In only 15 days, ESN will be joining 18,000 of our closest friends at Urbana 12, InterVarsity’s triennial missions conference. As in years past, we’ll have an exhibitor table, and I’ll be hosting a seminar on “Serving Christ as a Professor.”
One of my favorite things about conferences is learning about new books —or, even better, old books that I somehow hadn’t known about. Most of the attendees at Urbana are undergraduates, so the conference is a great opportunity to send them away with a fresh reading list for the new year.
What books about the life of the mind, the academy, and spiritual formation should we recommend? Here are the ones we suggested at Urbana 09. Do you have any to add?
Note: Several of the books below feature links to Amazon, but we strongly recommend you order from “friend of ESN” Hearts and Minds Books or the local bookstore of your choice.
The Life of the Mind
Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Finding God at Harvard (Rev. Ed., IVP, 2007)
C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” published in The Weight of Glory
, Mere Christianity (Available in many editions)
Charles Malik, A Christian Critique of the University (IVP, 1982) (out of print, sadly)
Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1994)
James Sire, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (IVP, 2000)
, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, 5th Ed. (IVP, 2009)
John Stott, Your Mind Matters (2nd Ed., IVP, 2006) – An ESN Book Club selection!
Spiritual Formation
Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God (IVP, 2009)
Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (Image, 1994)
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Anniversary Edition, IVP, 1993)
James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Baker, 2009)
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (NavPress, 2002)
, The Spirit of the Disciplines (HarperSanFrancisco, 1988)
Vocation and Calling
Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (IVP, 2008)
Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose in Your Life (Thomas Nelson, 2003)
Mary Poplin, Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service (IVP, 2008)
Gordon Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential (Rev. ed., IVP, 2011)
Flourishing in the Academy
Paul Anderson, ed. Professors Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of Christian Faculty (IVP, 1998)
Robert Boice, Advice for New Faculty Members (Allyn & Bacon, 2000)
The Chronicle of Higher Education (especially the “On Hiring” section)
Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief And Behavior, (2nd Ed., IVP, 2007)
James Lang, Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year (Johns Hopkins, 2005)
George Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford, 1998) – An ESN Book Club selection!
Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow, The Last Lecture (Hyperion, 2008)
Robert L. Peters, Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D. (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1997)
What would you add?
The former Associate Director for the Emerging Scholars Network, Micheal lives in Cincinnati with his wife and three children and works as a web manager for a national storage and organization company. He writes about work, vocation, and finding meaning in what you do at No Small Actors.