A Missional Bibliography
As Missional Theology matures, it's producing a growing body of literature. It can be a lot to sort through, so here I'm collecting those resources that I've found helpful, with some comments along the way. I'll start by providing a handful of foundational texts that I think are indispensable, and then point towards some other useful works along the way. I'll be updating this page over time, so let me know of the ones I've missed in the comments!
Foundational Texts
Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America Darrell Guder and Friends, 1998. This is the mothership, people. It's a foundational text, and if you really want to study the missional church, you have to read it. The good news is it reads pretty well, even after a couple of decades. For me, reading this was like finding the spring that fed the stream I'd been drinking from for years. 
Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness by Lois Barrett and friends. This is essentially the same gang of writers as Missional Church (Guder 1998), and in this text they try to put a little more flesh on their ideas. It's based on case studies, and is a quick read—much less dense than Missional Church. 
The Missional Church in Perspective by Craig Van Gelder and Dwight Zscheile, 2011. This another piece from one of the original collaborators (van Gelder) that strikes me really as an extension of Missional Church. Since it's a fairly easy read, I'd think of this as going into the essential toolkit. Part of what this book does is to frame the how the missional conversation has forked and taken different turns since 1998. Since different people use missional language to mean different things, a book that takes high view of the conversation, mapping it out, becomes very useful. This book is also useful for sending you in new directions, expanding your reading list.
The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission by Leslie Newbigin (1995). This is a key predecessor to Missional Church, and no missional reading list is complete without it. Newbigin, upon his return to the Western World, helped it to see its own identity as a mission field, and provided theological language for our engagement with our neighbors.
Other Missional Books
Staying is the New Going by Alan Briggs (2015)Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. David Bosch (1991) One of the significant predecessors to Missional Church, Bosch gives a thorough account of the trajectory that led to the missional movement.Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier by David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw (2013)The Road to Missional: Journey to the Center of the Church by Michael Frost (2011)The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (2003, 2013) The revised editions has some pretty useful reflections in the introduction. This is a passionate and useful text, even if I have a couple of reservations about the way they ditch the trinitarian emphasis in favor of a heavy Christology.Surprise the World: Five Habits of Highly Missional People by Michael Frost (2015) is a great little book that would be useful for a small study group. Very readable.The Continuing Conversion of the Church, by Darrell Guder (2000) This book provides a perspective on what's happening inside the missional church, and why that formation is key for the mission of God. I love this text's fundamental premise.Called to Witness: Doing Missional Theology, by Darrell Guder (2015) collects essays Guder published on the missional church after the landmark publication in 1998.A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story by Michael Goheen (2011). I haven't read this personally, but my friend Greg McKinzie sent me a note suggesting it's a worthy contribution from the reformed neck of the woods.Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission (The Gospel and Our Culture Series (GOCS)) by Michael Gorman (2015). Gorman's expertise is in missional hermeneutics (how we read and use scripture), and I think they're fantastic.Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation by Michael J. Gorman (2011). This is an earlier piece on Revelation, and I love it. It's very readable, but will leave you chewing.Missional. Monastic. Mainline.: A Guide to Starting Missional Micro-Communities in Historically Mainline Traditions by Elaine Heath (2014)The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch (2009)The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight (2011) provides the sort of biblical backdrop that fuels the missional movement.
The Trinity and the Kingdom, Jurgen Moltmann (1993). Moltmann fits the description of a theologian whose writing has deeply impacted the missional movement, even if not explicitly missional.
Missional Map-Making: Skills for Leading in Times of Transition by Alan Roxburgh (2010) There's been a lot written about missional leadership—Roxburgh is a trustworthy guide.
Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood by Alan Roxburgh (2011) this is a pretty central text, and is probably one of the better introductory piece out there. It may end up getting moved to the foundational list above.
The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality by Alan Roxburgh (1997). Additionally, if you're interested to know the true meaning of what servant leadership means, visit e360bible.org. This is a more academic piece than Roxburgh's other writing, and is sort of a forgotten little book, unfortunately.
Introducing the Missional Church: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Become One Alan Roxburgh and Scott Boren (2009)Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity Clemens Sedmak (2003). This is a jewel of a book with an unfortunately hokey cover. I advise you to defer judgment.
The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit Craig Van Gelder (2007)
A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Miroslav Volf (1996) Volf isn't explicitly a missional theologian, but his work seems to be an important piece of the conversation, in my view.
A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good by Miroslav Volf (2013)The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative by Christopher Wright (2006) Like Gorman, Wright is a significant figure in missional hermeneutics. His focus has typically been in Old Testament Studies, and that provides the backdrop for this book, which is a landmark work for the field.Scripture and the Authority of God by N.T. Wright (Revised in 2013) is excellent, and the book makes a fantastic case for a missional understanding of how scripture fits into the story of God. If you haven't cut your teeth on Wright yet, you should, and this is a great place to start.
Missional Web Hubs
Missio Alliance has one of the best missional blogs around the web. Most of the articles here are at a popular level, though often by respected missional leaders.Missio Dei is an online academic journal with articles about missional theory and practice.The Journal of Missional Practice has a vision "to be like a table around which theologically informed practitioners gather with others to share the stories of what they are doing and discerning on the ground and in the local." I'd say they pull it off.Mission-Shaped Church (2004) is a church of England publication I've heard good things about, and I know it's been influential in the Anglican Fresh Expressions circles.Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today (American Society of Missiology Series) by Bevans and Schroeder (2004) is a recommendation I recently got via twitter (hat tip to @MuellerBSSabrina), bu I haven't had the chance to peruse it yet. Let me know if you have.
Missional Podcasts
Theology on Mission is a regular podcast featuring David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw. (iTunes, Overcast)Missional Hospitality with Alan Roxburgh is episode 2 of the Fresh Expressions Podcast.
Naming the Elephant: Worldview as Concept by James Sire
Lately I've been writing and thinking about how reading the Bible works as a formative practice, and it's led me to think about the concept of worldview. I found James Sire's Naming the Elephant helpful in thinking about the concept, both as an abstraction and in terms of the worldviews I see at work in our community. Personally, Sire's book helped me come towards a better articulation of my own worldview.Sire has been interested in worldview studies for a while. I know his book The Universe Next Door was used at Harding while I was there, and having gone through several editions, it's probably been as influential in the way evangelicals think about worldview as anything else, particularly in how we see the differences between ourselves and other faith traditions. As you would imagine, that has some intense missiological implications, and thus Sire has probably been read mostly in that context.This shorter book is particularly interested in teasing out the worldview concept itself, and Sire is candid about places where he felt his earlier definitions and examples have perhaps fallen short. Here, he surveys of perspectives on the worldview concept from philosophical, theological, and sociological sources to give a better articulation to what he means by this root concept. Ultimately, he comes the following well-thought definition:
A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.
Most of the book, which is a quick read at 160 short pages, is the work of setting up this definition and giving it substantial nuance. He teases it out against the backdrop of worldview thinkers over the past two centuries—this is not a casual definition. Sire's work on critically thinking through the implications of his definition is evident throughout the book, and the little book is quite worthwhile for that reason. The descriptions of Sire's wrangling with the philosophical decision between the priority of ontology over epistemology is interesting, as is his writing about his growing recognition of the importance of story as a vehicle for worldview.Less satisfactory are the questions Sire offers as a mechanism for teasing out particular worldviews. He sticks to his guns with the following seven questions, although through the text he expands the questions as including more than they seem to on the surface.
1. What is the prime reality—the really real.2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?3. What is a human being?4. What happens to a person at death?5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?6. How do we know what is right and wrong?7. What is the meaning of human history?
Sire has used these same questions for years, and in Naming the Elephant he interacts with questions posed by different authors and compares them to his own. There are a couple of places where I still think better questions exist.
For instance, Sire discusses a set of questions posed by Walsh and Middleton,"Who are we? Where are we? What's wrong?" and "What's the solution?". Sire wishes to subsume the first (Who are we?) within question 3 above, which seems fair, as does his inclusion of "Where are we"? within number 2 above. However, he also wishes to include the last two (What's wrong? and What's the solution?) within questions 6 and 7 above, and it really seems to me that as a set they function importantly enough to merit their own place in worldview analysis.Another criticism of the book might be that Sire's assumptions about the Christian worldview seem to me to bypass critical theological issues. Of course, that's not a fair criticism, since Sire isn't really doing formal theology here, but implicitly doing practical theology, and his assumptions probably do reflect a good bit of ground level theological thinking in the sort of folk Christianity that exists in America. Beyond that, Sire recognizes that when he talks about a "Christian worldview" he is really thinking about his own worldview, which he perceives to be Christian. By and large I think he's correct, and articulates the main parts of what might be fairly called Christian worldviews accurately.This is a fantastic little book. Sire is, for the most part, fair and measured in his analysis, and recognizes his own commitments as they come up within his argument. Ultimately I think Sire moves the concept of worldview forward in helpful ways, and provides a good resource for anyone wanting to understand themselves, or the world around them, with greater clarity.
Hosea—A Bibliography for Study and Preaching
While I've been preparing for the Hosea series of sermons (and blog posts!) I have had the wonderful chance to work through a few books, and I thought I should share a few I've found helpful. Looking for a commentary on any given text can be tough, because there is simply so much material available. I haven't read all of the following cover to cover, but have used each at some point in my preparations on Hosea over the course of the last few months.
The commentary by Andrew Dearman (2010) is perhaps the most well rounded and up to date volume that I worked with as I prepared to preach from the book. Dearman takes form critical matters seriously without swimming in them too much, and the same is generally true for his treatment of ancient Israelite religious matters. This commentary has a great balance, and doesn't feel too heavy for the average user, but is also well-informed and dialogues with other treatments of the book well. There is also a kindle version available, which is the only of the commentaries listed here for which that is true. The kindle version doesn't include (at this point) page numbers, which is a bit annoying, particularly if you want to cite the book. Nonetheless, I think this is a great buy, and if I was starting over I think I'd pick this up first.
Gale Yee's commentary on Hosea in the twelfth volume of the New Interpreter's Bible (1996) challenged me in some very helpful ways. While being extremely readable, Yee's commentary provoked me to thinking through something of a feminist perspective of Hosea, particularly helping me see a new perspective on some of the rhetoric about Yahweh as husband. While I don't know that the commentary would be sufficient by itself, it would make a fantastic second voice for a full conversation about Hosea. This volume includes commentary on each of the Minor prophets, as well as Daniel, from good solid scholars, and at $40 on amazon might be the best deal dollar for dollar, particularly in you're going to work on the other minor prophets as well. As a side note, I think this whole set of commentaries has really been done well. The lineup of contributors is impressive, and the format is excellent. 
Douglas Stuart's commentary on Hosea (1987) is in a volume that also includes commentary on Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah. Hosea gets the lion's share of the substantial book, though, and Stuart is very thorough in his treatment of Hosea. Writing from a very fixed perspective, Stuart heavily emphasizes that Hosea is a reformer, seeking to call the people back to the covenant made years ago as represented by the book of Deuteronomy. I appreciate Stuart's perspective, but at several points felt as though he was a bit overconfident in his argumentation of the point—perhaps even condescending, although he certainly isn't the only scholar to be guilty of such. On balance, I think the commentary is a nice contribution, and I found it helpful, although a little annoying. That in itself is not a serious criticism, because if you aren't willing to learn from annoying sources occasionally, you just aren't going to learn.
The mammoth commentary on Hosea by Anderson and Freedman (1980) in the Anchor Bible Series could be quite helpful to some, but this is a heavy (literally and metaphorically) book with a good bit of technical discussion in it. I think the authors offer some great analysis and fresh insight, but this book is just simply going to be too much for most readers of the text. If I was doing a paper on a specific text, I'd definitely check it, and on particularly difficult passages for preaching there is some very helpful work here. However, at 600 plus pages, I simply can't imagine reading through this whole work. If you can, more power to you.
I only briefly looked at James Limburg's commentary on Hosea (1988) in the Interpretation series. While I typically have enjoyed commentaries in that series, and have written elsewhere of my appreciation of Limburg's work on Ecclesiastes, I was really quite disappointed with this volume. It was too stiff, and I just didn't get the same vibe of creativity here as I did with his ecclesiastes work. Alas.