For the next few days, we want to replay the EMA stage recommendations in terms of books, particularly for those who were not able to make it. These are not all the books our BookPanel liked – that would be too long a list – but instead those we wanted to particularly identify as being worthy of some reading time. In each case, there is a very brief review, but the main purpose of the posts is to highlight the titles.

Here’s a recommendation which is completely different. It’s The Gospel Coalition and Good Book Company small group resource The Gospel Shaped Church, in particular Gospel Shaped Worship. Some of us (not all, I know!) struggle for small group material. It’s not uncommon to find that our small group leaders are not the best Bible teachers. This resource is a great help. I’m not sure I would use them all the time (I think some live, local teaching is really important). However, I reviewed the whole of this one DVD in the series and loved it. Jared Wilson is a clear teacher and the accompanying material is first class. I think in most groups each one week study could actually be split over two weeks such is the richness there. This isn’t cheap, so do some homework first. But here is a clip for the series and online you can watch the first teaching slot for free (here).