I have retired from a pastoral ministry and slimmed down my library. Most of it is now scattered to various places in this country and beyond. A recent questionnaire from Andy Goodliff asked me which book had influenced my ministry most. I found it an impossible question to answer. But I could think of a couple of influential books (limited for the time being to explicitly theological texts) for each decade of my ministry. It has proved to be an intriguing exercise and so I thought I would write a series of posts explaining which books I choose and why.
In the mid 1960s I moved to Oxford to study theology and prepare to be a Baptist minister. It was a time of great adjustment from a settled Christian background into a period of change for my values and convictions. The focus of my church had been on the need for conversion to Christ. It was shock to discover that was not the end of the story. My choice of books describes this, at times tortured journey to a different understanding of what being a follower of Jesus meant. Indeed much of my Christian journey has been about changing insights into Jesus and who he is. They were both published in 1962 and both tell a similar story of Christian engagement with the slums of New York. They are
- The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson
- Come Out the Wilderness by Bruce Kenrick
windingquest 