Books & Links 

Book: Why not women 

Author: Loren Cunningham / David Joel Hamilton

Multiplied millions of women all over the world are looking over the church's shoulder, longing to see the freedom Jesus purchased for them at Calvary. Millions more have found freedom in Jesus but are still bound by human ideas-ideas that pressure a woman to let culture, not God, determine her place in the Kingdom.

 

Book: Gifted to lead 

Author: Nancy Beach

No mistake was made in heaven when God gave you the gift of leadership or teaching. . . Every gift you have---your instincts to lead and your passion to make a difference--- came from the hand of a loving Father who crafted you. 
In this practical and inspiring book, Willow Creek executive vice president and teaching pastor Nancy Beach speaks to women with God-given gifts of leading and teaching. Sharing from her thirty-year journey in a local church, Nancy offers guidance on such issues as: 
* developing character
* earning respect
* finding your voice for leadership and teaching
* managing work and personal life
* forming an intentional support network, and more.
She also challenges church leaders to wrestle with the issue of women in leadership and to be advocates for women as they seek to reach their full ministry potential. 
My prayer is that you will fully engage in the dangerous and thrilling adventure of using your leadership gift to advance the kingdom of God. The path won't be easy. . . but God will never leave you alone. So trust him. And don't forget to enjoy the ride! 

 

Audio Book: How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership

Author: John Ortberg & Stuart Briscoe

How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership features autobiographical accounts of how various persons have come to change their minds about women in leadership. Well-known Evangelical leaders---individuals and couples, males and females from a broad range of denominational affiliations and ethnic diversity---share their surprising journeys from a more or less restrictive view to an open inclusive view that recognizes a full shared partnership of leadership in the home and in the ministries of the church. 

 

Book: Jesus feminist 

Author: Sarah Bessey

In her first book, blogger Bessey describes her personal spiritual journey and advocates for a Church that fully embraces the equality of women. Through what she often calls “narrative theology,” Bessey writes about how Jesus led her to become a feminist. She explores the controversial biblical passages that are often used to limit women’s leadership, both at home and within the Church, and encourages readers to challenge traditional interpretations.

 

Gender roles have been debated for centuries, and now Sarah Bessey offers a clarion freedom call for all who want to realize their giftedness and potential in the kingdom of God. Through a thoughtful review of biblical teaching and church practices, Bessey shares how following Jesus made a feminist out of her.

 

Book: Fashioned to Reign  

Author: Kris Vallotton

In the Garden, woman was taken out of man to stand by his side and co-reign with him. But Satan’s schemes have robbed women of their rightful identity, disempowering and defacing them. The world aches for God’s original partnership to be brought into balance once more-and it can be. 

Join Kris Vallotton for an extraordinary journey of eye-opening insight, including 

• God’s true plan and purpose for women

• Jesus’ radical teachings and care for women

• Men’s important role in restoring women

• The true meaning of difficult Bible passages about women

• Examples of women in leadership as God intended 

God fashioned women to reign alongside men. Jesus set women free to be beautiful and powerful. As daughters and sons of the King, it’s time for us to rule together in glory again. 
“We have failed to realize that Jesus founded the women’s liberation movement more than two thousand years ago. Isn’t it high time His Church led the revolution?”

 

Book: Undaunted

Daring to do what God calls you to do

Author: Christine Caine

Christine Caine offers life-transforming insights about how not only to overcome the challenges, wrong turns, and often painful circumstances we all experience, but also to actually grow from those experiences and be equipped and empowered to help others. Using her own dramatic life story, Caine shows how God rescued her from a life where she was unnamed, unwanted, and unqualified. She tells how she overcame abuse, abandonment, fears, and other challenges to go on a mission of adventure, fueled by faith and filled with love and courage. Her personal stories inspire readers to hear their name called, just as Christine heard her own―“You are beloved. You are the hope. You are chosen”―to go into a dark and troubled world, knowing each of us possesses all it takes to bring hope, create change, and live completely for Christ. Part inspirational tale, part manifesto to stir readers to lives of adventure, Undaunted shows the way with spiritual wisdom and insight.

 

Book: Without Rival

Embrace Your Identity and Purpose in an Age of Confusion and Comparison 

Author: Lisa Bevere

There is a reason we look at others as rivals and limit ourselves to comparison and competition. We have an enemy assaulting our mind, will, and emotions in the hope that we'll turn on ourselves and each other. It's a cycle that isolates us from intimate connections, creates confusion about our identity, and limits our purpose. In Without Rival, bestselling author Lisa Bevere shares how a revelation of God's love breaks these limits. You'll learn how to stop seeing others as rivals and make the deep connections with your Creator you long for--connections that hold the promise of true identity and intimacy. With biblically sound teaching filled with prophetic insight for our day, Lisa uses humor and passion to challenge you to· Flip rivalry so it brings out the best in you· Stop hiding from conversations you need to be a part of· Answer the argument that says women are unfit, easily deceived, and gullible· Dismantle gender rivalry and work with the men in your life's time to step forward to live a life without rival.

 

Book: Lean in to lead

Women, Work, and the Will to Lead 

Author: Sheryl Sandberg

Thirty years after women became 50 per cent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential. 

Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and is ranked on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2010, she gave an electrifying TEDTalk in which she described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers. Her talk, which became a phenomenon and has been viewed more than two million times, encouraged women to “sit at the table,” seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals with gusto.

In Lean In, Sandberg digs deeper into these issues, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to cut through the layers of ambiguity and bias surrounding the lives and choices of working women. She recounts her own decisions, mistakes, and daily struggles to make the right choices for herself, her career, and her family. She provides practical advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career, urging women to set boundaries and to abandon the myth of “having it all.”  She describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfilment and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women in the workplace and at home. 

Written with both humour and wisdom, Sandberg’s book is an inspiring call to action and a blueprint for individual growth. Lean In is destined to change the conversation from what women can’t do to what they can.

 

Book: Present Over Perfect 

Live a life of meaning and connection instead of pushing for perfection

Author: Shauna Niequist

A few years ago, I found myself exhausted and isolated, my soul and body sick. I was tired of being tired, burned out on busy. And, it seemed almost everyone I talked with was in the same boat: longing for connection, meaning, depth, but settling for busy.

I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, writer, and I know all too well that settling feeling. But over the course of the last few years, I’ve learned a way to live, marked by grace, love, rest, and play. And it’s changing everything.

Present Over Perfect is an invitation to this journey that changed my life. I’ll walk this path with you, a path away from frantic pushing and proving, and toward your essential self, the one you were created to be before you began proving and earning for your worth.

Written in Shauna’s warm and vulnerable style, this collection of essays focuses on the most important transformation in her life, and maybe yours too: leaving behind busyness and frantic living and rediscovering the person you were made to be. Present Over Perfect is a hand reaching out, pulling you free from the constant pressure to perform faster, push harder, and produce more, all while maintaining an exhausting image of perfection.

Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey, and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in grace, rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people that matter most to us.

In these pages, you’ll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

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Book: 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership 

Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviour in Work and Ministry

Author: Kate Coleman

For the first time in modern history, God is placing women in strategic positions of influence and leadership within the church, public, corporate, charity and voluntary sectors, in unprecedented numbers. Women are called to flourish in these areas. However, there are significant external and internal issues that hinder women in leadership in unique ways. In the 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership, Kate Coleman considers what lies at the root of the many challenges facing women leaders and discusses ways of dealing with them. Effective leadership starts with you and she explains how to: • Overcome limiting self-perceptions • Establish boundaries • Develop a tailor-made personal vision • Cultivate a healthy work/life rhythm • Stop being a people-pleaser • Learn to confront not collude • Be intentional with your inner circle This book will enable you to identify and overcome self-defeating patterns of behaviour, in ways that will radically transform your leadership capabilities. Written for every leader from any sector!

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Theologie: Side by Side 

A concise explanation for biblical gender equality 

Author: Janet George / CBE International Side by side is a powerful book about the issue of gender equality from a biblical perspective. 

Link to online book. 

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Book: Equal 

What the Bible says, about men and women and authority

Author: Katia Adams 

In Equal, Church and ministry leader Katia Adams argues that the church has too often misrepresented the heart of Jesus to release and empower women and men. With sensitivity to both sides of the argument, Adams draws on the wisdom of Scripture, theology, and the Holy Spirit. Blending them with her own personal experiences, she asserts that both women and men are equally called to serve and lead in the church and in the world—and that, by restricting the roles of women, we are missing God’s design for the church and for the gospel’s impact on the earth.

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