{"id":261,"date":"2004-06-18T17:29:00","date_gmt":"2004-06-19T01:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2004\/06\/18\/building-a-professional-ministry-library-on-the-cheap\/"},"modified":"2004-06-18T18:00:51","modified_gmt":"2004-06-19T02:00:51","slug":"building-a-professional-ministry-library-on-the-cheap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2004\/06\/18\/building-a-professional-ministry-library-on-the-cheap","title":{"rendered":"Building a Professional Ministry Library On The&nbsp;Cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I spent 10 hours in a meeting discussing training strategies for college ministers (most of whom come from secular colleges). While driving back I began thinking about the challenge a new minister without formal training faces in building a professional library. Books are expensive\u2013the New International Commentary series on the Old and New Testaments retails for nearly $1,500 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eerdmans.com\/shop\/product.asp?p_key=0802825206\">OT<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eerdmans.com\/shop\/product.asp?p_key=0802824455\">NT<\/a>)! For some new ministers, building a quality library can seem so overwhelming that it\u2019s hard to know where to&nbsp;start.<\/p>\n<p>Inspired by a <a href=\"http:\/\/companycommand.army.mil\/ev_en.php?ID=16468_201&amp;ID2=DO_TOPIC\">similar example<\/a>, I decided to compile a solid (although basic) ministry library for under $200 (I failed by eleven cents). I priced the books (used) on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/\">Amazon.com<\/a> on 6\/18\/2004. Books are listed in rough order of importance within each category.<\/p>\n<p><b>The Reference Collection \u2014 $102.85<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>NIV Exhaustive Concordance $19.35<\/li>\n<li>Systematic Theology, Millard Erickson $29.99<\/li>\n<li>The IVP Bible Background Commentary \u2014 New Testament, Craig Keener $13.95<\/li>\n<li>Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft &amp; Ronald Tacelli $5.99<\/li>\n<li>Chronological and Background Charts of the New Testament, H. Wayne House $10.15<\/li>\n<li>Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament, John Walton $9.99<\/li>\n<li>Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study, Fred Danker $13.43<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The Personal &amp; Professional Growth Collection \u2014 $97.26<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Devotional Classics, Foster &amp; Smith $6.65<\/li>\n<li>How to Read The Bible For All Its Worth, Fee &amp; Stuart $1.99<\/li>\n<li>Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis $4.95<\/li>\n<li>The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard $9.60<\/li>\n<li>The Challenge of Jesus, N. T. Wright $10.97<\/li>\n<li>Prayer, Richard Foster $5.00<\/li>\n<li>A Tale of Three Kings, Gene Edwards $3.85<\/li>\n<li>The Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges $2.49<\/li>\n<li>Exegetical Fallacies \u2013 D. A. Carson $8.99<\/li>\n<li>Between Two Worlds, John Stott $9.00<\/li>\n<li>The Master Plan of Evangelism, Robert Coleman $0.97<\/li>\n<li>The Purpose-Driven Church, Rick Warren $8.00<\/li>\n<li>Christian Counseling, Gary Collins $10.50<\/li>\n<li>Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling, Charles Kollar $12.71<\/li>\n<li>Take and Read, Eugene Peterson $1.59<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Total Cost: $200.11    (excluding shipping &amp; handling)<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I tried to end each list with a book that would lead to more books, so that this would only be the genesis of a professional library\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I welcome suggestions for replacement volumes. What do you think important for a novice minister with little theological education to&nbsp;read?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I spent 10 hours in a meeting discussing training strategies for college ministers (most of whom come from secular colleges). While driving back I began thinking about the challenge a new minister without formal training faces in building a professional library. Books are expensive\u2013the New International Commentary series on the Old and New Testaments \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2004\/06\/18\/building-a-professional-ministry-library-on-the-cheap\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cBuilding a Professional Ministry Library On The&nbsp;Cheap\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-4d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}