One of the main aims of Faithroots is to help train and equip urban pastors and church planters. You will find a growing set of teaching resources here aimed at those who want to serve, in whatever capacity in urban church contexts but for all kinds of reasons will not be able to access theological training.
In this article, I want to highlight some other resources, some foundational reading, I would encourage you to be getting on with. If you were here in the West Midlands with us, here are some of the books I’d be getting you to talk with me about each week.
The three books I’d encourage you to read are:
Athanasius: On the Incarnation
Augustine: On the Trinity
Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion
Each of these books have a few things in common.
- They are all older books. Sometimes we just have to go back to what was written a long time ago to get us away from the fads and foibles of our time.
- They are all pretty readable. Sometimes we can fear that because a book is old, because it is by a theological heavyweight and because it is considered a classic that it’s going to be tough going. Out of the three I find Augustine the hardest but all three were writing for readability and clarity. I think you will find them more enjoyable than you might have been led to expect.
- All three deal with some of the big issues around who God is and the nature of the Gospel. In so doing they anticipate some of the big theological issues and pastoral issues you will face
There is of course an even more important book you need to be getting into but we will talk more about that in a further post.
Faithroots 