Key How-to Books: Right Reading for Right Actions

Here are twenty-five “how-to” books published since our first such list was prepared (See September 10, 1976, issue, p. 20). Literally hundreds of books appear each year that are intended to provide practical help for Christian living and ministering. Naturally what is new and helpful to one reader may be tried and proven (negatively or positively) to another. There is no claim that this selection is the best of the lot; indeed, given the nature of how-to books, what’s best depends very much on who’s using them. What I have tried to do is mention some books that I think will be of practical assistance to those of our readers who are seeking help in the areas under consideration.

BEGINNING Tens of thousands have become Christians through the preaching of Billy Graham. His basic message is once again available in book form in How to be Born Again (Word). It is being widely publicized and one hopes that its message is taken to heart by many who have not previously come to know the grace of God that brings salvation.

CONTINUING Even as physical birth is only a starting point, so the new Christian needs to grow. Every word in the title of Richard Peace’s Pilgrimage: A Workbook on Christian Growth (Acton House) is significant. We are to be pilgrims, but too many Christians soon become settlers. Although there is plenty of text, Peace gives us a workbook with various devices to force serious interaction. We are to be Christian not merely in doctrine, but also in ethics, not merely in our relationship to the living Lord, but also to our fellow believers and our fellow humans. And Christians are to grow, not just up to a point from which we level off as in physical growth; our whole Christian lives are to be characterized by spiritual growth.

It is paradoxical that in a society where there is so much selfishness and boasting there is a wave of books both secular and Christian on improving one’s self-image or self-esteem. However, it was our Lord who told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Failure in the former is yoked with failure in the latter. Hence a book like Cecil Osborne’s The Art of Learning to Love Yourself (Zondervan).

Fundamental to continued Christian growth is the persistent, personal study of God’s Word. Better Bible Study (Regal) by A. Berkeley and Alveira M. Mickelsen is a good elementary introduction to the principles and practice of interpreting the Scriptures.

THE FAMILY Last year’s selection of practical books led off with what we considered a pathfinder on explicit sex techniques within a Christian context. Sure enough, others are travelling down the path. But Intended for Pleasure: Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage (Revell) is not a pale imitation. The authors, Ed and Gaye Wheat, have long had a popular cassette series on the subject and some of their work was incorporated into last year’s book, The Act of Marriage by the LaHayes. Tim LaHaye in turn writes an appreciative foreword to this book. Until something better comes along, one or both of these books should be in every couple’s library.

Sex is not all there is to marriage, and even singles can utilize Open Heart, Open Home (Cook) by Karen Burton Mains. The dust-jacket caption is, in this instance, apt: “how to find joy through sharing your home with others.”

There are so many books (and speakers) telling parents how to raise darling children that I hesitate to mention any. (What would be interesting is a study of the progeny of such authors, or even better. finding out from kids how they cope with “expert” parents.) With apologies for raising guilt-levels still further—things that seem so neat on the printed page turn out so messy in real life—I mention two books: Happily Ever After (Word) by Joy Wilt is, despite its cute title, a very down to earth book on loving children toward maturity. Sample chapter titles: “Mommy, I’m Bored!” and “Talking About You-Know-What” (Clue: go back two paragraphs). It is not as stuffy as its title, but psychiatrist Paul Meier’s Christian Child-Rearing and Personality Development (Baker) does not have a style quite to my taste. Nevertheless I’m sure it can be of help to many parents. Finally in this category I call attention to a book about a very specific, very important, but all too often defective practice: How to Have Family Prayers (Zondervan) by Rosalind Rinker.

THE CONGREGATION Individuals and families are not perfect, so naturally congregations aren’t either. But if the willingness of authors to write, publishers to publish, and the public to buy is any indication, many Christians feel that their congregational life falls far too short of the biblical ideal for comfort. If you are tired of drifting along, and challenged by hearing of vital congregations that really exist elsewhere, here are four books to look into. Survival Tactics in the Parish (Abingdon) by Lyle Schaller might seem too negative. It’s not. Schaller, who has visited more than four thousand congregations in the past twenty years, has a winsome way of giving very practical suggestions for understanding and handling problems that many writers barely mention.

If you missed the first wave of “church growth” books, or if they seemed too unrealistic for your situation, style, or system, take a look at Vision and Strategy for Church Growth (Moody) by Waldo Werning, a Lutheran. (I mention his denomination because it is not usually associated with the church growth emphasis.)

Local Church Planning Manual (Judson) by Richard Rusbuldt, Richard Gladden, and Norman Green, Jr. is very much a workbook with numerous forms adaptable by all types of congregations. It may be too complicated, so don’t consider it unless you are serious about improving your congregation and have learned that life, especially when it involves interpersonal relations, is complex.

For a systematic overview of the subject based on the classroom notes of a veteran seminary professor see Getting the Church on Target (Moody) by Lloyd Perry.

LEADING Ted Engstrom, executive vice-president of World Vision, has prepared two books, the second along with his colleague Edward Dayton, which can be of great value not only to leaders of congregations but in other kinds of organizations as well: The Making of a Christian Leader (Zondervan) and The Art of Management for Christian Leaders (Word). Reading books like these can’t make you a leader, but they can certainly help you be a better one.

COMMUNICATING How Can I Get Them to Listen? (Zondervan) by James Engel is an introductory manual on constructing questionnaires and other ways of obtaining meaningful data on how best to reach a target audience with a Christian message. It has a secondary value for those who will not use it professionally. All of us are bombarded with statistically supported claims; this book can help us be a little discriminating as to which claims we believe.

Another academic specialist in communication, Emory Griffin, writes more for the “common man” in The Mind Changers: The Art of Christian Persuasion(Tyndale). Winning people to Christ and winning believers to Christlikeness is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit, but the more we know of the ways that our God-given mind-changing mechanisms work, the better persuaders we can be.

PREACHING Here’s a short book for the preacher who feels he should read something but can’t spare the time to pore through a tome. A Guide to Biblical Preaching (Abingdon) by James W. Cox is both comprehensive and concise. It is packed with specific helps.

WRITING Robert Walker, Janice Franzen, and Helen Kidd have compiled and edited The Successful Writers and Editors Guidebook (Creation House). Fully eighty-five chapters by almost as many writers cover almost every aspect of the subject. Names and addresses of potential publishers are included, all of whom, I dare say, would join me in urging would-be writers to digest some of the information in this or similar manuals before rushing to the post office with their handiwork. Publishers are always looking for good and appropriate submissions. (Note well both adjectives as well as the adverb.)

EVANGELIZING Christians seem to be divided between those for whom personal evangelism comes easily and those for whom it comes hard, if at all. The former write books for the latter, which often reinforces the division. But maybe one or more of these will prove to be an exception. His Guide to Evangelism (InterVarsity) consists of eighteen articles first published in His, a magazine for college Christians. The principles are applicable off-campus as well. Redeemed? Say So! (Harper & Row) is by a dentist, Robert Plekker, rather than by a professional minister. I Believe in Evangelism (Eerdmans) by David Watson, a Church of England pastor, treats both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject in a very balanced and readable manner.

COUNSELING Lawrence Crabb, Jr. has a doctorate in psychology and a private counseling practice. But he doesn’t believe that counseling is just for professionals. His book, Effective Biblical Counseling (Zondervan) is aptly described as “a model for helping caring Christians become capable counselors.” His approach is a good balance between those who would leave it all to the professional and those who seem to deny any validity to the counseling profession.

More specifically aimed at the pastor who wants to take this aspect of his ministry seriously is H. Norman Wright’s Premarital Counseling (Moody). He outlines a multi-session approach complete with details on available aids and how to use them.

SERVING This category is last not because it is least. It may be least in the amount of attention it has received in the past few decades compared to other practical topics, but the book I have selected amply demonstrates that it is a subject of enormous importance for the biblical writers. I call attention to Ronald Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study (InterVarsity), despite disagreements with some of his exegesis and reservations about the practicality of some of his suggestions. If one does not like Sider’s approach, then the challenge is: come up with a better one. He marshalls too much Scripture for the question to be ignored by those who own Christ as Lord. Almost everyone who will read these lines is rich by the world’s standards even though few people think of themselves as rich. The Bible has a lot to say about riches and about the stewardship of wealth by those who are believers.

The other books that I have mentioned have basically been concerned with effectively sharing the riches that we have in Christ, something harder to do than at first appears. Sider’s book is about sharing our riches for Christ’s sake and for most of us this is harder still. But for all of the tasks to which God calls us we have his promise: “God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

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