Top 10 Books Recommended by a Christian Counsellor

Here is a list of the top 10 books recommended by Competent Counseling, a Christian blog on counselling. How many have you read and what do you think of these books? 

1. The Cross Centered Life: this book will get you focused on the right thing as you move forward in your sanctification.
2. Humility: this book will set your heart right. A humble person cannot be angry or frustrated with anyone else.
3. The Gospel Primer: the solution to whatever you are going through must begin with the gospel: God killed his Son to save you. You MUST begin here and never deviate from this course.
4. The Holiness of God: a solid view of who God is will be essential as you are called on to trust Him through whatever difficulty you may be going through.
5. How Can I Change?: this is a practical primer on how to change. Do you have a habituated lifestyle of certain sins? Do you want to change? Then read this book. (And it’s FREE.)
6. When Sinners Say “I Do”: simply the best marriage book on the market today. If you are married I recommend you read this book regardless of the “condition” of your marriage.
7. Sex, Romance and the Glory of God: an obvious follow-up to the previous book. Get this right for the glory of God.
8. When People Are Big and God is Small: one of the most common sin patterns we all face. Some call it co-dependency while others call it low self-esteem. The bible calls it “fear of man”.
9. Shepherding a Child’s Heart: simply put, the best parenting book on the market today.
10. Age of Opportunity: this is the follow-up book to the previous one. It builds upon SCH. This book is geared toward the parent and teen.

True Christian Fellowship - Questions that lead to Deeper Fellowship

Was reading a great booklet on small groups discussed the problem of Christians engaging in social activities and wrongly calling that fellowship. The booklet says that fellowship if not pursued properly leads away from Christlikeness and actually reinforces the character flaws that participants have rather than leading them to Biblical change. 

True Christian fellowship involves provoking (encouraging) one another to love and good works through correcting one another in love with meekness and sharing our spiritual walk with other people, what we learn from God and what God is saying to us. 

Here are a few questions from Girl Talk, another Christian blog which help lead people to deeper fellowship with one another:

• Describe your current practice of the spiritual disciplines.
  
• What is a passage of Scripture you have been meditating on recently?
  
• What fruit of the Spirit are you cultivating?
  
• What sin are you seeking to weaken?
  
• How can I pray for you?
  
• Here is an evidence of grace that I observe in your life.

And a few others I thought of: 

• Name one of your favourite times of fellowship with God
• What has God been revealing to you about your walk with him lately?
• Where is your favourite place for quiet time and why? 
• On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your spiritual walk? 
• Where do you think you could be serving more in the body of Christ? 
• How did you get saved? 
• What do you have to thank God for lately? 
• What is your greatest regret in life? 
• Who is your greatest spiritual influence in your life? 
• What verse would summarise your attitude towards life? 

Can you think of any more? Leave a comment below.

How do you prepare your heart for Sunday?

You always hear people talking about preparing your heart for the worship service on Sunday but many people don't know how (or whether) other people do it. There is a post on Competant Counseling which talks about how he prepares for Sunday Worship service but before that, let's look at some plain obvious things you can do before service on Sunday:

1. Read through the passage that will be taught the coming Sunday.
2. Sleep early
3. Wake up early and pray and spend some time with God reading the Bible or a spiritual book
4. Sing through some hymns that will be sung on the coming Sunday service.

Follow this link to have a look at the suggestions from Rick http://competentcounseling.com/2009/01/31/preparing-for-game-day-super-sunday/

Free WIFI - At your local Church outreach

Have you considered another way of providing a service to the community by a Church is providing free wireless internet? People need to get close enough to the Church building to use the free interner service and if you are in tourist town, you may find that quickly the Church location will become a "famous" free internet access point. Of course, if you really want to be light of the world, you may have to block access to certain websites.

Free internet is another way to provide a service to the community and enable people to draw closer to Church. Consider the possibility in your local church :)