Books I’m Writing this Year 4

If you caught my most recent interview with the guys at Salty Believer or my recent tweets, then this post will not come as a surprise.

I am working on three books for this year–two are already written, one I am presently editing.  I am incredibly excited about each of these books.

Strike the Match: Reflections on Mission, Innovation, and Leadership is scheduled to be published in May. Check out the cover HERE. This self-published work is a collection of my thoughts over the past five years. It is written in a very informal style, divided into three sections (mission, innovation, leadership), and unlike any of my previous books. If you enjoy what I write at Missiologically Thinking, then you will like this book.

Apostolic Church Planting: Birthing New Churches from New Believers is scheduled to be published in October with InterVarsity Press. Building upon my other two church planting books (Discovering Church Planting and The Barnabas Factors), this book makes a strong appeal for doing evangelism among unreached peoples that results in new churches. Judge this book by its title and subtitle.  It is a concise work, containing a great deal of material (including visuals) not found in my other writings. While it is written to compliment my other church planting books, I believe it is my most important church planting work to date.

The Ministry of Expansion by Roland Allen (title to be determined) is being published by William Carey Library. Last summer, Hubert Allen (grandson of the late Roland Allen) contacted me about an unpublished manuscript written by his grandfather in the 1930s. The manuscript has been resting in a dusty box at Oxford. Roland Allen, best known for Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? and The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, had a great deal to say about the non-ordained and the administration of the Lord’s Supper on the mission field.  He put many of his ideas into The Ministry of Expansion. If you are an Allen fan, interested in missions and ecclesiology, then you will want to check out this work that few people have read. I am editing this project. It will include some outstanding contributions by Hubert Allen and other international Roland Allen scholars.

In addition to these projects, I am hoping to release another free ebook. If so, it will be out this summer and written to pastors about leading their churches into a world where they themselves cannot go. If you caught my presentation in New Orleans last year, then remember when I spoke of standing on the bridge–to give you the idea behind this project.

Please pray for me as I work on these projects. Once they are published, my desire is that you would read them and help spread the word about these books. I am not just filling space when I write: I deeply appreciate you reading my books, sharing your reviews at Amazon, et. al., and telling others about them. It is truly an honor. You could be reading other material and doing other things. You could be talking to others in your social networks about other resources. Thank you for your support and encouragement; it means more than you realize.