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What are you reading to stay robust in your thought life? How do you keep that missional imagination alive and redeem culture for the common good? I personally need books that are realistic but promote resilience of vision for kingdom ethics in a broken world, books that see God as above all human problems. To that end, I suggest the following: Gordon E. Carkner, PhD, Meta-Educator 

Radcliffe Camera Library, Oxford, UK

Brad Edwards, The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism. Zondervan, 2026 

Diane Kalen-Sukra, Lead with Civility: A Handbook for Uncivil Times. 2026. 

Roger Scrutin, On Human Nature. Princeton University Press, 2017; and Beauty: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2011. 

Makoto Fujimura, Art is a Journey Into the Light. Yale University Press, 2025. 

The Gospel After Christendom: An Introduction to Cultural Apologetics (editors: Collin Hansen, Skyler R. Flowers, and Ivan Mesa), Zondervan Reflective. 

Paul T. Sloan, Jesus and the Law of Moses: The Gospels and the Restoration of Israel within First-Century Judaism. Baker Academic, 2025. 

Amy Orr-Ewing, Forgiveness: Reclaiming its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear. 2026. 

Os Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom. InterVarsity Press, 2021. 

N. T. Wright, Creation, Power, and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion. 2025. 

Christian Wiman, Zero to the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. (poetry) 

Isabelle Hamley, Embrace Justice: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2022. SPCK, 2021. 

Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel: Interpretation. Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1990. Ute also loves his commentary on Isaiah. 

Karen Hao, The Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s Open AI. Penguin, 2025. 

Christopher Watkin, The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Tracing the Roots of Colonialism, Secularity, and Ecology. Cambridge University Press, 2025. 

Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands?: On Christian Resilience. 2026. 

Michael Edwards, Untimely Christianity: Hearing the Bible in a Secular Age. 2022 

Mentally Strong People Practice Ten Things Consistently

1. They reflect on their progress, and they are willing to pivot/change strategy to improve outcomes. Thus, they develop healthy, creative self-critical skills. They don’t die on the wrong hills.

2. They tolerate discomfort, fear, uncertainty, and even suffering for the long-term good goal. They are willing to take the necessary risks to grow personally and improve the world around them at work and in society.

3. They think big, while productively watching for new opportunities and open doors—with attention to the micro and the macro. They hang out with inspiring eagles.

4. They regularly examine their core beliefs with a view to staying in touch with/facing reality at all cost, and doing what is best for others as well as themselves. They take time out to rest and reflect on what is really important in life: in order to gain clarity, peace, and composure (transcend daily demands and tedious people). They care for their family and friends and don’t let work devour them or become an idol.

5. They do not play the victim or complain about their circumstances or their colleagues. They are prepared to work and succeed on their own merits, while being open to grace and the giftedness of others who resonate with their vision. They remain hopeful and have staying power (grit/resilience) because they know how to work hard to get that to which they aspire. They are reliable, accountable, fruitful people.

6. They practice kindness and discretion, manage their emotions, thoughts, and behaviour despite success or failures. They accept full responsibility for their past behaviour (good and bad), ask for forgiveness regularly, and are willing to reconcile through conflicts wherever possible.

7. They are outrageously generous to the less fortunate and celebrate the success of others, always looking for someone to champion.

8. They are constantly learning new things, new approaches to problems. They continually improve their skill set, their language, and articulation. They seek to become better human beings and aspire to wholeness and balance.

9. They stay out of debt (which enslaves, oppresses, and depresses). Debt can lead to marital breakdown, crime, or bankruptcy. They take care of their health, remain socially active, get exercise, eat well, and get regular medical checkups.

10. They develop healthy habits: prayer, Bible reading, worship, compassion, good friendships, community connections. They are more than willing to go the extra mile to help others and surmount social barriers (Don Page, Servant-Empowered Leadership).

Gordon E. Carkner, PhD, Meta-Educator with Faculty & Graduate Students @ UBC

Catalysing a Missional Imagination (Missio Dei)

• Imagine a new world where God’s values were dominant: love, justice, mercy, shalom. Look through God-attuned eyes; listen with God-attuned ears; love with God-aligned hearts.
• What would it be like to embody the Gospel as a person or a small group? Think of yourself as an ambassador for the Sermon on the Mount.
• What if we were to see each other as part of God’s bigger plan/story and not as religious consumers?
• Where is God at work in your neighbourhood, at your workplace, in your family?
• Try deep listening through prayer walks, conversations, and discernment: What are the needs, longings, and stories of people around you?
• Take one brave step this week to put Missio Dei into practice. Joy will follow.
• Are there seminars, books, biblical teaching, or YouTube videos on missional imagination?
• Ask how you can envision God’s future for Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax: Gather with people to discuss this in pubs, coffee shops, parks: Talk about the prophetic kingdom of God and its profound implications for life in our communities.
• What tools are at your disposal such as music, the arts, technology, examples of people living it out, living large in kingdom terms?
• Write down 50 reasons why you should attempt to change the world right now.
• What is your street level presence on this journey? Who are the big dream people, the heart-revealers, the entrepreneurs, and evangelists in your space?
• It can take years for listening, experimenting, discerning, collaboration to get traction. Long term cultural shifts take time, prayer, and work but it often emerges among the grass roots Christian community. Involve young people and their ideas.
• What can you learn from other cultures about radical hospitality, unique stories of brave discipleship? How have they discovered resilient faith and hope amidst struggle and suffering? Listen to new Canadians and refugees.
• What do the poor and homeless have to teach us about compassion and the kingdom of God?

“God is love, and humans are made in God’s image. Love, then, is who we are—love’s agents. God is the giver, we are the gifted, love is the gift. God is the caller, we are the called, love is the calling. This is what I mean by the gift/call structure of humankind. Being and becoming lovers—the gift of being human and the call to become human—happen together, inextricably, simultaneously in a process of being and becoming.” ~ James Olthuis in Beautiful Risk, 68

~Gordon Carkner, PhD Oxford Centre for Mission Studies & University of Wales, Meta-Educator with UBC Postgrad Students.

Reading: Missional God, Missional Church: Hope for Re-evangelizing the West (IVP Academic, 2012) by Ross Hastings is a comprehensive theological work on mission that grounds the missional church movement in the nature of the Triune God, with a central focus on John 20:19–23 (what Hastings calls “the Greatest Commission”). 

Core Thesis: The book argues that the church’s mission flows directly from the missio Dei (the mission of God). God is inherently missional—described as Sender (Father), Sent (Son), and Sending (Spirit)—and the church participates in this triune life by both gathering as a deep, Spirit-empowered community of shalom (peace) and scattering into the world as a wide, incarnational witness. Hastings emphasizes a “both-and” approach that corrects false dichotomies (e.g., gathered vs. scattered, deep vs. wide, worship vs. mission, evangelism vs. social justice). The goal of God’s mission is the inbreaking of the kingdom: shalom in the world, holistic human flourishing (inside and outside the church), and participation in new creation through Christ. This offers hope for re-evangelizing a secularizing West by first re-evangelizing Christians about who God truly is. 

Structure and Key Sections:

• Early chapters diagnose the Western church’s challenges: cultural disconnection (failing to engage culture relevantly) and indiscriminate enculturation (absorbing harmful cultural values). Hastings calls for discerning inculturation—embodying the gospel in culture without losing its distinctiveness—drawing on thinkers like Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch, Christopher Wright, and Darrell Guder. 
• Trinitarian foundation (central emphasis): The church reflects the relational, perichoretic (mutual indwelling/coinherence) life of the Trinity. Mission is not an optional program but the church’s essence, rooted in participation (theosis-like) in the Son’s sentness, by the Spirit. Theology (especially of participation) mothers mission. 
• Part 1: Discovering Shalom explores the church as a gathered community of Christ’s risen and crucified presence—Christocentric, celebratory, hospitable, eucharistic, liturgical, catechetical, and essential (institutional in a healthy sense). It affirms both incarnation (affirming creation) and resurrection (new creation). 
• Part 2: Disseminating Shalom addresses the scattered church: mission as theosis/participation, the Spirit’s role in gathered and scattered life, forgiveness/reconciliation as kingdom signs, and holistic mission (cultural mandate, justice, evangelism, creation care, work as vocation, solidarity with the marginalized, etc.). 

Key Strengths and Emphases

• Deep and wide church: Deep in worship, preaching, community, and tradition (respecting “Deep Church” ideas); wide in cultural engagement, work, justice, and everyday sentness. 
• Holistic/integrated mission that includes evangelism, social justice, healing/suffering, and creation care.
• Strong pneumatology (role of the Holy Spirit) and ecclesiology (love for the institutional church as the community of the risen Christ).
• Pastoral and optimistic tone, rooted in exegesis of John 20 (Jesus breathing the Spirit on fearful disciples, commissioning them with peace and forgiveness).

Overall Contribution: Hastings presents missional theology as biblically grounded, Trinitarian, and practically hopeful rather than a passing fad. It calls the church to reflect God’s character as a sign, servant, and messenger of the kingdom—incarnational yet countercultural. Reviewers note its theological depth but observe it offers fewer concrete “how-to” applications, functioning best as a foundational primer for pastors, theologians, and leaders. In short, the book reframes the church not primarily around programs or strategies, but as a participating community in the life and mission of the Triune God, empowered to bring shalom to a broken world.