TL;DR: I read a lot of books, including far more than I have time to feature individually on the podcast or Substack. So I’m continuing with a monthly book roundup: a quick look at what I’m currently reading, what I’ve recently finished, and a few ideas from those books that have stuck with me.
What I’m Reading Right Now
Socially Awkward Evangelism: Overcoming Fear in Sharing the Gospel by Mark Teasdale
This is book I was excited to check out and is so far leaving me fairly disappointed. The line that perhaps best encapsulates by disappointment is this:
“Moving from spiders to evangelism… (78)”
Obviously this is just a short snippet, but it illustrates what the book is about—tips for overcoming one’s anxiety around sharing the gospel. In this instance, Teasdale offers some comparison to anxiety most people feel about spiders to the anxiety most people feel about sharing the gospel.
He even offers some psychological frameworks to put this into practice, such as ACT, which “recognizes that it is anxiety producing to run through thickets while racing horses, but it also insists that avoiding this will not protect us from pain. It gives us the tools to harness our anxiety and use it to share the word God has given us regardless of how intense the is in doing so. (55).”
I mean, again, I’m just not sure what to do with this and I don’t know how in the world it’s anywhere helpful, faithful, or accurate to compare sharing the gospel with spiders or running through thickets. Like, the gospel is good news, and Teasdale’s methods here speak so much to the sort of command and control style of evangelism that I think does far more harm than good. The style of evangelism that I teach is much more relational and trusting, and Teasdale does acknowledge that “Evangelism is always done within a trusting relationship (89).
But I’m just not sure how comparing sharing good news with scary anxiety is really aligned with what the gospel is—good news. I much prefer the way of evangelism that Andrew Root talks about in his book Evangelism in an Age of Despair. See my conversation with him below:
What I’ve Just Read
A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism by Mildred Bangs Wynkoop
Having read another book by Wynkoop, her short and punchy "Foundations of Weslyan-Arminian Theology, I was excited when I saw this fulerer book on the shelves in the church library. And, while Wynkoop had many interesting things to say, I found it to be dry and somewhat over my head, perhaps as someone not schooled in Wesleyan theology.
More so, I’ve learned that I just struggle with systematic theology books, and while most such books really aren’t meant to be read straight through, that is how I like to read. Meaning, I much prefer books that explore a single premise entirely throughout, which is probably why I like Root’s books so much.
That’s not to say I didn’t find anything helpful. I interact with a couple of her quotes in a forthcoming post, plus in her chapter on “Man” she shares thought like this that I found quite intriguing:
Love does not end in a self cut off from God and others. The tragedy is that love does not end. Hell could eventually burn out without ending the passionate desire of men for fellowship. But hell, whatever else it may be, is perpetuated and stoked by a yearning that cannot be satisfied. (146)”
I’m not sure how much more I’ll read on Wesleyan theology in the near future—I’m nearly through a stack of books given to me by the associate pastor at the UMC church I attend (plus having added a couple on my own) and I’m trying to get back into some from my own Stone-Campbell tradition, but I’m intrigued/curious as to how the differences in Wesleyan theology have played out in various Wesleyan traditions.
At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education edited by Corwin Malcom Davis and Ted A. Smith
This is a book I’ve had sitting on my stacks for a while now and was excited to get to—thinking it would be more like Smith’s previous work The End of Theological Education. This book instead was an edited compilation I frankly did not understand or see the point.
As to my previous point above, I don’t much like compilation books, save when they are edited to have a similar voice/flow like Skills for Safeguarding.
This book instead featured different authors talking about theological education from their own unique contexts, but I really didn’t understand who these people were or why their observations were so unique or important.
Maybe I missed something?
Sermon Treks: Trailways to Creative Preaching by Ronald Allen
Here’s another book I’ve had sitting on my stacks for sometime and thought it would be more compelling. There were a couple useful ideas I’ve saved regarding preaching through the Christian year, but the book was sort of weighed down by essentially two chapters covering the same thing in explaining the Christian year.
The Starter’s Way: Leading New Contextual Christian Communities edited by Ed Olsworth-Peter and Dwight Zscheile
This book basically discusses a new discernment framework published in 2021 by the Church of England to assist in the vocational journey of those called to lay and ordained ministries. The framework was a shift away from “criteria to be met” and a move toward “qualities to be inhabited.” …the old criteria focused on the self, they were predominantly describing “doing.” … [the] new framework… was asking questions of “being.”
I found the opening discussion of these fifteen points quite intriguing, especially I’m one who has done new-church work and it was readily apparent even then that the old metrics of attendance and giving just don’t adequately measure the efforts or faithfulness of the ministry leader—they are far more “lag” metrics than “lead” measures, and I think these fifteen points offer a much more realistic and faithful framework by which to evaluate new ministries and their leaders.
Again, this was an edited book and again I really don’t like edited works that much. One thing I wished had been different is that, for the most part, each chapter/section was about describing what the metric was rather than describing what the evaluation metric might look like within a new ministry context. I would have found that more helpful.
Peace Be With You!: My Words to the Church and to the World by Pope Leo
This was basically a compilation of Pope Leo’s sermons from recent years. I saw it at the local library and decided to read it. Nothing too compelling, but tying back to that evangelism book above, Pope Leo did note that “Evangelization… is not our attempt to conquer the world, but the infinite grace that radiates from lives transformed by the Kingdom of God (121).”
This is much more in line with what Root writes about and the kind of evangelism that I seek to practice and teach.
And Coming Soon on the Podcast…
If you’re not doing so already, please subscribe to the Future Christian podcast for feature-length conversations with authors and church leaders.
I have interviews scheduled with Margaret Marcuson and Francisco Herrera, plus Martha Tatarnic and I are putting together an AI roundtable episode with Ryan Panzer and Peter Levenstrong.
Mildred Bangs Wynkoop made major contributions to theology among the Church of the Nazarene and other Wesleyan theologians. She opened new doors of thinking about aspects of holiness. Not a book many come across today but an important one. Her brother with whom I worked for many years, Carl Bangs, wrote a fine biography of a founder of the Church of the Nazarene, Phineas F. Bresee: His Life in Methodism, the Holiness Movement, and the Church of the Nazarene (1995).
Would be interesting to listen to Francisco