As a church community, we want to always be reading things that will shape us, sharpen us, and equip us to live as a community in mission, rooted in the gospel.  We have many book recommendations on our website in various categories.  Let me encourage you to put some of these on your summer reading list.  I especially wanted to highlight two books that will be shaping our community this summer.

Many of us will be reading Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul Tripp.  This book does an excellent job of showing how every Christian is a person in need of change who is called and equipped to be involved in God's work of sanctification (growth) in the lives of others.  Personal ministry is something that every Christian is called to.  Tripp does a marvelous job of helping us see how the Bible is to be used in our ministry to others.  Rather than being an encyclopedia or cookbook to flip through to find the recipe for helping someone with a particular issue (relationships, depression, lust, work, etc.) it is a grand story of redemption with Jesus at the center.  Our task is to help people see themselves in that story and point them to Jesus as the answer to every issue they may be dealing with.  Tripp calls us back to the gospel and helps us to see the heart and it's response to Jesus as the root of every type of conflict we encounter.  You can find this book here.

In our Redeemer Gathering meetings we will be going through a teaching series by Tim Keller called gospel in life: Grace Changes Everything.  There is an accompanying study guide that you can find here.  This series helps us see how the gospel should transform our hearts, and then our communities, and then through transformed communities, the world.  To learn more about this series and watch a brief trailer, click here.

Happy reading!