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Recommended Reading For CCCM
Topics:
Addiction | Emotion | Marriage | Parenting | Relationships | Sexuality | Singleness and Dating | Spiritual Growth
Addiction
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Addiction and Grace – Gerald May. A medically and theologically rich book that addresses the nature of addiction. (Gorenz) |
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Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction – Dr. Laaser. Laaser skillfully deals with the root causes of sexual addiction as well as the cycle of addiction while integrating a Biblical approach to healing. (Gorenz) |
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Breaking the Idols of Your Heart – Dan Allender and Tremper Longman. Addresses “addiction” at its more general and insidious levels. Using narrative as well as the principles in Ecclesiastes Allender and Longman discuss our appetites for significance and how we pursue anything we think will give us meaning and worth. I like that at the end of every chapter they include further study and personal questions to help us identify our own idols and begin to live more redeemed lives. (Dillon) |
Emotions (Anxiety, Depression, Anger and Grief)
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Feeling Good – David D. Burns, M.D. Burns effectively tackles the issue of depression by providing an abundance of information ranging from how under-lying attitudes can cause debilitating depression, the different types of depression to, as well as how to the necessary steps to feel good. This is a comprehensive, well-regarded book by many therapists. (Dillon) |
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Adrenaline and Stress – Dr. Archibald Hart. Addresses how prolonged adrenaline arousal leads to panic and other stress diseases from a biological vantage point. Highly informative about what is happening to our bodies and emotions when we are under prolonged stress. Can be very helpful in alleviating physical symptoms related to anxiety. (Dillon) |
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The Healing Path – Dan Allender. Allender addresses the question of how to face our suffering and pain by highlighting both the heart struggles (shame, contempt, ambivalence) and the possibilities (hope, redemption). Allender's strength is in identifying the issues we often feel we cannot get past and in offering an alternative way to deal with them. (Gorenz) |
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Hinds' Feet on High Places – Hannah Hurnard. An allegory about the journey of Much Afraid who is traveling with her companions Sorrow and Suffering. This allegory allows the reader to identify in a new way with their own pain and fear and to look with a new perspective at God's work in their lives. (Gorenz) |
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Healing Through the Dark Emotions – Miriam Greenspan. An excellent book on emotions of anger, fear, grief and depression. She asserts that ‘there is something good in bad feelings.' Emotions are a gateway to knowledge and healing. She speaks of three basic skills necessary to emotional alchemy: attending, befriending, and surrendering. Three of the chapter titles are: “From Grief to Gratitude”, “Despair to Faith”, and “Fear to Joy”. (Reece) |
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Recovering from the Losses of Life – Norman H. Wright. Our lives are marked by a variety of losses. Some are life changing. Others are more subtle. No matter what kind of loss you encounter, this classic book can help you find hope. Writing from his experience, Wright covers such issues as the meaning of grief, learning to express and share grief, ungrieved losses, the loss of identity, and helping others with their losses. (Reece) |
Marriage
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As for Me and My House – Walter Wangerin. A classic. Elegantly written. The best book on the marriage relationship in print. Explains the ideal and explores the reality of marriage. Shows how the essential tasks of marriage contribute to a relationship that pictures the love of Christ for His bride (the church). Focuses on the role of forgiveness. (DeWit) |
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Sacred Marriage - Gary Thomas. Explores the covenant of marriage and how God intends our relationship with our spouse to contribute to our growth in holiness. Uncovers the mystery of God’s overarching purpose of marriage. (DeWit) |
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Fight Fair – Tim and Joy Downs. A fun and entertaining guide to dealing with conflict in marriage. Enables couples to use conflict in productive and constructive ways rather than as a means to harm. (DeWit) |
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The Mystery of Marriage – Meditations on the Miracle – Mike Mason. This classic should be on every couples’ bookshelf, or better yet on their nightstand. Mason explores with depth God’s design for marriage using various concepts such as intimacy, sex, submission, and oneness. Not a how-to book, but one that has the potential to enlarge our understanding and capacity for marriage. (Dillon) |
Parenting
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Parenting with Love and Logic – Foster Cline and Jim Fay. Helpful instruction regarding how to guide your children in a clear understanding of God’s principles of responsibility and maturity. Especially helpful regarding peer pressure and how to progressively release your child into adolescence, teenage years and adulthood. (DeWit) |
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Shepherding a Child’s Heart – Ted Tripp. Focuses on the heart issues, with behavior change the result rather than the strategy. Thoroughly biblical. (DeWit) |
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WEBSITE: CPYU – Center for Parent and Youth Understanding (www.cpyu.org). Helps parents engage teenagers around issues that are relevant to them and the culture from a Biblical perspective. Includes book recommendations, music reviews and articles on pertinent subjects for parents of teenagers. (Gorenz) |
Relationships
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When People are Big and God is Small – Edward T. Welch. One of my favorite and most often quoted books about relationships. It reveals the underlying idolatry that pervades and distorts what God intended for our relationships. I don't think we can make headway in our relationships until we are aware of the truths that Welch exposes about the too-oft motives in our relationships and their effects. (Dillon) |
Sexuality
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Sexual Identity – Mark Yarhouse and Lori Burkett. Offers a theological and psychological foundation for understanding sexual identity and offers practical suggestions for dealing with same-sex attraction. This book is ideal for those who find themselves attracted to the same sex and are seeking to live out their Christian faith. (Gorenz) |
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Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth – Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. The model of understanding developed by Satinover about the subject of homosexuality includes science and research as well as psychological insights related to habit, compulsion and addiction. I love this book. Satinover treats this complex issue both comprehensively and with compassion. (Dillon) |
Singleness and Dating
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Holding Hands Holding Hearts by – Richard D. and Sharon L. Phillips, Would that every man and woman had the heart to receive the clear and comforting teachings of Scripture about men and women's relationships presented by these authors. (Michele Dillon) |
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Passion and Purity – Elisabeth Elliot. A classic message of God’s authority and provision for integrity in one’s love life. (DeWit) |
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Get Married – What Women Can Do to Help it Happen – Candice Watters. I approached this book with skepticism and recommend it with caution, but recommend it I will to those who are single and want to get beyond passivity in dating to a pro-active, God-reliant posture in finding a mate. Whether or not you agree with Watters 100%, she is one of few who articulates the issues of looking for a mate with directness and clarity. (Dillon) |
Spiritual Growth
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The Way of the Heart – Henri J. Nouwen. Learn to connect with God through prayer, silence and solitude and experience the peace and healing found only through our Creator/Father. I’m going to read this book again! (Dillon) |
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The Gift of Being Yourself – David Benner. With the understanding that to know ourselves truly is to truly know God, Benner understands that “rooting our identity in this reality is dramatically different from the agenda of self-fulfillment promoted by pop psychology”. If you want to connect more deeply with God let Benner encourage you to shed your false self. (Dillon) |
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Abba’s Child - Brennan Manning. Manning skillfully and persuasively encourages us to come to our Creator/Father without our masks and thus grow into our true selves. If you want to explore the depth of your Father’s love for you, read this book. (Dillon) |
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Inner Compass – Margaret Silf. Helps readers discover their individual selves and their relationship with God through prayer, discernment, and reflective living by asking “Where are you?”, “How are you and why?” Based on Ignatian spiritual principles which explore how God is present to you in your life journey. (Reece) |
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Meditative Prayer and Contemplative Bible Reading – Richard Peace. Spiritual formation study guides that use meditation on scripture to help bring alive your prayer time with God. (Reece) |
