Saturday, August 16, 2008

Alan Hirsch is coming out with two new books!

Alan Hirsch, world renowned missional leader, author, and my teacher at Fuller Theological Seminary, is coming out with two new books by November. I could not be more thrilled. The first is The Forgotten Ways Handbook, a practical, follow-up work to The Forgotten Ways. The Forgotten Ways is the best book I've read on creating missional church movements, structures, and leadership in a local church. My class was blessed to be one of the first to go through this material, as Alan gave us a pre-publication copy and went through the material with us. The missional handbook should be a great practical tool. See http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Ways-Handbook-Practical-Developing/dp/1587432498/ref=pd_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218903978&sr=8-5.

The second work, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church, is a Christological look for how we should live, based upon the lifestyle of Jesus. I know that Alan has been working on this book for a couple of years now with Michael Frost (a phenomenal speaker and evangelist).

There is an interesting phenomenon about Alan's works. Most people who have a heart or gifting for mission read them and think, wow, this is dead on. It is--true, so very true. It touches on all of the things that I've been thinking about. In fact, I probably could have written this book or would have over time. In discussing this with him over lunch one day at a little diner in Pasadena, Alan said that this feeling was a common phenomen. He took it as a sign that this was the work of the Holy Spirit, and that these thoughts were not just things that he had dreamed up on his own.

If you are interested in the missional movement, you could not do better than to read Hirsh's works. Here is the link to the works on Alan's blog. http://www.theforgottenways.org/blog/2008/08/15/two-new-books-by-novemberyay/#more-474

Have you read any of Hirsh's works? Did you get any sense that you had had some of these ideas somewhere in your mind?

4 comments:

Alan Hirsch said...

Thanks James for the fantastic plug. We have not talked recently...I do think of you from time to time. Wish you all the best.

James Nored said...

Sure, Alan. Anything I can do to help the movement (and you). I do hope that we can talk again soon, maybe out at Pasadena. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Kevin M said...

I'm reading through "The Forgotten Ways" right now and am really enjoying it (thanks for the loner copy). I'm only just at the beginning but Alan has some really interesting thoughts and brings some great insights. I'm looking forward to getting further into it.

James Nored said...

Kevin,

Glad to hear that you are enjoying the work!