The order of entries in this Basic Bibliography is for those who are exploring or performing a “practice and reflection” discipleship life at the Open Door Community. The first seven books are particular to our life and ministry. The method involves practice, then reading, then discussion/reflection with others who share a common life in service to the poor. We walk the way, seek the truth while walking the way, and discover the life of Jesus “in us.” This then directs us again to the Way, the Truth and the Life. We dance in circles along the hard road toward the narrow, but open, door of the Beloved Community.

1. “The Open Door Community Canon” (Selected Scriptures that particularly clarify the life we are called to live.
2. Peter Gathje, Christ Comes in the Stranger’s Guise: A History of the Open Door Community, 1991, Atlanta: The Open Door Community
3. Peter Gathje, Editor, A Work of Hospitality: The Open Door Reader, 1982-2002, 2002, Atlanta: The Open Door Community
4. Hospitality, a newspaper published 11 times each year by the Open Door Community. Filled with stories of our common life and justice struggles. Please join our mailing list.
5. Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, (2nd rev. ed.), 1989, New York: Paulist Press
6. Ed Loring, I Hear Hope Banging at My Back Door, 2000, Atlanta: The Open Door Community (Download as an Adobe pdf document).
7. Stanley P. Saunders and Charles L. Campbell, The Word on the Street: Performing the Scriptures in the Urban Context, 2000, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
8. Christine Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, 1999, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
9. David Hilfiker, Not All of Us Are Saints, 1994, New York: Ballantine Books
10. Dorothy Day, Selected Writings, edited by Robert Ellsberg, 1983 & 1992, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books (NB the long introduction which is excellent.)
11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1937, New York: The Macmillan Company
12. William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians & Other Aliens in a Strange Land, 1973
13. Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium, 1998, New York: Galilee Doubleday
14. Clarence Jordan, The Sermon on the Mount, 1952 (Revised 1993), Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press
15. Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking, 1993, New York: Vintage Books
16. Ched Myers, et al., Say to this Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, 1996, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books
17. Lawrence Holben, All the Way to Heaven: A Theological Reflection on Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and The Catholic Worker, 1997, Marion, SD: Rose Hill Books
18. Laurel A. Dykstra, Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus, 2002, Orbis Books
19. James M. Washington, Editor, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1990, HarperSanFrancisco
20. Robert Ellsberg, All Saints : Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, 1997, The Crossroad Publishing Company

(Revised January 2006)