Next Wave International™ is a faith-based communications group >which is training organizations to engage the future & move society forward in a positive direction. Founder / Director: Mal Fletcher
Reaching for the Invisible God Philip Yancey, Zondervan, 2000
The blurb on the back of this book says: "Life with God doesn't always work like we thought. High expectations slam against the reality of personal weakness and unwelcome surprises. And [God]… may seem remote, emotionally unavailable. Is God playing games? What can we count on this God for? How can we know? How can we know God?" Award-winning author Philip Yancey offers us help in our quest to face up to doubt and answer these deep and sometimes disquieting questions. In the end, God invites us to seek so that we will find. But the God we discover in the process is not always the one we first set out to find.
Paradise Lost John Milton, Penguin Classics
What can you say about this literary classic? Perhaps all that is left is to express how presonally feel about this work of art. Many people study Milton as part of their secondary school education. I did not. In some ways I'm glad of that, because it has allowed me to experience the power of this piece without any preconceived notions. And powerful it is. We shouldn't set our theology after a work like this; it was never intended that their purpose. But as an epic poem its influence can still be seen in English literature today and it does provoke strong feelings and moving mental images.
The Case For A Creator Lee Strobel, Zondervan, 2004
I read a lot and I can tell you that this is one of the best books I’ve come across in quite a while. During his academic years, the author became convinced that God was an outmoded idea. He carried that thinking into his award-winning career as a journalist with the Chicago Tribune. Like many people, he believed that science had made the idea of a Creator irrelevant. He demonstrates in this book, however, that science is now pointing in a very different direction. In recent years, an impressive body of research has increasingly supported the conclusion that the universe was intelligently designed. Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to falter in the face of concrete facts and hard reason. Strobel covers evidence for a Creator in areas as diverse as cosmology, physics, astronomy, genetics and human consciousness. The book is made all the more interesting by his device of recording interviews with major figures in each of these fields. The book is more a series of colourful and revealing conversations than a mere essay. That’s one of the things that makes it hard to put down. Now I’m looking forward to reading his earlier books, “The Case for Christ” and “The Case for Faith”.
Mosques and Miracles: Revealing Islam and God's Grace Stuart Robinson
A seminal work which traces the roots and history of Islam, compares Islam with Christianity and gives insight into sharing the Christian message with Muslim people
Worlds apart?: Christianity and the New Age David Millikan
Partly Right: Learning from the Critics of Christianity Anthony Campolo
The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics: A Grief Observed/Miracles/the Problem of Pain/the Great Divorce/the Screwtape Letters/Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis
...and anything else by C.S. Lewis….
Letters of Francis A. Schaeffer Lane Dennis
The personal correspondence of Schaeffer, answering existential questions of real people.
Jesus Among Other Gods The Absolute Claims Of The Christian Message Ravi Zacharias
Jesus in the light of Islam, Buddhism, etc
Church: Why Bother? Philip Yancey, et al
In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture Alister E. McGrath
Here is a unique book which traces the development of one of the icons of the English language - the King James, or Authorized, Version of the Bible. The author traces how this, the most influential of all Bible versions, came into existence: the cultural, religious, economic and political forces that combined to bring it to birth. The book also shows how much the KJV owes to the translations that preceded it, many of which were paid for in the blood of their translators. It is fascinating to see how the hand of God was working in all areas of life t a certain point in history to create a Bible which, though we may now treat it as something of a quaint and outdated version, has for centuries helped to shape the culture and language of English speakers around the world. In fact, as the author clearly demonstrates, the debt owed by English speakers to the KJV and versions before it is enormous. The impact of the KJV, and the Bible generally, on culture is what gives 'In the Beginning' it's special appeal for me. Napoleon said that the Bible is like a living force that moves everything in its path. Here is a well researched, clearly
presented and sympathetically though even-handedly related story of how just one version of the greatest of all books has rearranged history. A must for any history-lover, or anyone who longs to re-dig the wells of Christian influence in the post-modern West.
Can Man Live Without God Ravi Zacharias
I first read C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity when I was a teenager. I’ve since read it many times over. It stands the test of time, because it deals with the perennial questions raised by people who are trying to make sense of life in this world, and to weigh up Christian faith in light of those questions.
Ravi Zacharias has provided a book that reminds me of Lewis’ classic – no small praise, believe me. It is a brilliant apologetic for Christian faith, aimed specifically at a sceptical, but spiritually hungry postmodern world. One of my favourite parts of the book is the section near the end where Zacharias takes questions from students in major universities and, having by deconstructing the questions themselves offers insight into the questioner’s worldview before offering solutions.
