People Connect and are Forever Changed
The Emotionally Healthy Church
On Mission with God

Ministering with Spiritual Young Adults

At this stage of spiritual growth, disciples generally have a circle of influence in their ministry. As you disciple spiritual young adults, you may find that many of the previously selected resources continue to be helpful now a deeper level of study and discussion.

Doctrine and Theology:

Heaven
Bible Doctrine
Mere Christianity
More Than a Carpenter
Knowing God

Church History:

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity
What if Jesus Had Never Been Born
The Rise of Christianity

Life Management:

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say no to Take Control of Your Life
Your Money Counts
Rich Christians in a Age of Hunger
Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives

Doing Ministry:
Leading Small Groups, Identifying Spiritual Gifts

Lead Like Jesus
The Master Plan of Evangelism
Soul Talk: The Language God Longs for us to Speak
Truth That Sticks
Masterlife: A Biblical Process for Growing Disciples

Dealing with Gender Issues:

Out of a Far Country -A Gay Son’s Journey to God
Holy Sexuality and the Gospel

Written by Jim Putman

This was originally posted on Jim Putman’s blog here. Used with permission.

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Source: Recommended Resources for Disciple Makers

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