This document is a work in progress. Feel free to add any resources that may help promote growth in any of the areas listed (or send your suggestions to a Wiki administrator.)

(clarity and understanding; corporate calling; personal calling)

• The book The Calling Journey: Mapping the Stages of a Leader's Life Call by Tony Stoltzfus. “The Calling Journey” looks at the life of Joseph as a model of how God often prepares and calls leaders, and tracks the place and value of the valleys in our lives - those times when we think that we are not making any headway at all in our pursuit of God's call on our lives. At the book's website, http://www.thecallingjourney.com, you can chart the history of your own calling using the framework outlined by the book.
• An Uncommon Guide to Retirement by Jeff Haanen > A helpful and stimulating guide for planning the 20-30 years of expected retirement. The author encourages starting retirement with a season of sabbatical to discern God's calling at this stage of life.
• Finishing Well: Identity and Calling in Retirement > a blog post by Gary Ridley
• Sustainable Resilience - a two-week online course designed to give you tools to understand and grow in resilience and to keep your life and ministry true to your calling.
• Who, Me? Reluctant leadership and the progressive nature of God's call. Article by Warren Janzen.
• The book “Who is my Neighbor?: Being a Good Samaritan in a Connected World” by Steve Moore.
• The book “It's Your Call: What are you doing here?” by Gary Barkalow. See Ken Guenther's summary. See Gary Barkalow's website, “The Noble Heart” for additional resources.
• Spiritual Gifts Test: to help you find out what your spiritual gifts are

(committed to a local body, understanding one’s ministry role, receiving ministry from others, encouraging & loving others, unity in diversity)

• Working with the National Church > a session in the SEND orientation at MOP and in SEND Core.
  • Watch video (18 minute summary of the MOP session)
  • 2-page Word document on Working with the National Church
• Working Genius Assessment > The Table Group has identified six different types of genius (in their words, God-given gifts) that help us understand what kind of work gives us joy and energy and what kinds of work drain us. See also the book, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team by Patrick M. Lencioni. Reviewed by Ken Guenther on the SEND U blog.
• Fostering Unity > a wiki page with many resources on the topic of unity, including unity within a church.
• Church: Nurturing Communities of Faith > an online course by World Team on how to be effective in gathering disciples into healthy, relevant, reproducing churches.
• Accepting the help of those whom we serve > a blog article about Paul's posture toward the Corinthian church.
• Accountability questions for small groups
• Basic Strategies for Authentic Christian Community > from smallgroups.com

(toward God; toward others)

• Thankful > a blog article by Lynn Jackson talking about keeping a thanksgiving journal
• Growing in Gratitude - a 30-day challenge from “Revive our Hearts”
• 5 ways to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude
• Exploring Spiritual Formation: Contentment > a blog article by Lynn Karidis.

(surrender; obedience; experiencing forgiveness; moral purity; dealing with temptation)

• A series of lectures on spiritual formation by Dr. John Coe of Biola University. Highly recommended by Ken Guenther.
• Battle for Moral Purity by Ken Williams
• Overcoming in the Struggle with Pornography > a wiki page with many resources on this topic.
• Reclaiming Surrendered Ground by Jim Logan is a valuable resource for both understanding moral purity and spiritual warfare.
• You Can Change: God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions by Tim Chester. Recommended by Jacob Ginter. “discipleship that gets to the heart of the matter… not formulaic”
• Heart of the Problem: When You're Tired of 'Just Coping' with Your Struggles and Want to Find a Cure, You're Ready to Face the.. by Henry Brandt and Kerry Skinner. Recommended by John Paetkau.
• Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love by Jerry Bridges. Recommended by Ken Z.. “Great book to help us understand the enabling power of grace and the transforming work of grace. Much of this book exposed my own legalistic tendencies and pointed me to the finished work of Christ (like most of Bridges' books).”
• Seeing the larger picture > an article by Dr. Evan Parks on how people change
• Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. Recommended by Andy Spradley. “A unique and very insightful look at the Sermon on the Mount. Seeks to inspire the reader to live a “God-saturated life”. Richard Foster (author of Celebration of Discipline) called it “the book I have been waiting for all my life”. A rich book for personal spiritual growth and reflection. I'm being inspired even more as I read it through for the 2nd time.”
• Hazards of Being a Man: Overcoming 12 Challenges All Men Face by Jeffery E. Miller. Audio series also available as well as discussion guides. Recommended by Ron Redell. “Each entry in the series focuses on a different challenges that men face through eyes of Old Testament lives. All of the examples that Pastor Miller uses are negative examples so that we can learn from their failures.”
• The Consequences if I Take a Moral Tumble
• The Danger of Fruitfulness without Purity by Michael Oh
• Strategies for Fighting Sexual Sin by John Piper
• The Chief Design of My Life: Mortification and Universal Holiness by John Piper

(regular personal prayer life, corporate / public prayer; utilizing fasting in focused prayer)

• Developing your prayer life > a wiki page with many resources on this topic.
• A Praying Life > great book by Paul Miller on prayer.
• Prayercast - prayer videos for different unreached peoples
• The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us by Adele Calhoun. Provides more than 350 ways to practice suggested spiritual disciplines.
• Essence of Fasting > a 25-page booklet with many different biblical passages on fasting, compiled by a worker among Muslim peoples.
• Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer by Tyler Staton. Reviewed by Ken Guenther on the SEND U blog.

(read entire Bible; regular devotional reading; memorization; meditation; study; familiarity)

• Bible reading plans
  • Life Journal Bible Reading Plan
  • Read the Bible in 90 days
  • Biblegateway Bible Reading Plans > a variety of Bible reading plans available in many different translations
  • Bible in one year app > Recommended by Beeatrice. “I have been using this Bible reading plan, and I find many of the devotional sharing are very life nourishing, insightful and thought-provoking. I find them very helpful for keeping my spiritual life vital.”
  • Bible Reading Plans for 2023 - Read the Bible in a Year (biblestudytools.com)
• Bible journalling
  • Bible journalling using the S.O.A.P. method (MOP handout)
  • How To Bible Journal– ideas on how to make your journal entries right in the Bible (paper version)
  • Bible Journal on Pinterest– for the artistic
  • Bible study templates– various ways to do devotional Bible study and Bible journaling compiled by Jack Gilbert, SEND missionary to Spain.
• Bible memorization
  • Remember me app > recommended by Ken G. The Remember Me Bible Memory App (for both Apple and Android) is an awesome tool to assist in bible verse memory work. This free* app allows you to choose Bible scriptures you want to memorize. You can play several different games that make Bible memorization easy and FUN! When you’ve mastered a Bible memory verse, the app brings it up for review every few days so you can retain what you’ve learned.
• Faith Comes by Hearing > David Benzel writes, “You can download Bibles in various languages and translations to listen to. There is probably about 20 various English options to download (dramatized, etc.).“
• Wisdom Hunters Daily Devotional (sent by email). Recommended by Deb Davis
• Puritan Meditation: The Centerpiece of Spiritual Formation > a blog article by Gary Ridley.
• Reading Bible narratives for spiritual formation. See Alfie Mosse's handout from MOP.
  • Bible Project video: Plot in Biblical Narrative
  • Playing with Fire. How the Bible Ignites Change in your Soul by Walt Russell.
  • In All the Scriptures, Three Contexts for Biblical Hermeneutics by Nicholas Piotrowski.
• The Divine Mentor: Growing your Faith as you sit at the Feet of the Saviour > book by Wayne Cordeiro, the author of the Life Journal. Reviewed by Ken Guenther on the SEND U blog.

(to God; to leadership/authority; to one another)

• Following Christ > a book review of Joe Stowell's book, Following Christ: Experiencing Life the Way It was Meant to Be.
• Questions to use in an Accountability Relationship
• Unhappy with leadership? blog post by Ken Guenther
• I've Got Your Back: Biblical Principles for Leading and Following Well > book by James Galvin on good followership
• The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of Leadership Development by Dr. J. Robert Clinton
• Accountability - Asking the Hard Questions. A blog post by Ken Guenther.

(Sabbath; rest; solitude; silence; journaling; spiritual retreats)

• Dealing with the Busyness and Stress of Ministry > a wiki page with many resources on this topic.
• The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath > book by Mark Buchanan. Recommended by Warren Janzen and other SEND leaders.
• Dealing with the Busyness and Stress of Ministry > a section on the Member Care wiki page with several different resources.
• Day Alone with God > a guide developed for the Member Orientation Program
• Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing by C. J. Mahaney. Recommended by Ken Z. “A small book, quick read, that reminds me of some very central Gospel truths…a book that I actually re-read once a year. Really has helped me to preach the Gospel to myself and refreshes me in the completed work of Christ and how that applies to my life as well as my ministry to others.”
• Suggestions for Nurturing Intimacy with Christ > a compilation of suggestions from those attending MOP 2000 - 2014
• Sabbatical
  • SEND's Sabbatical Guide and Resources > on SharePoint
  • Retirement Sabbatical: Identity and Calling. Blog post by Gary Ridley
• Who feeds the missionary? a blog series on the SEND U blog by Ken Guenther. You can find it as a single document starting with the first article at this link.
• A series of blog posts by Lynn Karidis on spiritual formation.
• Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. Book by Dallas Willard.

(awareness; spiritual armor; praying against forces of darkness)

• Spiritual Warfare - a wiki page with many resources on this topic.
• Dick Walton's Spiritual Warfare notes
• Daily Prayer for Protection
• Heart Searching for Personal Revival and Spiritual Warfare
• Paul Hiebert's Excluded Middle > blog post by Gary Ridley

(dependence; displaying fruit of the Spirit; power for ministry; perseverance)

• Blog series on resilience by Ken Guenther on the SEND U blog.
• Blog series by Lynn Karidis on spiritual formation, including two posts on the fruit of the Spirit
• Renovation of the Heart Video Curriculum by Dallas Willard, being used by our East Asia teams
• Sensible Shoes: A Story About the Spiritual Journey by Sharon Garlough Brown is a fictional narrative of four women on a journey toward deeper intimacy with Christ. Reviewed by Brittany Garrett on the SEND U blog.
• Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret. Also available as a free download as of March 15, 2012.

(corporate worship; personal worship)

• 5 Benefits of Corporate Worship > article from Desiring God website.
• The Lost Disciple of Personal Worship
• Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions by John Piper
• Reflections on Worship. Blog article by Gary Ridley.

See also SEND U page on Spiritual Formation.