Welcome to the First CRC Library

Our library has a collection of over 1500 books, DVDs and CDs with categories including Fiction, Bible study materials, Children, Youth, Biographies, Christian Perspectives, Christian Living, Spiritual Growth and Theology.

The library catalogue is available online here:

Click here to go directly to Library Catalogue

We welcome recommendations for additions to the library.  Please contact the church office at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your recommendations.

 

Featured Books - December 2017 - recommended by FIrst CRC members

The Reason for God - Timothy Keller

Lament for a sonTimothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics and non-believers bring to religion. Using literature, philosophy, anthropology, pop culture, and intellectual reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God is, in fact, a sound and rational one. To true believers he offers a solid platform on which to stand against the backlash toward religion spawned by the Age of Skepticism. And to skeptics, atheists, and agnostics he provides a challenging argument for pursuing the reason for God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Think no evil: Inside the story of the Amish schoolhouse shooting... and beyond- Jonas Beiler with Shawn Smucker

ThinkNoEvilTHE TRUE STORY OF OCTOBER 2, 2006, WHEN CHARLES ROBERTS ENTERED AN AMISH SCHOOLHOUSE,bound and shot ten schoolgirls, and then committed suicide, stunned all who read the headlines or watched the drama unfold on television screens. Even more startling than the violence was the quiet yet powerful response of the Amish community offering unconditional forgiveness to the murderer and reaching out to his family with baskets of food and warm welcomes into their homes. Could such forgiveness be genuine, truly heartfelt?  How could they forgive someone who killed their innocent daughters? How could they reach out and embrace his family, expressing unconditional love for them in these circumstances? And so began Jonas Beiler's journey into this story --the story behind the headlines, behind the farmhouse doors, around the lantern-lit kitchen tables, at the local market, and alongside the tiny coffins. Think No Evil is the first insider account of the tragic events and reveals God's gift of forgiveness, a gift that we are able to share even in the midst of the worst evil.

 

 

 

 

 

The Christy Miller Series - Robin Jones Gunn

Lament for a sonThe Christy Miller Series by Robin Jones Gunn is a Christian book series for young women. The series focuses on the life of Christy Miller, an emotional and awkward teenager under the influence of secular sources, who struggles to maintains a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The series follows Christy as she faces the challenges of high school life and grows in her Christian faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C.S. Lewis - A life: eccentric genius, reluctant prophet - Alister McGrath

Lament for a sonFifty years after his death, C. S. Lewis continues to inspire and fascinate millions. His legacy remains varied and vast. He was a towering intellectual figure, a popular fiction author who inspired a global movie franchise around the world of Narnia, and an atheist-turned-Christian thinker.

In C.S. Lewis—A Life, Alister McGrath, prolific author and respected professor at King’s College of London, paints a definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis. After thoroughly examining recently published Lewis correspondence, Alister challenges some of the previously held beliefs about the exact timing of Lewis’s shift from atheism to theism and then to Christianity. He paints a portrait of an eccentric thinker who became an inspiring, though reluctant, prophet for our times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Featured Books - June 2015 - inspired by SERVE Edmonton

First CRC is excited to join with The Avenue Church in hosting SERVE Edmonton from June 27 to July 4. SERVE is a one week intensive gathering of inter-generational servants who come alongside a community for the purpose of being Christ-like.  The objective is to reflect Christ while mutually encouraging each other in the context of a particular community to further the Kingdom of God.  SERVE participates in the organic concept of missions at home, adhering to the fact that we join God in the ministry He is already doing.

GodInTheAlleyBeingAndSe3746 fGod in the Alley: Being and seeing Jesus in a broken world  - by Greg Paul

 The tangible kingdomThe Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community - by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selected New Books - March 2015

Lament for a Son - Nicholas Wolterstorff

Lament for a sonWell-known Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff has authored many books that have contributed significantly to scholarship in several subjects. In Lament for a Son he writes not as a scholar but as a loving father grieving the loss of his son.  In brief vignettes Wolterstorff explores with a moving honesty and intensity, all the facets of his experience of this irreversible loss. Though he grieves "not as one who has no hope," he finds no comfort in the pious-sounding phrases that would diminish the malevolence of death.  The book is in one sense a narrative account of events--from the numbing telephone call on a sunny Sunday afternoon that tells of 25-year-old Eric's death in a mountain-climbing accident, to a graveside visit a year later. But the book is far more than narrative. Every event is an occasion for remembering, for meditating, for Job-like anguish in the struggle to accept and understand.  A profoundly faith-affirming book, Lament for a Son gives eloquent expression to a grief that is at once unique and universal--a grief for an individual, irreplaceable person. Though it is an intensely personal book, Wolterstorff decided to publish it, he says, "in the hope that it will be of help to some of those who find themselves with us in the company of mourners." (Eerdmans)

 

 

 

  

In the likeness of God - Philip Yancey and Paul Brand

In the likeness of God The human body is a likeness of God, its design revealing insights into the church, the “body of Christ” For Philip Yancey, the late Dr. Paul Brand—the hand surgeon who devoted his life to the poorest people of India and Louisiana—was also a  likeness of God, living the kind of Christian life that exemplified what God must have had in mind. In the Likeness of God combines the complete texts of Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image into one book.  Dr. Paul Brand and writer  Philip Yancey explore the wonder of the human body and uncover the eternal statements that God has made in the very structure of our bodies. Their remarkable journey through inner space—the world of cells, systems, and chemistry—points to a  still deeper unseen reality of God’s work in our lives. In His Image takes up where the first book leaves off. In five sections—Image, Blood, Head, Spirit, and Pain—the authors unlock the remarkable living lessons contained in our physical makeup.  (Zondervan)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured books - February 2015 - Faith and Science

Origins - Deborah and Loren Haarsma

Origins -revised 2011Two physicists present a solid Reformed perspective on how to evaluate the competing ways in which Christians understand the origins and history of the universe. This book shows how to honor both the word of God and God's world in coming to a responsible understanding of how God created the universe and our world. Each chapter includes discussion starters for small groups.

  

Science and Christianity: Four Views  edited by Richard F. Carlson 

Science and christianty four views carlson Science and Christianity. Are they partners or opponents? Christians have long debated the relationship of science to faith. With the rise of Darwinism, however, the issue took on new significance. Darwinism appeared to  undermine the authority of the Bible and the credibility of Christianity by freeing science of the need for a Creator. Rethinking the relationship between science and Christianity quickly became a priority.

 How does a faithful Christian respond to the pronouncements of contemporary science?

 Is science a help or a hindrance to belief?

 Are science and the Bible in conflict?

 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Christians continue to wonder whether faith and science are partners or opponents. In this book six Christian scholars sort through the issues as they present four different  views on the relationship of science and Christianity. These include Wayne Frair and Gary D. Patterson for "creationism," Jean Pond for "independence," Stephen C. Meyer for "qualified agreement" and Howard J. Van Till  for "partnership." Each contributor responds to the other scholars, noting points of agreement and disagreement. Editor Richard F. Carlson offers an introduction to this contemporary debate as well as a postscript to  help us evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each view. (Amazon)

 

Do Science and the Bible Conflict  by Garry Poole and Judson Poling

Do faith and science conflict

Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science and Art by Abraham Kuyper

wisdom and wonder Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art is a new and complete translation of two sections that the Dutch Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper intended for his larger three-volume work  on common grace. During his life, Kuyper labored tirelessly, publishing two newspapers, leading a reform movement out of the state church, founding the Free University of Amsterdam, and serving as prime minister of  the Netherlands. Kuyper's Wisdom & Wonder displays his talents as a public theologian, focusing on his comprehensive and Reformed vision of science and art, still relevant for Christians today.

 

 

 

 

 

New Books - January 2015

Till the night be past: The life and times of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Theodore J. Kleinhans

 

Till the night be past

The tangible Kingdom: Creating incarnational community by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay

 The tangible kingdom

Recommendations - September 2013

Ten Myths About Calvinism by Ken Stewart

ten myths about calvinism

Historian of Christianity Ken Stewart is intent on setting the record straight about Reformed theology. He identifies ten myths held by either or both Calvinists and non-Calvinists and shows how they are gross mischaracterizations of that theological stream. Certain of these persistent stereotypes that defy historical research often present a truncated view of the depth and breadth of the Reformed tradition. Others, although erroneous, are nevertheless used to dismiss outright this rich body of biblical theological teaching.

  

 Heron River - Hugh Cook

heron-riverHeron River probes the fierce bonds of family, the tragic consequences of human failure, and the persistent reverberations of history and memory. 

The story is set in a small Ontario town. Madeline Harbottle, a woman with a debilitating illness, seeks solace from the pain of the past and the challenges of the present. Her son Adam, damaged from a tragic childhood accident, finds security in his routine existence, until he falls prey to a cunning deception. Jacob Cunningham, a gifted thirteen-year-old boy, harbours a dark secret that he must confront in order to be whole. A young female police officer named Tara Burnaby tries to solve a string of break-ins following the murder of an elderly woman, and the previously staid small town reacts anxiously to the fact of a killer in their midst. 

Heron River explores human error and redemption, tragedy and triumph, and confronts the possibilities for human forgiveness and love amidst adversity.