Anti-Racism

Celebrate Black History Month by learning from Black authors and church leaders. We recommend these titles from our collection for small-group or individual study. The resources listed here include:

• DVD Studies for Small Groups
• DVD Studies for Men’s & Women’s Groups
• Lenten Studies & Devotionals
• Book Studies
• Books for Church Leaders
• Books for Preachers

Many Black authors have also written on Black history and anti-racism. Those resources are listed in our pathfinders on African American Ministry Resources and Anti-Racism.

DVD Studies for Small Groups

Share the Dream: Shining a Light in a Divided World Through Six Principles of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Matthew Daniels and Chris Broussard. You will look at six biblical principles that shaped Dr. King’s life and motivated him to speak on behalf of African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement: love, conscience, freedom, justice, perseverance, and hope. The best way to Share the Dream is to follow in Dr. King’s footsteps and embrace his vision.

The Big Picture: Seeing God’s Dream for Your Life by Jevon Caldwell-Gross and Nicole Caldwell-Gross (pictured above). Connect the dots of triumph and trauma in your life to discover God’s presence by studying the story of Joseph in Genesis. It shows us how God weaves together events that seem random into a beautiful image of joy, survival, purpose, and meaning. See God’s dream for your life as you begin connecting the dots of God’s grace, presence, and protection.

Soul Reset: Breakdown, Breakthrough, and the Journey to Wholeness by Junius B. Dotson. For Reverend Junius B. Dotson, it took an actual breakdown during a funeral for him to realize he needed a reset. This study is a call for the church and all of Jesus’ disciples to reset and reorder their lives around spiritual practices, to learn to walk through our difficult seasons with our souls connected to the source of Living Water so that we don’t burn out or break down. And if we do burn out or break down, we learn to lift one another up and point one another back to Jesus.

Subversive Witness: Scripture’s Call to Leverage Privilege by Dominique DuBois Gilliard. This study inspires groups and individuals to reimagine how they think about privilege and exercise power. Gilliard illustrates how the faithful witness of biblical figures, from Esther to Zacchaeus, provides a blueprint for modern believers. By embodying Scripture’s subversive call to leverage–and at times forsake–privilege, you will learn to love your neighbors sacrificially, enact systemic change, and grow more Christlike as a citizen of God’s kingdom.

Watch Your Mouth: Understanding the Power of the Tongue by Tony Evans. Your words can call down destruction—or they can speak life into the world around you. Discover how to glorify God with your speech in this DVD presentation that includes four sessions of powerful teaching and moving personal testimonies. Get ready to use your words in mighty ways and model with your mouth the character of God.

DVD Studies for Men’s & Women’s Groups

Breakthrough: Finding Freedom in Christ: A Study in Galatians by Barb Roose. Let go of feeling like you are not a “good enough” Christian and find freedom in Christ by studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Barb Roose shows us that even the believers in the early church struggled to let go of rule-keeping in order to embrace God’s free gift of grace. Learn to stop trying to measure up in God’s eyes and instead accept God’s grace, distinguish between lies and truth, and embrace God’s promise of freedom.

Search our online catalog for more women’s studies by Barb Roose.

Gideon: Your Weakness. God’s Strength. by Priscilla Shirer. From a state of fear, weakness, and insecurity, Gideon emerged as Israel’s hero, filled with God’s presence and His passion for deliverance. This study will encourage you to recognize your weakness as the key that the Lord gives you to unlock the full experience of His strength in your life. Instead of ignoring, neglecting, or trying to escape your weaknesses, see them as the gifts that they are, given specifically and strategically by God to unlock the door of God’s strength.

Search our online catalog for more women’s studies by Priscilla Shirer.

The Making of a Man: How Men and Boys Honor God and Live with Integrity by Tim Brown. NFL All-Pro, sports analyst, and businessman Tim Brown uses experiences from his life to teach men the principles and priorities he has learned for leading a life that honors God. Through his stories of struggling with God, overcoming temptations, and discovering what it takes to be a good husband and father, he shares what true manhood is all about and what guys must do to attain it. These principles have helped Tim lead a life of honor and integrity that has made him one of the most respected men in the world of sports.

Dare To Be Uncommon: Discovering How to Impact Your World by Tony Dungy. This Super Bowl-winning coach has spent his life shaping young men. Now Tony Dungy is ready to share core truths he wants every man to understand, live by, and pass on to others. Through Scripture, discussions, and activities – plus character-building insights and candid “pep talks” from Tony Dungy – men will be challenged to examine their lives and aspire to a life of true significance.

Lenten Studies & Devotionals

Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope by Candace Lewis, Rachel Gilmore, Tyler Sit, and Matt Temple. The authors guide you through a series of daily reflections, exploring a spectrum of critical themes—from diversity and equity to the challenges of the post-colonial church. They will also delve into the vital need for innovation and contextualization in doing the work Jesus had called us to do.

Finding Jesus in the Psalms: A Lenten Journey by Barb Roose. Barb Roose guides the reader through a meaningful encounter with the Psalms through the season of Lent. Combining an interpretation of the psalms with real-life stories, this study moves through the familiar words of Psalm 23 toward the painful cries of Psalm 22 uttered by Jesus on the cross. The study includes reflections on the life of King David and the original context of the writings, along with connections between the psalms and the life and death of Jesus the Messiah.

Struggle to the Cross: A Lenten Study for Individuals and Groups by Sharma D. Lewis. Bishop Lewis invites readers to observe Lent by introspection, repentance, forgiveness, renewal, prayer, fasting, and Biblical study. Each daily reading ends with the “My Action” section, inviting readers to put into practice what they have read and reflected upon. Each Sunday, readers are asked to reflect and journal on the past week’s study using questions provided by the author.

Our Lenten Prayer: Reflections and Observations from The Lord’s Prayer: A Lenten Study by Olu Brown. During this Lenten season, the author encourages the reader to lean fully on God and practice the spiritual discipline of trust. Rev. Brown believes that God is challenging us to fully release and trust God for all things in our lives during this Lenten season. We need to be open and willing to ask God for help and direction. Don’t worry, however. Olu reminds the reader that God is available to lead and guide us every step of the way.

Plenty Good Room: A Lenten Bible Study Based on African American Spirituals by Marilyn E. Thornton with Lewis V. Baldwin. This unique short-term Bible study combines an in-depth look at Scripture, American history, and the music and lyrics of six African American spirituals. The six-session study provides biblical, social, and historical analyses of the spirituals: ‘Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit,” “This Lonesome Valley,” “Bow Down on Your Knees,” “Plenty Good Room,” “Ain’t Dat Good News,” and “Were You There?” Leader helps can be found in the book providing discussion questions and activities.

From Preparation to Passion: Devotional and Reflective Meditations Celebrating the Lenten Season Based on the Lectionary and Celebrated African American Sacred Songs and Hymnody by Eleanor Cooper Brown. This resource intends to allow you to truly engage yourself in the preparation and propel you into a Holy passion for Christ by the time you reach Easter. This push to a deeper passion may be enhanced through the connection of the celebrated African-American sacred songs and church hymns. This resource offers insights through meditative readings on the message that the music and the Word of God bring. It includes meditations highlighting sacred songs such as: “My Tribute,” “God Is,” “O Didn’t It Rain,” “I Love Thy Kingdom Lord,” and more.

Book Studies

These books include discussion questions making them useful for small-group studies or individual reflection.

Hope is Here! Spiritual Practices for Pursuing Justice and Beloved Community by Luther E. Smith, Jr. Interpreting five spiritual practices for individuals and congregations to experience the power of hope, this book prepares us to engage racism, mass incarceration, environmental crises, divisive politics, and indifference that imperil justice and beloved community. It delivers the inner resources necessary to work for change through its interpretation of hope.

What is the Bible and Who is it for? A Book for Beginners, Skeptics, and Seekers by Emanuel Cleaver, III. This book offers an easy-to-understand explanation of the origins and purposes of the Bible. It will give modern perspectives on how we might read and understand scripture today in light of all that we know (and don’t know) about the world.

Harmony Creation Care Curriculum: God’s Original Plan and Original Seeds in a World of Diversity by Crystal Paul-Watson with Lavanda Paul. Rev. Crystal Paul-Watson and her mother, Lavanda Paul, are commissioned Earthkeepers in the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. They believe in the importance of teaching the younger generations how to cultivate organic heirloom seeds. The Harmony Creation Curriculum is a tool that can be used in young adult ministries and youth groups as well as amongst parents who want to share the gift of gardening with their children and grandchildren.

Leadership Directions from Moses: On the Way to a Promised Land by Olu Brown. When people leave the church, it can create a gut-wrenching situation for those in church leadership. Author Olu Brown shares principles from the story of Moses to illustrate how to help others depart from the church gracefully, how to not let yourself or a congregation be upended when others choose to leave, and how to find unexpected opportunities in the challenge of new vacancies. Leadership Directions From Moses offers scriptural inspiration for leaders trying to keep their focus on where God is leading no matter what happens.

Transforming Community: The Wesleyan Way to Missional Congregations by Henry H. Knight, III & F. Douglas Powe, Jr. Drawing from the strength of their previous book, Transforming Evangelism, Henry Knight and Douglas Powe show us a Wesleyan way to form missional communities and congregations. Drawing from John Wesley’s own organizing abilities, this will better equip today’s congregations to be more transformational. Each chapter also has study questions.

Search our online catalog for more resources by F. Douglas Powe, Jr.

1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon by James Earl Massey. Pastor, teacher, and mentor James Earl Massey helps us see the encouragement, wisdom, and practical direction the Epistles offer to our generation. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step suggestions for leading a group are provided, as well as questions to facilitate group discussion. Immersion Bible Studies, inspired by a fresh translation–the Common English Bible–stands firmly on Scripture and helps readers explore the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs of their personal faith.

Touch: Pressing Against the Wounds of a Broken World by Rudy Rasmus. Before God touched his heart and transformed his life, Rudy Rasmus was a businessman running a “borderline bordello” in Houston. But thousands now know him simply as “Pastor Rudy” with a downtown ministry at St. John’s United Methodist Church that he and his wife Juanita started to reach out to those who Jesus called “the least of these.” Touch is the amazing story of Rudy’s life and ministry of grace that is changing lives daily. The church has become one of the most culturally diverse congregations in the country with people from every social and economic background, including the homeless, sharing the same pew. Pastor Rudy’s message to touch the lives of those in our own communities has a lesson for us all.

18 Copies of “I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist” for Small Groups

The NC Conference Media Center has 18 copies of this book so that everyone in your small group can borrow a book and join the discussion.

Books for Church Leaders

Healing Fractured Communities edited by F. Douglas Powe, Jr. and Jessica L. Anschutz. Given our fractured landscape and the diversity of contexts where congregations exist, “How can congregational leaders be both healers and agitators at the same time?” Being a leader who lives in this tension inside a faith community and the public square requires nimbleness. A nimbleness that allows for being an ointment and an irritant when needed.

Dare to Shift: Challenging Leaders to a New Way of Thinking by Dr. Michael Bowie & Dr. Stephen Handy. The authors discuss how the Resurrection of Jesus caused the ultimate disruption to life, changing the landscape of the world for all time. They write that adaptive leadership is vital for this next iteration of ministry. This book will challenge readers to make intentional shifts in their understanding of relationships, leadership, stewardship, and discipleship.

Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing our Whole Selves by Chanequa Walker-Barnes. This 49-day interactive devotional from clinical psychologist and theologian Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes shows how to begin caring for your spiritual self in only forty-nine days. Each day includes short, accessible, and practical prompts, practices, scripture passages, hymns, and prayers that help you nurture your spirit and offer insight and guidance.

Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation by F. Douglas Powe, Jr. and Lovett H. Weems Jr. This book offers church leaders theological insights and practical skills for two crucial tasks: to sustain and strengthen foundational elements of the churches they serve and to guide the critical innovation required to address a context vastly different from the one that current assumptions and behaviors fit. Powe and Weems argue that approaching these tasks as competing claims does not work and that new expressions of faith are needed to engender church vitality.

Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion by Lamar Hardwick. Lamar Hardwick was thirty-six years old when he found out he was on the autism spectrum. While this revelation helped him understand and process his own experience, it also prompted a difficult re-evaluation of who he was as a person. And as a pastor, it started him on a new path of considering the way disabled people are treated in the church. This book is a practical and theological reconsideration of the church’s responsibilities to the disabled community.

Rest in the Storm: Self-Care Strategies for Clergy and Other Caregivers by Kirk Byron Jones. A best-seller among seminarians and seasoned leaders alike, this 20th-anniversary edition offers updated and expanded content for readers familiar with the original as well as those new to the work. In to both modest and substantial additions throughout, the expanded edition also features a new Author’s Introduction, two fresh chapters on “Cultivating Meaningful Friendships” and “Unleashing Dynamic Creativity,” and two original sermons, “Living at a Sacred Pace” and “Stopping, Stepping Back, and Stepping Up Stronger”!

Learning to Be: Finding Your Center After the Bottom Falls Out by Juanita Campbell Rasmus. When everything in her life came to a stop, Pastor Juanita Rasmus found that she had to learn to be-with herself and with God-all over again. Offering both practical and spiritual insights, she shares a wise, frank, and witty account of her own story of exhaustion and depression, acting as a trustworthy companion through dark days.

From Social Media to Social Ministry: A Guide to Digital Discipleship by Nona Jones. This book outlines digital discipleship principles for building an online community and provides practical instruction for how to do it no matter how big or small a local church may be. There are plenty of books to help churches build a social media strategy, but this is the first book of its kind that goes beyond digital marketing to digital ministry.

Discipleship Path: Guiding Congregations to Connect with Jesus by Quincy D. Brown. This book is designed the help churches to discern, dream, and dream next-step practices for discipleship. What are the next steps to get churches to move from program to pathways that help people to practice the marks of discipleship: Presence, Service, Prayers, Gifts, and Witness? For a church to change its trajectory from plateauing and declining, it must have a discipleship strategy that moves away from multiple programs to a pathway of next steps for people to become disciples.

Blank Slate: Write Your Own Rules for a 22nd-Century Church Movement by Lia M. McIntosh, Jasmine Rose Smothers, and Rodney Thomas Smothers. How to release old assumptions from previous generations, and embrace new ones, so that the church will thrive. This book helps us realize that we must let go of what we think church should be. It provides us with tools we can use to change the landscape of ministry and shows us how to engage our children and our children’s children within the church so that it—and they—can thrive.

Books for Preachers

A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year W : A Multi-Gospel Single-Year Lectionary by Wilda C. Gafney. Gafney writes, “In this project, I propose at least two new lectionaries, a year ‘W,’ a women’s readings year that can be added to the current Episcopal or Revised Common (RCL) Lectionaries, and a new three-year cycle. How would a lectionary centering women’s stories, chosen with womanist and feminist commitments in mind, frame the presentation of the scriptures for proclamation and teaching?”

My Banned Black History Sermons: Sermons about Jesus that Christian Nationalists Reject by Amiri B. Hooker. Rev. Hooker shares sermons that unapologetically speak to Black liberation, Black theology, and Black history to provide a more comprehensive spiritual experience, fostering a sense of cultural enrichment and understanding.

How to Preach a Dangerous Sermon: Preaching and Moral Imagination by Frank A. Thomas. The author describes the four characteristics of preaching with moral imagination using examples like Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Pauli Murray, and the Moral Monday Movement, along with musicians and other artists of today. Moral imagination helps the hearer to see what they cannot see, to hear what they cannot hear–to inhabit the lives of others so that they can embody Christ and true freedom for those others.

Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World: Finding Hope in an Age of Despair by Otis Moss, III. Moss challenges preachers to preach with a “Blue Note sensibility,” which speaks directly to the tragedies faced by their congregants without falling into despair. He then offers four powerful sermons that illustrate his Blue Note preaching style. Moss shows how preachers can teach their congregations to resist letting the darkness find its way into them and, instead, learn to dance in the dark.

Black United Methodists Preach! edited by Gennifer Benjamin Brooks. What accounts for the spiritual power and vitality of Black preaching? What are the distinctive contributions of Black preaching to the life of The United Methodist Church? How must Black preaching evolve if it is to rise to the new challenges facing the UMC? Fifteen distinguished preachers from across the connection answer these and other questions in this important and illuminating volume.