A little essay in which I ruminate on our forty years in the bookselling business. I name drop some authors and books, mostly so it gives you a picture of some of our influences and heros, contacts and favorite people. I hope you find it a little bit interesting as we invite you to celebrate God’s faithfulness to us these four long decades. And as a way of saying thanks to all who have sent us orders and kept us afloat. 

I suppose twenty years ago today I cited the famous Sergeant Pepper lyric about it being twenty years ago today. Maybe I even noted how that famous prelude segued into “With a Little Help From My Friends.” I suppose I’d say God Himself is our own Sergeant Pepper but we have truly gotten by these forty years in the volatile world of indie book retailing, with the help of our friends. Staff, sales reps, supportive authors, family members, friendly church leaders, and, of course, customers.

In the early years we coined a little slogan that we wanted folks to be “more than a customer.” Partners, allies, maybe something akin to what Wendell Berry calls a membership; friends. And so it has often been that in these forty years — we opened forty years ago today —  our customers have become friends. More than a few (you know who you are) are dear, dear ones. Some are local, some are from our era selling books at conferences and events where we’d unite for a few days each year, and others are from what we used to call our “mail order” business. Folks nowadays call that our online community; some of you we have met face to face, some we have not. Many of you reading this are very special to us. I suspect most of us feel a bit like a tribe together, with overlapping interests surrounding the reading of good books. We are, in some ways, a community of sorts, a fellowship of friends.

Maybe I’ll admit to thinking that the Joe Cocker version of “With a Little Help From My Friends” is more passionate and gritty than the iconic Beatles version. I will say that our tribe who has shopped here, sent orders here, worked with us in various ways (including churches, mission and ministry organizations, social change think-tanks, a few colleges, libraries, and, in the old days, our local hospital) have been an unwieldy bunch, a little wild like the infamous Cocker. What a motley crew most of us are. How eager we are to read widely, to learn, to celebrate the printed page, faithful but open-minded, fierce as some say these days. How can we ever say thank you?

A few have wondered about our bookstore life and times and some have even encouraged me to write a book about it. Although I’ve got lots of good stories of interesting customers, lots of rewarding scenarios, a few harrowing moments (like the threats from the KKK under our door when we had an MLK display in our window), funny episodes (like the time I hung up on the White House operator thinking the order from the President of the United States was a joke), and mostly happy friendships with fascinating authors we’ve met, I doubt that there’s enough for a book. But I can ramble a bit here for those who might find it interesting.

I needn’t belabor our origin story here; many have heard it (ad nauseam, perhaps.) The shortest version is that we learned to value the usefulness of thoughtful Christian literature when we worked for the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach) out near Pittsburgh in the late 1970s. Helping to organize the Jubilee conference there which was designed to hold out the transforming vision of a radical Christian worldview that equipped students to think Christianly about life, culture, studies, vocation, and work was a motivating factor: when we left CCO and returned to central PA (half way between Beth’s parents and my parents, all who helped us immeasurably in the first decade of the store) we wanted to take what we called the Jubilee vision to ordinary folk.

Could books help south central Pennsylvania customers relate liturgy and labor, worship and work, prayer and politics? Could our books help them be, in the words of a book written decades later by N.T. Wright, “surprised by hope”? The gap between Sunday and Monday seemed indicative of a dualism between the so-called sacred and secular and we wanted to lay that dichotomy to rest. God cares about all areas of life and there is much to learn about; no topic is off limits for the curious Christian mind. We sold overtly Christian books and other stuff, too. And we arranged our shelves and stocked what few in the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) carried — books about art and science, work and politics, technology and literature, education and nursing, law and psychology. In this sense we were very much like any other indie bookstores but it confused many of our earliest customers. “Where is the new Christian bookstore?” more than one person asked when they walked in the door and saw our environmental science section or books on pop culture and film studies. They couldn’t even imagine that these categories contained, mostly, overtly Christian theology and Biblically-informed perspectives on these topics. No Christian bookstore that we knew of had sections of books like any other real bookstore, architecture, gardening, sexuality, media studies. Many didn’t know what to make of us.

There were pivotal moments in the development of my own love for books which developed in my college years in the early to mid-1970s. I had read the once-banned, anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun (by Dalton Trumbo) at the end of high school and knew how powerful novels could be. My friend Randy from the Easter Seal Camp Harmony Hall (where Beth and I worked in the summers) gave me a poetic prayer book by activist Malcolm Boyd and the beautiful novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles that were influential. (I will not try to narrate Beth’s reading journey but as the daughter of a librarian and the sister of a reading specialist, she was ahead of me, talking about Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, say, before I had ever heard of it.)

I somehow got a copy of Os Guinness’s The Dust of Death which explored both the cultural left and right and offered a full-orbed vision of God’s Kingdom as a ‘third way’, a way of thinking that has never quite left me, even though the Christian right and the Christian left has tried to seduce me into their single-minded approaches. (It has been re-issued in IVP’s Signature Classic series and you should order it!) I was introduced to Reformed theology by the likes of R.C. Sproul but was drawn more to the Dutch reformational tradition in the line of Abraham Kuyper who affirmed common grace and invited us to think in distinctive manners about the Lordship of Christ in every area of life. (My favorite book on some of these themes, by the way, which has a few pages about our bookstore, is Richard Mouw’s splendid All That God Cares About: Common Grace and Divine Delight which is a fabulously interesting book to be read alongside Mouw’s lovely introduction to Kuyper called Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction.) Soon enough, I came to appreciate the work of Francis Schaeffer.

(Years later when we were planning out our store and attending our very first large national Christian Bookstore Association professional gathering, a huge, glitzy event in Dallas that we were uneasy about, a kindly, older woman opened the door for us and offered to hold our crying baby, then maybe six months old. Beth and I instantly recognized Edith Schaeffer and we somehow felt like it was a sign of God’s favor on us, a small sign that it was going to be okay.)

In my CCO years I tried to help students become better readers, learning about big ideas and helping them realize faith was more than personal salvation or nominal church life. Concern about the broader world and how the Bible addresses things like justice and economics and poverty was a way into this. Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger remains one of the most formative books I’ve ever read and certainly one of the most important in our lifetime. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

I read a book in those years by Howard Snyder called Community of the King which I had reviewed in Sojourners magazine and to this day I often say it is one of the best books on the local church that one should read. Happily, it is still in print, and, I think, set the stage for the more recent emphasis on what is now called the missional church movement. I like that it relates the local church (as a community) to the broader context of the coming Kingdom of God, the renewal of all creation. That is certainly one of the burning questions, a high view of church that equips us, though, to find God and serve others in all areas of life, outside the conventional walls of the typical church. Snyder gets it right.

When we opened our store that Black Friday we gave away copies of the IVP book by John Stott called Your Mind Matters. It was a lovely little manifesto that we thought might help customers appreciate what we were hoping to do with our little shop on Main Street. We had a drawing for a slipcased autographed copy of a memoir by a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, former President Jimmy Carter. What fun!

As 1983 began we were a regular store with regular hours and for years we were considered the new bookstore in the area. (It was years before we hired staff and it goes without saying that we couldn’t have survived with a handful of great employees who often became like family.) There were more traditional CBA stores near us, a Catholic shop or two, a regional chain of general stores and, in Harrisburg, a Cokesbury chain store, that catered more to mainline denominational customers than did the more sectarian mom and pop religious bookstores. There were bookstores everywhere, including several in each mall (remember malls?) We entered the business at a good time. We just didn’t have much business experience and our inventory was unusual to say the least. It was complicated with our idealistic vision and not much surplus cash.

Forty years later, I muse that some things never change. Ha. But man, in those early days we had hours of good conversations with people. CCM music was a new thing and we carried tons of albums in that hip gospel genre (not to mention then little known band U2 and Bob Dylan and Van Morrison and Johnny Cash and of course Bruce Cockburn.) Kids would flock here as we put on hot chocolate after the Friday night high school football games. Pastors befriended me and I was honored to hear some of their deepest concerns.

Not long ago a fellow showed up at our door — he has become Orthodox, after a period nearly forty years ago revelling in contemporary evangelicalism. He said we sold him CCM music, including hard Christian metal, so many decades ago and it made a difference. He said I have him lots of encouragement and good advice. I don’t know about that, but it is fascinating how many folks have grown up coming into Hearts & Minds and then bought their children and grandchildren.

Interestingly, we didn’t even call ourselves a “Christian” bookstore (only Christians go in those shops, and, only certain kinds of Christians at that) and we were deeply ecumenical, wanting to serve all branches of church folk, and, frankly, while it energized a few who had the eyes to see, it confused many. For one dark season there was a boycott against us because we had a section of contemplative spirituality — Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, medieval Catholic mystics, and Richard Foster, for instance — and the rumor was that we were teaching transcendental meditation. Nothing could be further from the truth, but there were petitions and animosity. To this day I commend Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and Prayer: Finding the Hearts True Home as true classics of spirituality. More recently there are plenty of others and that section bulges, but on the top of the list are the many titles by Ruth Haley Barton. The early Foster work is seminal and blessed.

I often explain the difference between Eastern sorts of meditation where the primary goal is to empty one’s mind to nothingness with more faithful Christian approaches where the goal is to fill one’s interior self with Biblical, Christ-like thoughts, not to join the universal Oneness but to be conformed to the likeness and way of Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, for a life embodied in the real world that God so loves.) The fear of what was then called the new age movement was throughout our community (perhaps like the MAGA-Stop the Steal nonsense is now, a loud and notable group) and I recall debating with customers why it was appropriate for us to sell bookmarkers with rainbows on them who insisted it was a sign of the encroaching One World Government. “It is a sign of God’s covenant with the Earth, given in Genesis,” I’d insist, and we were not getting rid of them.

We were sent a letter to cease and desist my negative reviews of a book (The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow) by a crack-pot conspiracy-teaching attorney whose book was condemning people like Ron Sider and Richard Foster who she insisted were pseudo-Christians plotting a demonic takeover, or something like that. I had it out with her at a trade show and rebuked the publisher who pushed such reprehensible nonsense. She said she was going to sue us but it all petered out.

Unrelatedly, I argued once with Jerry Falwell in those years about his daring to call people I respected “communists”, people like Alan Boesak in South Africa. He oddly chuckled about it, but we had a long conversation about Christians needing to disentangle themselves from ideologies of the far right (and the far left) and be more distinctive, Biblical, ethical, honest, at least. He was a mess, standing up for liar Ollie North who was killing children in El Salvador and Nicaragua (remember the Contras and the murder of Oscar Romero?) Jerry also was advocating greater support for the evil apartheid government in South Africa. What a scandal!

In those same years we were gaining some friends in local congregations and I preached or taught Sunday school in Lutheran and United Methodist and UCC congregations, not to mention a number of nondenominational churches in the area. We attended First Presbyterian of York and through pro-life work came to know some Roman Catholic friends as well. There was a Catholic school right across the street from us in those years and I’d sometimes speak there; my stint with the Thomas Merton Center back in Pittsburgh gave me some small ability to connect with folks who knew them. Interestingly, the first in-store event we ever did was with Jim Wallis of Sojourners; we had maybe 25 people in the small front room of the store (before we expanded and doubled our size) and as I recall it included mainline Protestant, Romans Catholic, evangelical, and non-churched folks. What a blast.

For a very nice story about us, see this older interview with me by the former book review editor at The Christian Century, Richard Kauffman. It’s almost embarrassing to share such a terrific article, but figured we should share it.

We brought in some speakers in that first decade or so; Becky Pippert’s Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World remains a classic on evangelism (I hope you have read it) and she did a delightful handful of presentations here. Os Guinness generously came several times; he spoke on his book The American Hour at York College and the president of the college said it was the best lecture he had ever heard! At a conference we put together on various careers and callings, Os gave a message that ended up becoming a key chapter in The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose for Your Life which remains one of my all time favorite books. Please consider ordering it as a 40th anniversary gift to us, okay? It will make my day.

We brought in Brian Walsh, Ron Sider, a few children’s authors, a poet, a novelist. In time my local pal Dick Cleary wrote a novel that was more or less designed to ask big questions as an apologetic type book would, and then a few years later, another, even better. We so enjoyed having a neighbor presenting on his fictional books with a message, In the Absence of God and Bridging the Abyss.

Over the years we’ve had many other speakers, from Lauren Winner to John Fea to Michael Ware to Karen Swallow Prior to Bobby Gross to Christopher Smith to Ruth Haley Barton to Jeremy Courtney to David Kinnamen. (And what a joy to have local churches partner with us to host some of these outstanding events. You know who you are and we are grateful.) I don’t recall every having an author in the store who we felt badly about afterwards. What a joy this has been and we thank our local folks for supporting those kinds of events.

Our largest event was when we first hosted Beverly Lewis, the delightfully impressive author of Amish fiction. (Her new one, by the way, The Orchard,  is the story of a romance involving an Amish guy who surprisingly joins the military.) Second in size and most discussed was our backyard event with N.T. Wright. You can still find on-line video of him playing a Dylan song behind our store. We will be forever grateful to Mike Gorman for helping us set that up.

Our daily work is often frustrating and the demands are much more intense than I’d ever imagined as we got into this so many decades ago. The stress has gotten worse. Don’t get me started about the confusions among publishers, shippers, damaged books, wrong bills, complacent customer service reps. Ugh.

But, yet, what a rare privilege to have hob-nobbed with, for instance, Brennan Manning (I’ve got a funny story, there, too) and to have been invited on stage with the late, great Rich Mullins to talk about our local Chinese refugee project. We’ve organized a couple of concerts, too. I’ve met Mark Heard, smuggled poetry volumes back stage to Bruce Cockburn, sold books to a personal hero, Bill Mallonee. We hosted for an in-store reading Emmy Lou Harris’s bandmate Phil Madeira (reading from his memoir God on the Rocks) and he brought along his guitar. What a joy to have Michael Card, singing, yes, but talking about his wonderful “Biblical Imagination” series of commentaries on the four gospels. He’s a very, very sharp guy.

Two plans for in-store events fell through due to illness and delays; what an honor it would have been to do the poetry reading we had hoped for with Eugene Peterson (while he was still at Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland) and to have hosted Madeleine L’Engle, who was at a small Episcopal Church in New York where good friends knew her well. What an evening either of those events would have been, eh?

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I don’t exactly recall when it started — about a decade in, I guess — but two or three organizations asking us to come to their events catapulted us into more off-site events which, for nearly 30 years, was a major part of our work. The CCO invited me back to do some staff training, to write book reviews for the in-house staff newsletter, to bring resources to their every-other-monthly staff gatherings and eventually — when the previous bookseller and good friend wanted out — to start setting up books at the big, annual Jubilee conference. To this day the CCO is our largest client and as an associate staff with them, I get to hawk books to their staff and sometimes their students. With their “Jubilee vision” of inviting students into the all-of-life-redeemed story of God we get to sell books on law and medicine and technology and education and counseling and business in a way we don’t here in the shop.

We rarely sell books about work and marketplace ministry here in the store but college students, if mentored correctly, can develop an appetite for relating faith and life, Christian thinking and social action, Biblical worldview and transformational service in culture. Books like the edgy cool and very readable Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human by John Mark Comer and the more sophisticated but must-read Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch provide the essential foundation — and we sell them most places we go (if rarely here in Dallastown.) So we appreciate the heroic efforts of many CCO staff to invite young adults into what Steve Garber (who used to work for them) calls a seamless life.

I adore Garber’s small collection of pieces about this called A Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love & Learning, Worship and Work which in short eloquent essays explores the themes developed more substantively in Visions of Vocation: Common Grace of the Common Good. (And while I’m mentioning Garber, I was honored to be interviewed and my story told in a page or two in his first book, the late 1990s Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior) which explores how people find lasting meaning in a pluralistic, secularizing world. He remains one of our favorite authors and a regular encouragement to us. If you wonder what guided us these past 40 years you could do much worse than read through Garber’s three books.

Besides the CCO getting us slowly learning the art of setting up book displays off-site, we were invited by the Pennsylvania State Council of Churches to their then-huge events, meeting speakers as prestigious as Jurgen Moltmann and Walter Brueggemann. Our state-wide PC(USA) Synod had us doing week-long events called Synod School (where we first became friends with Leonard Sweet) and we were regulars for a number of years at the Black Presbyterian Caucus events — some years being the only white guy in the place. Beth and I sort of became honorary UCC folks with the Penn Southeast Conference and the Penn Central Conference having us speak and sell books at their clergy retreats. (We hung out with nationally-known speakers such as Barbara Brown Taylor, Joyce Rupp, Tom Sine, Len Sweet, Walt Brueggemann, Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass, Jeremiah Wright, Marva Dawn, Molly Baskette, Anthony Robinson and more at their events.) At other similar retreats we met Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rachel Held Evans, Lisa Sharon Harper, Jamie Smith, and again, many others.

Our off-site business picked up as we served various denominations. From UCC annual conferences to Lutheran Synod events to Episcopalian clergy retreats to our beloved, regional APCE (Association of Presbyterian Church Educators) events, we’ve had the delight of serving churches. We’ve worked with smaller gatherings, many speakers of note, and a few really famous ones such as Miroslav Volf and Fleming Rutledge. It’s been stressful (more than you can imagine, actually) and a true blessing.

During those years we’ve served Christian organizations. Some congregations and organizations send us mail orders, of course (thank you) but also as a part of our off site travels. We’ve done large and well-curated book displays in many states — Florida, Texas, New England, Illinois, Ohio, even California. We’ve often been to New York City with the Redeemer Center for Faith and Work (and a few one-off events with Redeemer Presbyterian like when they hosted Bryan Stevenson or N.T. Wright.) For years we’ve had the red carpet rolled out for us at CLS (the Christian Legal Society) one of the most exciting and rewarding things we’ve done each year. We have attended several IAM conferences (Mako Fujimura’s old International Arts Ministry organization.) Naturally, we’ve been to CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts) events and one-off conferences on business, science, ecology, Christian education, peacemaking, prayer, world missions, youth ministry. We’ve done events on health care, on slavery and trafficking, on race and racism, on theology, on mental health and, for a while, a series of annual events inviting charismatic renewal and spiritual warfare. Oh yes.

Our passion for sharing thoughtful books largely in the evangelical tradition got us selling books in northern Virginia for the legendary C.S. Lewis Institute (where we served offering books by folks such as Alister McGrath and Lee Strobel and Os Guinness) and the Annapolis, MD, annual Jonathan Edwards Institute conference. That John Piper thought I might know where to find an obscure Edwards quote still makes me chuckle, but we did have the Complete Works there, and found the quote with Noel’s help, just before his address.

Speaking of Piper, I once was giving a book talk at a diverse gathering of campus ministry professionals down South where he was the keynote speaker, presenting at the banquet follow ing my book announcements. The power went out when I was doing the book plugs and since they didn’t want to have him start in the dark, they told me just to keep hawking books. I preached up a storm (in the dark) about the need for books to help collegiates take their faith into the classroom, about the vivid call of God to think critically about the culture and take up vocations which would become callings, in but not of the world. It was nearly pitch black, but he said he liked my off-the-cuff riffing. It wouldn’t be the last time I’d speak in a room that was dark from power outages. Or at candle-lit, late night, outdoor events at camps or festivals.

We’ve sold books with Tony Campolo (who once quipped that he should take me on the road with him since I knew his books better than he did) and a friend who was a bit of a mentor, Ron Sider. Through Bread for the World we came to meet a long-time hero, Art Simon, who still calls to order books from time to time.  And, of course, we’ve had book displays at events with John Perkins. (When I pulled together chapters for the book I edited, Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life I knew I had to have John Perkins as a contributor and that worked out nicely.

That generation of Biblically-wise, gospel-centered and socially-engaged leaders generated some excellent, lasting books and it is among our greatest privilege to have met them and served their organizations. We even had a tiny hand in making available the surprise book to honor Ron that came out in 2013, Following Jesus: Journeys in Radical Discipleship: Essays in Honor of Ronald J. Sider which we raved about here at BookNotes and took to a surprise banquet at Ron’s retirement a decade ago.

Time doesn’t allow me to highlight all of our on-the-road adventures but it generated, until recent years, more than a third of our income (and a third of our time) pretty much up until the Covid pandemic, which we still take very seriously. As events dried up, so did that income. We’ve never been particularly successful, financially speaking, hardly breaking even most years, and that hit to our bottom line has been nearly fatal. We will see how we move forward in this new season, wondering how sustainable this on-line approach will be.

It has been something though — from God guiding me quite literally on late night highways to meeting remarkable workers at hotels and conference centers, from rubbing shoulders with impressive speakers and, most importantly, the many customers we’ve developed from these off site pop-up Hearts & Minds book set-ups. What good conversations we’ve had at these gatherings and how beautiful to have folks trust us to recommend key titles for their needs. It has been a labor of love and we are grateful to all who have allowed us to carry on.

Sure, we’ve had some goofs at our events — wrong books taken, dumb stuff shown, mis-understanding the needs of the moment. Once a speaker at a major conference told us about a book he was going to highlight, even informing us of his plan to show it on a powerpoint screen. This is golden to the ears of booksellers ears so we took a large stack of this expensive text, displaying it prominently. Alas, the expert was showing it all right — to critique it and say why nearly everything about it was wrong. Yikes! So many people rushed back to our display tables to tell us that the speaker hated this book that we were featuring. We quickly hid them underneath the tables and took a bath sending them all back.

Which for some reason sort of reminds me of a time we were selling books with a gentleman running for President. The secret service guys had to search our empty boxes below our tables and the book signing thing was called off. Sigh.

Once we were doing at a big conference in DC. Because the event was in a federal building near the White House we had to first take the van to a special location to be swept, underneath and inside; standard post 9-11 security, I guess. Whew. Later, once we entered the beautiful space and the gathering started we kept losing our wireless signal to connect our credit card processor, creating a bit of a hassle for the very patient customers. Classy and important speakers were in the house and this was embarrassing. We later found out that every time White House vehicles drove by they used scrambler devices, momentarily knocking out radio reception, for their own security. No wonder our tech support team had no idea what was going on. Ha.

And once, selling books at an event with Tim Keller, in a fancy museum in a city that won’t be named, I was encouraged to load-out by a back door, long after everyone was gone. Even the security folks seemed absent so it was just me, my hand truck, and 25 foot tall dinosaurs in the glow of exit lights and the late night shadows. I’m telling you, it was spooky, to say the least.

We’ve laughted with folks we’ve met on the road, cried with some, pushed back feelings of resentment when we were given crummy display locations or when we were asked to remove certain unpalatable books from our display. After an all night set-up at Princeton once we were commanded to take everything down due to a misunderstanding of the contract; they were wrong, by the way, and the group we were to serve never went back there for their annual gathering. But we lost money sending back a whole lot of merchandise we never got a chance to sell. Wow — I forgot about that!

We’ve be sucked into arguments at some book displays and we’ve prayed with people we hardly knew. (Once, I crawled under a skirted table to escape the hubbub and noise in order to prayerfully lead a guy to Christ.) We’ve be bemused by ceiling tiles falling on us and water pipe leaks soaking our display (twice — once in Lancaster and once in Boston.) We’ve had stuff stolen and we’ve had stuff returned from previous years. We’ve strategized with planners and griped with hurting participants and celebrated happily most times.

We’ve had off-site book signings with everybody from Lisa Sharon Harper to N.T. Wright to Eugene Peterson to John Perkins and Chuck Colson and Donald Miller and Phil Yancey and Bob Goff and the late Michael Gerson; we often found ourselves in awe of how authors and readers connect as we’ve watched it all unfold. Our daily grind here in Dallastown has plenty of special moments and we love our ordinary, small town folks. (Who, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, are no ordinary mortals after all.)

But there has been something good for us, given our interests and inventory, to be out where groups are. We’ve learned to care about so many topics — from global missions to medical ethics, from Reformed theology to the interface of faith and the arts, from so much about the liturgical arts and worship to Christian creation care and climate change — and gearing up for off site events has made us better booksellers and more aware Christians. Thank you all, thank you.

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If our earliest years were most urgently focused on local activism and building our brand in our area, so to speak, while fighting off the big chains, our middle years were spent often on the road, meeting up with people who care about books, but fighting off the allure of Amazon. It still dismays me when big publishers like Zondervan and big name authors have exclusive Amazon links in their social media ads, insinuating that they are the best (only?) place to buy books. It’s like a disrespectful kick in the gut, a matter we take personally. Please read the marvelously rich Fulfillment: American in the Shadow of Amazon by Alec McGillis for a riveting, multi-faceted, social history of the impact Amazon has in so many places in our culture these days. For a more activist handbook, see the punchy, little How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future by bookseller Danny Caine. In any case, given their reputation for selling pirated copies, their announced goal of killing of independent bookstores, their market-skewing habit of (sometimes) selling below cost (they don’t have to make money on books since they make their money on electronics and tires and porn, etc. etc.) They are tax-cheats, cut-throat, a union-busting force serving Mr. Bezos who, they say, profits $150,000 every single an hour.

Interested in reading a bit more about us and recent bookselling woes? I sort of hate to brag but it’s our 40th anniversary, to here ya go, a very nicely done piece in The Christian Century a few years ago. Kudos to Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans for putting this together.

As more and more bookstore chains closed, then, and faith-based stores were in decline, we found that religious publishing was nonetheless fresh and as interesting as ever. From all quarters — think Crossway and Broadleaf, think Presbyterian & Reformed and Herald Press, think IVP and Eerdmans, think New Growth Press and WJK, Convergent and Baker and Brazos, just to mention mostly Protestant houses — there are great writers doing often very creative thinking, offering faithful interpretation, writing fresh, helpful books. So much good work is being published. We can’t stop now, we often quip, because this book or that book is coming out next season. We sure don’t want to miss telling our customers about those!

Which, in a way, tells a story of our recent years. We have shifted increasingly away from the strenuous on-the-road events and with Covid, we’ve been closed for in-store browsing. Which is to say, except for some fun backyard customer service and curbside delivery, we are doing mostly mail order business. Our online reviews and orders are what is keeping us afloat at this point.

We are glad to be in correspondence with so many people asking such good questions. I enjoy making lists of the best books on this topic or that finest resources on that topic. I don’t always have ready answers but often we do. Especially when customers tell us a bit about themselves or who the reader will be, we can focus on finding just the right resources for any sort of person with nearly any sort of question or bookish need. It is time consuming and mentally demanding but there is little that brings me more joy than to have a customer say that they were pleased with the dozen books I recommended and they’d soon be ordering several. Hooray.

Yep, it was forty years ago today that Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play. And with God’s help, we are still learning.  It is an art and a science, it seems, to run a bookstore and we are humbled by the thought of being in this work. Perhaps you saw my CT piece reviewing the somewhat too highbrow but much discussed In Praise of Good Bookstores by Jeff Deutsch. He’s an amazingly knowledge and passionate bookseller and it is really something to be found in the company of those who care about such places as Hearts & Minds.

We are glad to be able to serve folks from all over by sending out almost any book they may want.

(Except, sadly — an increasingly poignant problem — when an author chooses to self-publish a book that isn’t sold through ordinary stores. Many good folks choose to work with Amazon-owned self-publishing platforms and use that, then, as their primary if not exclusive sales strategy. It is an unjust and unwise business model, in my view, but I get it. In any case, we can get almost anything, unless it is a self-published book on an Amazon-owned vanity press platform that is not congenial to the book being sold in real bookstores.)

Send us an order, please. Get your church or organization to send us some orders. Tell your friends. Our finances are such that some have suggested we do a “go fund me” sort of thing, but we’re really not inclined to do that. We just want more folks to become more than a customer. As we get readers to join with us, we can spread the good word about good books. It can make a difference — that’s why we took up this work 40 years ago. Join us, again, won’t you?

THANKS FOR CARING.

CODA:  Here is a little part of our story that unfolded five years ago as we were quietly celebrating our 35th anniversary as a retailer on a busy 2017 Black Friday. In walks Ned and Leslie Bustard, Alan and Diana Di Pasquale Bauer, the principles of the lovely little publishing outfit Square Halo Books. Beth and I love these folks and really, really appreciate their excellently made books. Ned is a graphic designer by trade and his art often illustrates their books. You maybe noticed that in our last BookNotes last week the lead title I highlighted was 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John a book of Biblically-inspired poetry by Andrew Roycroft (with a forward by Malcolm Guite and art by Ned Bustard.) Just naming it here to show that we do enjoy celebrating their new releases.

Anyway, the Square Halo crew brought us a box of upscale cupcakes, a fabulous treat and a fine celebration. But then they brought in a case of a new book. Without our awareness they had created a surprise book to honor us. It is called A Book for Hearts & Minds: What To Read and Why: A Festschrift in Honoring the Work of Hearts & Minds Bookstore. It lists for $18.99 and we still have it at the BookNotes 20% off, making it just $15.19. It is a collection of BookNotes-like columns with all sorts of experts (some of them friends of ours) weighing in on what books are most important in their given field. From Calvin Seerveld to N.T. Wright to David Gushee to Karen Swallow Prior to Matthew Dickerson there are bunches of chapters. There are wise entries on the best books on poetry and memoir, the arts, ecology, cooking (Andi Ashworth does a great job), urban planning (Tom Becker), sociology (Brad Frey), law (Mike Schutt) and there is a chapter of books about vocation by Steve Garber. And there is more.

Also, Ned transcribed an informal talk I gave a number of years back which he made into a foreword — it captures some of the energy of my passionate presentation about books and reading, maybe, although isn’t precise, I suppose. So there you have it, a tremendous book for those who love books. It strikes me that much of the book is valuable regardless of any Hearts & Minds tribute. The chapters are just solid, good, work.

(In this sense it reminds me of a new Square Halo Book, a tribute which surprised Tim Keller as he retired just earlier this summer. That book is fabulous and while it honors Keller, the chapters are solid in their own right. That one is called The City for God: Essays Honoring the Work of Timothy Keller. I’m a fan.)

+++

I blush a little — a lot, really — sharing this, but here’s a page from the Square Halo Books webpage, highlighting A Book for Hearts & Minds: What to Read and Why. I have never shared this and unless you bought the book, you’ve not seen it. Maybe that is fine, but here on our 40th, I figured we’d share this embarrassingly generous outpouring of friendship by a bunch of folks we deeply admire.  For what it’s worth…

A BOOK FOR HEARTS & MINDS

(November 9, 2017)

We first met Byron Borger when It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God was just coming out. He was immediately supportive of Square Halo Books, and ever since then has promoted our titles with gusto. We make it a practice to always release our books to his store first, and he always has our titles in stock. Around here we affectionately refer to Hearts & Minds as “The Official Bookstore of Square Halo.”

We were delighted to publish the book he edited called Serious Dreams, but for the last few years there has been a jovial argument between us about publishing a book collecting Byron’s BookNotes into one volume. Byron insisted no one would want such a thing. He is a bookseller and knows his business, so maybe he was right about that. But not to be discouraged from featuring Byron in a book, we changed our tack and secretly organized a festschrift in honor of the work that Byron and Beth do through Hearts & Minds. Now, festschrift is an unusual word, to be sure. It is defined as “a collection of writings published in honor of a scholar.” If you wonder whether or not a lowly bookseller is worthy of this sort of honor, read these commendations from these respected writers and scholars to learn why A Book for Hearts & Minds needed to be written:

Byron and Beth Borger have been a gift to both authors and readers. Unapologetic champions of the life of the mind, their work has been a ministry to generations of Christians who have discovered that God’s joy and delight is as wide as the world itself. Curators of the imagination, stewards of the tradition, priests of print, they have always done more than sold books: they have furnished faithful minds and hearts. This book is a lovely testimony to that good work.—James K.A. Smith, Calvin College, author of You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

When I want to know how to think about the things that matter most, I trust Byron Borger to point me in the right direction—never telling me what to think, but ready with endless resources to help me discover how to think in the best ways. He and Beth have made me, on countless occasions, feel like the most treasured writer and person in the world, as I suspect they have done for many of the contributors to this volume. Their impact in hearts and minds is now multiplied, through these pages and in the lives of countless readers they’ve guided and nurtured through the years. May this smart personal volume make you curious enough to buy a book—this book!—for readers you love, at Hearts & Minds Bookstore.—Margot Starbuck, author of Small Things with Great Love: Adventures in Loving Your Neighbor

Byron Borger is a true believer. Like the lineup of insightful essayists who contributed to this book in his honor, Borger believes that reading the right book at the right time can supply just the kind of provocation, insight, or solace we need, when we need it. —Cameron J. Anderson, author of The Faithful Artist: A Vision for Evangelicalism and the Arts

Byron Borger spent his life making us all richer by introducing us to authors and ideas that helped us flourish. Some of his suggested readings made us laugh, made us angry, made us wrestle—but each made us better people. We honor you and we are indebted to you. Thank you for discovering the good and true and beautiful and spending your life generously sharing it with us.—Margaret Feinberg, author of Flourish: Live Free, Live Loved

While living and teaching in New York City I had been hearing about the Hearts & Minds Bookstore for some time. And then one day I was lured to a speaking engagement for The Row House in Lancaster, PA with the promise of a visit to the bookstore. How could I say no? My expectations were high and, boy, were they met. I felt like a gambling addict stumbling into a casino. Suffice it to say that on my return trip to the city I traveled back home with far more baggage than I had left with. This book is a tantalizing taste of what it is like to visit that magical place. It makes me dream of returning there to restock! —Harry Bleattler, chair of the Media, Culture, and the Arts program at The King’s College, New York City

Byron and Beth Borger represent everything that is right with bookstores. He is a thoughtful and winsome curator of ideas and prose in moment when most booksellers are crass consumerists. Thank God for Byron, and thank God for Hearts & Minds! —Jonathan Merritt, contributing writer for The Atlantic and author of Learning to Speak God from Scratch

How fitting this splendid collection is as a tribute to Byron and Beth Borger, partners and booksellers extraordinaire whose life-long vision and ambitions exemplify the idea of Christian vocation and faithful living. Featuring an array of writers commenting on influential works in their fields, this volume represents the fruit of the Hearts & Minds enterprise and will no doubt encourage the same lively discourse we’ve come to associate with Bryon’s own booklists. —William D. Romanowski, Calvin College, author of Reforming Hollywood: How American Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies

I thank God for Byron and Beth Borger—they are such solid gold people, and friends as well. Without them, many a thoughtful Christian writer would be on the endangered species list in the face of the tsunami of Big Data recommended reading. While Hearts & Minds exists, serious Christian books can live too. —Os Guinness, author of Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization

TO PLACE AN ORDER

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It is very helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies but you can use this as a general guide:

There are generally two kinds of US Mail options, and, of course, UPS. If necessary, we can do overnight and other expedited methods, too. Just ask.

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.69; 2 lbs would be $4.36.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.50, now, if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.20. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

It’s been a busy time in the publishing world and even though sales are down across the country we are not giving up. We know that many of our BookNotes readers are eager to know what good books are out and what we recommend. Here, then, without ado, are a whole bunch of brand new ones.

Two quick asides:

YES. Yes, you can order these by scrolling to the very end of this long column and clicking on “order.” That takes you to our Hearts & Minds website’s secure order form page. Do it! And don’t forget to tell us if you have any shipping preferences or time-sensitive needs.

NO. No, these aren’t the only new books we’ve received in the last month. We are a full-service bookstore and even though we are closed for in-store browsing right now, we are happily showing all kinds of merchandise to all kinds of folks with our famous back-yard customer service. From local curbside to distant mail order, we are here to serve you. How can we help?

33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John Andrew Roycroft with artwork by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $21.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

Whenever the good folks at the rather indie-minded, boutique publisher in Lancaster, PA, Square Halo Books, releases a new title, it’s cause for much hoo-raying and hand-waving celebration. We were so excited that they put together the remarkable collection of essays about children’s literature (Wild Things and Castles in the Sky edited by Leslie Bustard and others) and, recently (as you saw in a recent BookNotes, Advent Is the Story by Daniel Spanjer.) Now, just in, a small sized collection of liturgical poetry on the gospel of John. Wow.

33: Reflections comes with an impressive foreword by the impressive Malcolm Guite and with each poem there is, on the facing pace a striking linocut by Ned Bustard, whose art you should know, graces both volumes of Every Moment Holy and Guite’s beautiful rendition of The Tales of Sir Galahad and is seen nicely in his own 2021 children’s book, Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver. Mr. Bustard’s art always seems to enhance good books, and his contributions to 33 is just very, very nice, white on black, black on white.

But the heart of 33 is, of course, the beating, jumping, caressing, whispering, sometimes shouting, lines that explicate passages from the Gospel of John. Roycroft is an Irish poet — a local Irish Presbyterian friend knows him well, actually — and we are delighted to commend him, somewhat in the very tradition of Mr. Guite. 

Here is what is wild, though: the poems are each 33 words. Is that an Irish thing? A wordy haiku? (Billy Collins’s brand new book is all very short poems, btw.) I have no idea where this idea comes from, but it’s very cool.

As Square Halo puts it, “Dwelling on the life and death of Jesus Christ is a key discipline for growth in Christian grace, enriching the mind and drawing out our affections after the Savior.” Here you are given the opportunity to slow down, reflect, even contemplate the key points of the whole gospel of John. In 33-word poems. (And, for what it is worth, there are some further study notes and reflective meditations in a quite thorough appendix.)

Perhaps you know the popular contemporary hymnist, Kristyn Getty, author of the lovely little book, Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church. She commends Messrs. Roycroft & Bustard and their new little volume: 

You will find here beautiful words that let the light in, warming the heart with holiness and firing the imagination with life. Slow your step, come and linger with the poet on the best of thoughts… Christ.  — Kristyn Getty

 

Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious – Reframed and Expanded David Dark (Broadleaf Books) $18.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Oh my, if you know my affection for David, you know that I have to say a lot about this. Yet, I’m wanting to keep this listing relatively brief, so I’ll have to wait to speak about it in greater detail. We do have a stack of this new, expanded edition, with a stark black cover (the previous was bright red) and I’m eager to discern how it is “reframed” and what is different about this one. David suggests it is, in part, an act of repentance, and I take his words seriously. So we must study this new version, with care and an open heart.

Here is the short version: the first edition came out on IVP in 2016 and we reviewed it at BookNotes. I raved, and a line or two of my enthusiasms remain on the page of blurbs on the inside of this new version. I’m honored and glad. 

In that earlier BookNotes review of the first edition, I exclaimed:

David Dark is a national treasure, a witty and wise Christian voice — a humane human voice — and it’s good to know this brand new one has been so eagerly anticipated. As Jessica Hopper (of the very important indie music magazine Pitchfork and author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic) says, “David Dark is one of our most astute and necessary cultural critics. His work gracefully opens new doors of understanding and breaks down barriers between secular and non-…”

This book is so rich and interesting and fun and important and wonderfully written — it’s been called a “bracing manifesto” and an “optimism-infused love song” and an “irresistible triumph” — that it deserves more of a serious review than I can render here, now. It’s been a hard month, a hard week, and I’m nearly flabbergasted (I’d say gobsmacked but I’m not sure what it means) by how great this book is and how it has brought joy to me these last few days. I’ve read paragraphs and whole pages out loud to Beth (and anybody else in earshot.) There are great lines, great stories, great revelations. Apocalypse now, indeed.

That “apocalypse” line was a segue towards mentioning his fabulous book on pop culture called Every Apocalypse, which notes, as you probably know, that the ancient scary word actually means “a revealing”  — an unveiling; a revelation. And that is what he does as a writer, conscientiously and with a lot of verve. He’s fun and deadly serious, generous and at times as keenly critical as a Hebrew prophet. For such a relentless advocate (have you followed him on twitter?) he can be remarkably tender. And kind.

It seems that the first version of Life’s Too Short to Pretend was sort of an open letter to a dear loved one who found herself in the tribe of those who claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” Or, maybe “none of the above” when asked about religious affiliation. David’s not having it — not because he’s a fundamentalist (although he was raised and continue to live in the Bible Belt) but because he truly understands that nobody is disinterested, no one is neutral in this life, everybody believes in something. We all live out of (and informed by) the story we find ourselves in. 

As Christina Edmondson, co-author of Truth’s Table puts it, David “grants the gift and burden to think deeply about the imagination, scaffolding, and consequences of our religiosity.”

It may be that this book is a love letter not just to his beloved sister-in-law, but to all of us, to those struggling with faith in a post-2020 season. He looks at Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements, he weaves in current themes around the pandemic and vaccine responses, and, yes, tackles the nonsense being spoken about Critical Race Theory. In other words, he has significantly updated this.

The meaning of his “reframing”, though? What makes this classic text a repentance? What is unique about this fresh, reconsidered edition? Read it for yourself, naturally. I am sure there is much to learn, much to reckon with.  I hope to share more, soon. For now, please know how glad we are to see this book revised and reissued. It offers, as his friend Charles Marsh (of Evangelical Anxiety) puts it, “Luminous reckonings with the real.” Hooray for that. Order it today by using the order form at the end of this column. 20% off, too.

All Our Griefs to Bear: Responding with Resilience After Collective Trauma Joni S. Sancken (Herald Press) $18.99 

OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Perhaps you recall my commendation in the last BookNotes of Herald Press, a Mennonite publisher that does excellent work on various topics, releasing books that are really fresh and interesting these days, and how we stock most of what they do.(I gotta tell you, their brand new, lavish Comfort Baking by Stephanie Wise is amazing!) This brand new Sancken one is a good example: All Our Griefs to Bear is a book that brings some ancient wisdom into the very contemporary era of mass trauma and collective injustice. You know the litany these days — the coronavirus pandemic. Continued racial trauma. Economic uncertainty. As Rev. Sancken writes,

“The griefs of this time have revealed difficult truths about the wounds we carry, and the damage of the traumas has affected every part of our lives together.” 

Dr. Sancken is a professor of homiletics at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, a largely United Methodist institution, and she has written previous books on preaching. We’ve appreciated her Stumbling Over the Cross: Preaching the Cross and Resurrection Today, and, more recently, her Words That Heal: Preaching Hope to Wounded Souls which is really wise.

In the last few years she has come into our area working with her friends in the ELCA’s Susquehanna Synod. (Indeed, she thanks our neighbor Richard Jorgenson and our friend Marsha Roscoe and their Bishop James Dunlop for helping hammer out some of the very ideas in this stunning book.) “Trauma-informed” is a catchphrase these days and she uses it well: perhaps this could be called trauma-informed pastoral care.

But yet, this is not pastoral care in the sense of how ministers can meet with hurting parishioners in their offices for informal counseling and one-on-one Christian therapy. Actually, this is, as a United Methodist Bishop puts it, “A necessary summons to the church, often distracted by questions of relevance, to be the church for a world battered and bruised by trauma.”

The church for the world. That is the theme of this much-needed book, a book that Grace Ji-Sun Kim calls “a gift to churches wondering “What now?”” That Will Willimon wrote the forward makes sense with his old cry to let the church be the church — therein lies our deepest relevance and our transformational vision. In Joni’s book we are reminded of key practices of being church — it is organized around lament, storytelling, and blessing. It will offer profound insight and encouragement for nurturing resilience and deepening compassion.

Certainly pastors should read this but we gladly recommend it to church leaders of all sorts. It is extraordinary.

Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day’s Radical Vision and Its Challenge for Our Times D.L. Mayfield (Broadleaf Books) $26.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

A few of you have watched some of my online adult Sunday school class which, this season, has been doing quick and fun introductions to a handful of church leaders and important Christian figures with a bit of a view to how they engaged the Bible and how their own faith and theology were shaped by their reading of Scripture. A week or so ago I had the great privilege of doing a short bit on Dorothy Day, a woman about whom I could talk for hours. I did not meet her, but knew people who had, and I’ve read a lot of books about (and by) this unruly saint. I’m here to say that Unruly Saint is an excellent — indeed, one of the best — books about Dorothy I have ever read. 

One of the unique features of this compelling read is that there is a small bit of personal memoir here, as D.Ll Mayfield tells a bit about her own spiritual struggles, her drift from traditional evangelicalism, and her discovery of this feisty woman who served the poor even as she read Russian novels and enjoyed opera. What a complex and wonderful woman Dorothy was, an early 20th century communist (and lifelong anarchist) who found her way to Christ and converted into the Catholic Church. In a way, this great biography is, as it says on the back, a way to “uncover the wisdom activist Dorothy Day offers today’s justice seekers.” Indeed, it is that.

The blurbs on the back (from Lisa Sharon Harper and Randy Woodley, for instance) signal the author’s relationship with a progressive sort of evangelicalism; that is, she is not Roman Catholic herself. Like Mayfield, some of us in this similar sort of context are drawn deeply to Dorothy and are fascinated with her own loyalty to the formalities of the Roman Catholic Church. Even as she fought with Bishops (and fasted for peace in Rome during Vatican II proceedings) over and over. She was a one-woman party of loyal opposition.

I adored Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice for the American Century by John Loughery & Blythe Randolph (surely the definitive book and very impressive) as well as the poignant and well-written book by one of Dorothy’s granddaughters, Kate Hennessy, Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Save by Beauty. But there is something about Unruly Saints, it’s punchy style, it’s shorter reading time, it’s passion, it’s relevance. I loved it and very highly recommend it.

Naturally, if you are new to reading about Dorothy, it is fantastic, especially if you want to hear how this committed activist today was inspired by her. If you are a serious fan, then, of course, you’ll want this as it truly is one of the good ones. There are plenty more — write to us and we’ll give you a list — but, for now, we very highly recommend this tremendous new volume.

The forward, by the way, is really good, written nicely by Robert Ellsworth, who found himself living in the New York CW house for years in the late 60s and 70s. He’s an important figure among those who have first hand knowledge of their friendship with Dorothy and the Catholic Worker movement under her leadership. He raves about the book, too. Kudos. 

The Holy and the Hybrid: Navigating the Church’s Digital Reformation Ryan Panzer (Fortress) $21.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59 

There are short and upbeat little books about getting over the pandemic, about switching to a hybrid model of church or maybe letting go of the hybrid model practices developed during the pandemic. You can skip most of them. This is one of the few that realizes, rightly, that we really must reimagine what it means to be church in the digital age.

Panzer is a leadership development professional in the technology industry and he often writes about the interface of faith and technology. He is concise and clear and seriously informed. I like deeper theology and deeper cultural criticism (like, say, Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age by Felicia Wu Song) and thoughtfully eloquent writing (like one of my favorite books of this year, Andy Crouch’s The Life We’re Longing For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World) but for practical congregational development and stimulating stuff about church life these days, The Holy and the Hybrid is quite useful. In a way it follows up his 2020 Grace and Gigabytes: Being Church in a Tech Shaped Culture. 

In this recent one Panzer is helping congregational leaders to develop hybrid ministries through “aligning the shared mission of the church with the collective values of our tech-shaped culture.” The goal of this book, they tell us, is to “help build communities that serve as the hands and feet of Christ simultaneously online and offline.”

Listen to this quote by Jim Keat, the digital minister of Riverside Church:

The Holy and the Hybrid is a book every pastor and church leader needs to read. It invites us to reflect on the ways we were all thrown into the digital deep end during the pandemic, and most importantly, it offers a way forward for churches to develop sustainable hybrid ministries that will be essential for the future of the church.

Or consider this from a guy I trust a lot, David Daubert pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Elgin, IL, and lead consultant for Day 8 Strategies; he is the co-author (with our friend Richard Jorgensen) of Becoming a Hybrid Church which has been our “go to” book on the subject for the last two years. David says:

Part memoir, part manual, this readable book will help readers make sense of their own journeys into hybrid ministry — the places where the physical and the digital offer both old and new ways of doing ministry. Panzer is both committed to digital ministry and aware of its limits, which makes this book an honest and helpful guide for readers reflecting on how God is calling them to design the next chapter of ministry in their own settings. 

The Incarnation in the Gospels Daniel Doriani, Philip Ryken, and Richard Phillips (P&R) $14.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Recently I did a radio interview on WORD-FM in Pittsburgh about seasonal books for Advent and Christmas and I found myself telling them about the lasting significance of On the Incarnation by Athanasius (and C.S. Lewis’s mighty words about it.) Sure, it is a bit demanding, but it truly is a beautiful and lasting book, perfect for this time of year.

This brand new one, a collection of sermons, picks up on themes of incarnation in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and is a collection of Christmas sermons offered by these preachers in the conservative Reformed tradition. They are reliable in their analysis of the passages — doing solid exegesis, as the fancy folks say — and they are themselves interesting, even creative writers. So these sermons bring a fresh understanding of incarnation, straight and solid. As the back cover puts it, these sermons “draw on the complete arc of biblical teaching.”

As Scottish Presbyterian Sinclair Ferguson puts it, 

Here is exposition modeled by pastors with scholarly gifts and scholars with pastor’s hearts.

 

The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Rediscovering the Adventure of Christian Faith Trevin Wax (IVP) $24.00

OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

This important, new hardback book deserves a much longer review but, for now, I just wanted to announce it, reminding you also of our sale price. I’m seriously hoping at least three kinds of readers will consider it.

Firstly, obviously, those with deep concerns about the drifts from orthodoxy theology in our churches and ministries these days will want to use it to clarify and bolster their concerns. It clarifies wisely why this sort of commitment to the best and wisest sort of faith perspectives is essential. These readers will be reminded of what they already know and yet will deepen and maybe broaden their approach. In many ways, it is for this community, helping them regain a  sense of wonder and awe at the great truths.

Secondly, I think this is really, really good for those who are less concerned about an erosion of orthodoxy. Call these readers progressives or liberals or those happy to be in a left-leaning mainline denomination (as I am, by the way), we still must be aware of what is at stake if we are eager to move on, re-imagine and re-define the core tenements of the Christian faith. Wax reminds us of the importance of good maps and invites us to be careful. He is right, mostly, and we simply must engage more in this vital conversation. I commend this book to our mainline folks, readers who might typically not care about historic theologians and their musty creeds.

Thirdly — and this is a huge group, so hear me out — I think The Thrill of Orthodoxy might be useful for those who either don’t follow or don’t care about this perennial debate between those who are deeply committed to traditionalist theological claims and those who are less loyal to older formulations. Whether you tilt happily evangelical or devoutly mainline, if you don’t care about this, then you really need to read this book. It is a lovely work — inviting us to the “thrill” of an “adventure.”  Don’t care about all that? Pick this up and give it a try. From the first paragraph of the forward, you will be, dare I say, thrilled, despite the real rarity of that these days. It is, as the well-read Carolyn Weber (who wrote Surprised by Oxford) describes it, “a masterpiece” that shows the “weary, world-worn, or simply disinterested pilgrim, how right belief has laid a path through the darkness into bright adventure ahead.”

“A masterpiece that shows the weary, world-worn, or simply disinterested pilgrim, how right belief has laid a path through the darkness into bright adventure ahead.”     — Carolyn Weber

 

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times Michelle Obama (Crown) $32.50

OUR SALE PRICE = $26.00

Publishers were understandably tight-lipped about this massively important new book, a major release, and I had not seen any of it until we opened the box and posted that fun Facebook picture of Beth and me waving ‘em around. And then we watched Mrs. Obama on Colbert and just grinned and grinned.

Alas, this is not just a feel-good book by an exceptionally articulate former First Lady. She is honest about how hard life can be — especially as we struggled with isolation during the quarantining and grief during the pandemic and frustrations during the stupid Stop the Steal nonsense and the horror of January 6th.  We all know that these are uncertain times. She, too, has struggled and in The Light We Carry she will be vulnerable and talk about her own fears and foibles and her hopes and dreams about bringing our best selves to the process of overcoming. I gather she is speaking for a whole lot of us.

In a way, it seems that The Light We Carry is a bit of a sequel to her best-selling and very interesting memoir, Becoming. This is not just her story, though, but the stuff she’s learned, guidance offered on “overcoming.” 

As she puts it, “I’ve learned it’s okay to recognize that self-worth comes wrapped in vulnerability aka d that what we share as humans on this earth is the impulse to strive for better, always and no matter what.”

This, we find, allows her to work for common ground, highlighting our shared humanity, our fears and foibles, and, yes, the deep sense of knowing our own stories. This is, she says, the “bedrock of all things. One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it”

We’re honored to carry this, glad to offer it at our BookNotes discount. Order it now — I’m sure it would make a lovely Christmas gift for somebody you know.

Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race Luke A. Powery (WJK) $22.00

OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

I hope you know how important Dr. Luke Powery is (not to mention his brother, central Pennsylvania professor at Messiah University, whose books we also carry.) Luke Powery is the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University and a professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School. He has written much about preaching, especially black preaching, and has both an Advent and a Lenten devotional based on old spirituals. He is quite a thinker and quite a communicator.

Becoming Human may be his most important book yet. Besides his work as chaplain at the university and professor at the Divinity School, he also holds a faculty appointment in Duke’s legendary Department of African and African-American Studies. Here, he brings all three of his academic passions together writing a powerful book about rhetoric; the rhetoric of race. He is redefining, here, as Donyelle McCray (of Yale Divinity School) puts, “what it means to preach in the power of the Spirit.” Or, as Kenyatta Gilbert (another famous professor of homiletics, from Howard University School of Divinity) puts it “Pentecost is pedagogy for the human race.” “This is,” he says, “is the grounding thesis of Luke Powery’s revolutionary work.”

I love Amos Young — a learned professor of theology in mission at Fuller and an outspoken Pentecostal scholar — who says this:

Two thousand years ago there were Arab, Cretan, and Roman (among other) tongues spoken on the streets of Jerusalem. It took a physician known as Luke to record these voices declaring the wondrous and powerful works of God. In our fraught 2020s, we can thank another doctor (of divinity), Luke Powery, for translating the witness of (especially, but not only) Black communities to all of us (including especially but not only white readers) so that we can appreciate how these experience testify to and declare prophetic words of God for our time.

Do I hear an Amen?

Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race has a brilliant forward by Willie James Jennings which, in itself, is well worth reading. Yes! This is one that should get a lot of attention.

The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and Middle-Earth Kristen Page (IVP) $22.00

OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

There is so much to commend this small book and we are very happy to celebrate it, invite you to not only consider it, but to spread the word. You know there are bunches of Narnia fans and Tolkien loyalists; sadly, Matthew Dickerson’s academic books on these topics may be too pricey and lesser known, even though they should be highly regarded among us.

(What books, you ask? That would be Narnia and the Fields of Arbor: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien, both published by the University Press of Kentucky. We’ve got ‘em!

In any case, we should really get the word out about this new IVP one — it is a delight to read and carries a huge ethical plea. It is interesting, entertaining, and righteous.

The Wonders of Creation is not expensive and it is upbeat, fabulously well-informed, interesting, curious, and deeply inspiring.  Can the fictional landscapes of Narnia and Middle-Earth, in the world of eco-theologian Steven Bouma-Prediger, “help us learn to care for the damaged landscapes of our world today?” Indeed, yes, by all means, yes. I believe this and have stacked our professional career on this very truth. What we read, even (maybe especially) fiction, can change us.

Bill McKibben says of this wonderful read, 

For anyone who grew up mentally wandering the forests of Narnia or Middle-Earth, this book will be a joy and a revelation — you’ll be reminded just how deep those images went into your heart.

If you love literature or love ecological writing, if you care about Lewis and Tolkien or care about the world Clive and JRR loved, this book is for you. The three major chapters are “Stepping Out of the Wardrobe – Searching Fictional Landscapes to Guide Our View of the World” and, then, “A Lament for Creation: Responding to the Groaning of God’s World” followed, then, by “Ask the Animals to Teach You: How to Regain Wonder and Join the Chorus.”

Wonders… is offered with the cooperation of the exquisite Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton and is an expanded version of the beloved Hansen Lectureship Series. Dr. Page is a biology prof at Wheaton, by the way. Here she brings in contributions and responses from Christiana Bieber Lake, Noah Toley, and Emily Hunter McGowan. Hooray.

Everyday Activism: Following 7 Practices of Jesus in Creating a Just World J.W. Buck (Baker Books) $17.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I often say this, but this time, man, I really mean it: I wish this book was around when I was younger. Like in my college years or really my twenty-something years or even in my 30s.  I’m in my late 60s, and I rejoice that a book like this is now available, one of several that so naturally integrate the life of faith, spiritual practices, devout piety with powerful and experienced insight about the life of daily activism. I need such a book. Do you want to join God in the work of justice and restoration in what we sometimes call our ordinary lives? J.W. Buck and this book can help, I guarantee it. 

Buck is a church planter, filmmaker, teacher and faith-base entrepreneur. He’s got an undergrad degree in Biblical studies and ministry and his PhD is in intercultural studies (with a focus on the problem of racial violence.) He is a cofounder of a great ministry called Pax, an organization designed to inspire and equip the next generation (as they put it) “through slow, beautiful, Jesus-centered content created by people of color.”  He and his wife Sarswaite, live in Tucson, Arizona.

Blurbs on the back are from John Perkins (which speaks volumes, right?) and Osheta Moore, whose book Dear White Peacemakers is a must-read. They both affirm that this book shows us how to live like Jesus in ways that can lead to Christian social action, a lifestyle of spiritually honest activism.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Shane Claiborne wrote a very good forward — he talks about how beautiful the book is, how practical and how inspirational. Quite a combo, eh? Not unlike Dorothy Day (who believes, with her beloved Russian novelists, that “beauty will save the world.”) J.W. lives into a life of goodness, beauty, joy, seeking forgiveness and rest and mindful resistance. He shows how young (or not so young) activists can be inspire by seven different practices of Jesus, clearly based on the gospel accounts.

Want to see justice roll down? Want to “be the change” we want to see? This is a guide to meaningful sorts of approaches. Whether you are a newbie at protest and service or a seasoned politico, I think Everyday Activism will be a cherished companion helping you honor God and be shaped by Christ’s ways as you attempt to make a difference. Highly recommended.

Claiming Your Voice: Speaking Truth to Power Norvene Best (Liturgical Press) $24.95

OUR SALE PRICE = $19.96

Well, speaking of searching out a uniquely Christian and deeply spiritual sort of lifestyle of activism, being an agent of change and “speaking truth to power” as the Bible calls us to, this, too, is a rare sort of resource that will invite you and equip you to more faithfully do this very sort of stuff.

If J.W. Buck offers a Jesus-centered, gospel-clear lifestyle for activism, Norvene Vest brings a lifetime of careful consideration of Scripture and spiritual direction to the task. Yes, you should know Vest (an Episcopalian laywoman who is a Benedictine oblate) as a respected guide to adult faith formation and spiritual direction. She knows much about the Benedictine contributions to common life, of course, and helped create the renaissance in writing about spiritual formation and direction in recent decades. Her Friend of the Soul offers a Benedictine spirituality of work and her mid-1990s Upper Room book Gathering in the Word is about praying the Scriptures in small groups. A book  she compiled by older spiritual directors is called Still Listening; nice, eh? Anyway, she is a mature and respected author in these deeper waters.

But here’s an interesting thing: before Dr. Vest entered her life of spiritual writing and directing, she was a public servant. She knows something about social justice and political advocacy. She carries questions about the nature of American polity in her bones.

Here in Claiming Your Voice she explores four deforming contemporary patterns: market culture, American empire, climate crisis, and racism. Here’s how the back cover describes the visions of this work of deeply contemplative public theology that so nicely melds the Hebrew prophets and the Benedictine wisdom tradition:

“In consideration of the Christian foundations in prophetic imagination and Benedictine spirituality, she illustrates that Americans are called to provide energy for hope, to cut through public numbness, and to penetrate the deceptions of imperial consciousness so that God and the sacred again become visible and empowering for all our people.”

Laughter and Lament: The Radical Freedom of Joy and Sorrow Steve Brown (New Growth Press) $16.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I so, so appreciate Steve Brown, a conservative theologian and gracious talk-show host who brings on and delightfully honors the likes of the edgy, progressive Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. It isn’t everybody who writes books like Three Free Sins which invites folks to, uh, lighten up about their fears of sinning all the time.

He’s not flippant, exactly, and certainly not un-serious. He just likes to laugh and invite people to the gospel. He’s a PCA pastor and a good writer.He loves that verse about being set free.

Therapist Dan Allender calls this a “stunning book” that — get this: “holds the heartache of the cross and hilarity of the resurrection as the doorway for the kind of healing that will touch not only the heart but relationships and even our polarized cultural travail.”

The heartache of the cross and the hilarity of the resurrection. Wow — that’s it!

Hear well the amazing Aimee Byrd:

Steve Brown shares something that matters to our humanity: the freedom in gritty lament, the laughter that rises from relinquishing our false notions of control, and the boldness to invite others into this love.

Dane Ortlund (author of the remarkably book on the heart of Jesus, Gently and Lowly) predicts that this new Brown book “will fend off cynicism and foster joy.” Call it Christian realism, perhaps, but healthy folks know well what this is about, the need for uproarious laughter and bristling anger. As Ortlund says, this “fortifies us to live life well.”

I am so eager to read this. I met Steve once and am in awe. This book is going to be great.

The Emotions of God: Making Sense of a God Who Hates, Weeps, and Loves David Lamb (IVP) $18.00

OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

Just earlier this week I was helping a customer find some book on the troubling question of violence in the Old Testament; I recommended some pretty academic and serious ones but started with the accessible, honest, fair-minded classic God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? His Prostitutes and Polygamists: A Look at Love, Old Testament Style is worth reading, too. He may be an Old Testament prof at a seminary and a dean of faculty (at Missio Seminary in Philadelphia) (and penned a major commentary in the splendid Story of God series (on I & II Kings, no less) but he’s a hoot — fun and funny, compelling and wise.

The brand new The Emotions of God is a book I’ve been waiting a long time for. I couldn’t believe we didn’t have anything quite like this (although I’ve suggested in these very pages the lovely, 100-plus year old The Emotional Life of Our Lord by Princeton B. B. Warfield.) Now gladly, we’ve got a solid, introductory level, deeply wise study of God’s emotional life. Yep.

Lamb looks at seven divine emotions — hate, anger, jealousy, sorrow, joy, compassion, and love — and argues “that it is not only good that God is emotional but also that we can express emotions in such a way that reflects God’s goodness in the world.” There are suggestions for application and great discussion questions making this a fabulous resource for adult ed classes, small groups or book clubs. 

This will help us know God as God really is and help us comport ourselves more appropriately, with deep wisdom. As Scot McKnight says, this is “a must-read.” Kudos to IVP and to Dr. David Lamb.

Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are Lysa Terkeurst (Thomas Nelson) $28.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

There is no doubt that Lysa Terkeurst is on to something. She has gone from being a small-time author doing good stuff on a small-ish publishing house to a force to be reckoned with; we loved her clever Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl and its passion for application and transformation long before many knew who she was. She then went on to write about issues common to many, especially women, including eating disorders and fear and loneliness and forgiveness. It seems that this brand new one is, in some ways, a necessary follow up to her important Forgiving What You Can’t Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again.

We are called by God to faithfulness but also so flourishing. Her work captures this blend of upbeat spirituality and being known by God and the helpful ways in which Kingdom grace can help us cope with life’s rough patches. This book starts off on the back cover noting that “relationships are wonderful… until they’re not.”

She is surely not alone in thinking I can’t keep doing this — something has to change. Right?

Terkeurst has struggled through these questions and more. She understands the “dance with dysfunction” on a deeply personal feel. She is that friend that comes alongside you with compassion and support insisting that it is not unloving to set boundaries. It isn’t un-Christian to say good-bye. She thinks this approach is actually God’s idea.

Find out why — and what to do about it —  in Good Boundaries and Goodbyes. There are, by the way, reflections questions and even a closing prayer at the end of each chapter.

Home Is the Road: Wandering the Land, Shaping the Spirit Diane Glancy (Broadleaf Books) $25.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

We stock other important books of literary star Diane Glancy, a Christian woman of Cherokee heritage. She is the sort of writer that wins the Pablo Neruda Prize for her poetry and receives grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is professor emerita at Macalester College in St Paul, MN. We’ve long been impressed, to say the least.

Again, as with others on this list, I have not had time to explore the riches of Home is the Road but I am particularly interested in this. You may be, too. I’ll admit I’m a bit conflicted (although eager to learn.) You see, I’m drawn to work about staying put, about nurturing a sense of place, about loyalty to location. But this book does seem to be more than a spiritual travelogue or valorizing being nomadic, but is a better story about finding oneself while “traveling the land.”

I notice that Ms Glancy does not talk about travel as a consumerist tourist; she “travels the land” which sounds to my ears like she is informed by her indigenous sensibilities. Or maybe her Canterburyian medieval studies. I don’t think it working the bohemian / romantic “on the road” schtick a la Kerouac. It is about what she calls “journeying” which is something like being a pilgrim, perhaps. 

This is, as one indigenous elder put it, “a strikingly original work. Glancy takes us all on a spiritual road trip. She lets us see a fragmented landscape of both longing and belonging.”

This is, finally, a study, I think, of identity. 

I trust Daniel Taylor, a great thinker and a great writer.  He’s written a lot, including a wonderful one called Tell Me a Story. He says of Home is the Road:

Relax. Set aside your rationalistic insistence on linearity, plain meaning, and predictable connections. You are in the hands of Diane Glancy, writer of excellence in many genres, who will take you on a poetic journey across the landscapes of America — physical and spiritual — accompanied by the Spirit. Enjoy the drive.

 

The Philosophy of Modern Song Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster) $45.00

OUR SALE PRICE = $36.00

Holy Smokes. This is an amazing book, full color, lots of random and often vintage photographs, odd-ball illustrations, gonzo graphics. It’s not what I was expecting — I should have realized the “philosophy” in the title was a joke from the Jokerman — and it’s terrific. Here Mr. Zimmerman weighs in on dozens and dozens of songs — 66 in total, I think. There are a few pages per song (some essays longer and better than others) and while Dylan is known for being a bit opaque at times, he is creatively straight-forward here. Except in the other parts of the book, a free-association riff which the publisher lauds as “dreamlike riffs” which cumulatively amount to “an epic poem”, which “add to the work’s transcendence.” I don’t think that’s supposed to be part of the joke but it is, perhaps, a bit much. There is a lot that Bob knows and tells, what one reviews describes as of the “cracker barrel” variety. That seems about right and it’s not a bad thing.

He usually tells something about the song, riffs on this or that, imagines stuff about the production or the playing or the memory or the meaning. I’ve only dipped in and it is more glorious than I expected.

There’s some cryptic stuff here as you’d expect. We know Dylan knows his stuff, especially about early Americana, blues, soul, country. He chooses some pop classics, though, from “Volare” to “Ball of Confusion”, from Bobby Bare to Bobby Darin, from The Clash to Roy Orbison to Judy Garland (“Come Rain or Come Shine” from her Judy album released in 1956.  Sure his guys like Waylon and Johnny Cash are here, but so are older rockabilly stars and black singers, jazz, blues, and soul singers. It’s wild — he has a vivid piece on “War” by Edwin Starr (released in 1970 on the Gordy label) and “Take Me From This Garden of Evil” by a neighbor of the young Elvis in Tupelo, Jimmy Wages, recorded in 1956, released on Sun Records.

This is delightfully surprising at times (he looks at Jackson Browne’s classic “The Pretender” and, baffling,  perhaps, Cher’s “Gypies, Tramps and Thieves.”) and really informative, exploring important work by say, Nina Simon or Rosemary Clooney. Of Dean Martin’s “Blue Moon” (1964) he says “This is the Dino that Elvis imitated.” Dylan dissecting the Allman Brothers next to explicating Carl Perkins and doing Little Richard (Tutti Fruitti, of course), Billy Jo Shaver and Pete Seeger? What Elvis songs does he explain? Which Frank Sinatra tune? What song from 1924 does he call “a blast furnace of a song”? Why in the world did he include Witchy Woman by the Eagles? And who was Mack the Knife, anyway?

The Philosophy of Modern Song is a hoot, by a Nobel Laureate — brilliant and energetic, wonderfully designed. We’ve got it, of course, at 20% off.

My Theology: Batman Is Jesus Siku (Fortress Press) $16.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

We have gladly stocked a dozen or so of these “My Theology” books from Fortress, compact sized, smallish paperbacks where famous authors share their deepest convictions or their keenest insights. We are fond of the more evangelical ones — Scot McKnight on why he is a pacifist is just wonderful (The Audacity of Peace) and the testimony of Alister McGrath of his conversion from scientism and atheism (Return from a Distant County) is brilliant. I have often mentioned Malcolm Guite’s The Worlds within the Words. There are a number in this series and we have them all, from  Grace Ji-Sun Kim’s Spirit Life to Finding God in the Universe by Jesuit Guy Consolmagno, the director of the Vatican Observatory to Cynthia Bourgeault’s The Corner of Fourth and Nondual 

When Batman is Jesus came in, I was surprised that it wasn’t compact-sized and that it is full color on the inside. It’s stunning with cartoons, graphic illustration, edgy photography. Siku you see, is the creator of the Manga Bible and has worked for Marvel UK. And is a serious graphic artist.  If this “My Theology” series offers opportunities for Christian thinkers to express the principle tenets of their faith, artist-theologian Siku, here, tells us about Narrative Theology and the specific subset of Graphic Theology. Who knew?

Through the visual language of superhero archetypes, legend, and lore, Siku “demonstrates a contemporary method of engaging with the Bible that resonates with how the Hebrew sages and prophets of pre-antiquity read Scripture.” This is one vivid and delirious work. Short, serious, wow.

Meeting God in Matthew Elaine Storkey (SPCK) $13.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $11.19

Those who follow the cycle of the lectionary know that soon we will be diving in to Matthew. Year A. Yes!! And this long-time friend of ours, a broadcaster and public theologian the UK is perfect to help you through it.

I do not know if this is why this renowned British publisher released this now, but surely for those who want a helpful overview of Matthew, Storkey is a very capable guide. She is known in the UK as a respected Bible teacher, a social activist and policy advocate, a missional public theologian and great communicator. She directed Stott’s London Institute for Contemporary Christianity and was the President of Tearfund for 17 years. She has books on a variety of topics (most recently the urgent, excellently done Scars Across Humanity: Understanding and Overcoming Violence Against Women and the excellent and useful Women in a Patriarchal World: Twenty-Five Empowering Stories from the Bible.

Dr. Storkey has a much needed disposition and ability — I’d call it a spiritual gift — to learn from very wide reading and experience and has a lovely blend of progressive and conventional evangelical vision. She knows the injustices of the world and longs for a full reformation of the very architecture of our good but fallen creation and yet she is equally clear that we are invited to a personally meaningful saving faith in Jesus the Lord. She helps us see the Bible and its grand redemptive story with fresh eyes. 

Each chapter in Meeting God in Matthew has questions for discussion and reflection, making the book ideal for small groups. Start now (or maybe consider it for a Lenten group.)  

Andrew Fellows, formerly of the UK L’Abri says, “I can’t think of a better book to read on this Gospel.”

Elaine Storkey leads us gently and winsomely through Matthew’s Gospel to meet with Jesus… This book is down-to-earth, accessible, illuminating. I loved it. — The Rt. Reverend Jill Duffy, Bishop of Lancaster 

 

The Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar: Retrospect and Prospect edited by Craig Bartholomew, David Beldman, Amber Bowen, and Will Olhausen  (Zondervan Academic) $34.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $27.99

It was nearly 25 years ago that the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar (SAHS) started producing a steady stream of big, fat volumes offering what they properly suggest were “influential, global, diverse, and ecumenical” world-class research and launching the careers of many important young theologians. These volumes grappled with important questions about the Older and Newer Testament, the redemptive story of God, the trajectory of the Biblical narrative and how to best understand God’s Word in light of contemporary issues and the vital teachings of the past. 

This middle part of this book is a greatest hits, so to speak, highlighting some of the key insights from the previous 8 volumes, but more than that; it is a celebration and summary, a distillation of the work of the Seminar and testimonial of its value by scholars and pastors and Bible teachers alike.

Here are vibrant scholarly pieces by the likes of the editors alongside Susan Bubbers, Murray Rae, Anthony Thiselton, Bo Lim, and more. These diverse voices offer a “unique perspective on the architecture of the biblical interpretation in the first quarter of the twenty-first century” and is presented “in hope of preparing fertile soil for the next generation of women and men to cultivate biblical interpretation for years to come.”

This one-volume compendium is a treasure-trove of fresh scholarship and encouraging case studies, complete with stories and anecdotes about the value of this unique project. It’s a group and a movement offering some good ideas that you should know about.

++++

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BookNotes

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Doing that previous BookNotes on new Advent resources last week was fun and it was good to skim back over previous BookNotes from earlier Advents naming books that seemed helpful years ago. Some still are among the very best, so don’t forget to click on those links we shared. Thanks for taking a look — you should don’t want to forget perennial gift items like Plough Publishing’s Watch for the Light or Paraclete’s God With Us, first published in partnership with Image Journal.  You know I’m a fan of Advent by Fleming Rutledge. What glorious books they are.

Here are some devotional and/or faith-building resources for family use this Advent. A few are brand new, a few are good re-runs, and there is something for nearly everyone. Send us an order soon (by useing the link at the very end of the column — scroll all the way down so you don’t miss anything.) We’ll send them out at our discounted prices as soon as we can (usually the same day.) These days we must warn that sometimes, on a few items, there could be a delay.

Just click on the order form link below that takes you to our secure order form page at the Hearts & Minds bookstore website. You can type in anything you want and we’ll take it from there. It is secure for credit card info, so have at it. Thanks.

The History of Christmas: 2000 Years of Faith, Fable and Festivity Heather Lefebvre (Christian Focus) $17.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

What a lovely book this is, fun and fascinating, full of full color art and illustration. This publisher is a typically conservative Scottish one but here is pleasantly ecumenical, exploring the great variety of gospel insights from a whole lot of different places and cultures. There’s clever descriptions and upbeat ideas, guidance on opportunities like having a “medieval Christmas” or a Victorian holiday. Naturally there is a good section on the Reformers and Puritans.

In a colorful style and with fictionalized stories for family reading this really is a theological history, with helpful bits of cultural studies. It has recipes for ordinary first century “Shepherds meal” and Mince pies as ways to understanding faith across the years, from the early church to the middle ages to “Christmas commercialized.” It shows how Christmas was reinvented (the story for this is set in London 1850.)

There are drawings of Bonaventure, Henry the VIII, Santa Claus, and scenes that show the delightfully multi-ethic nature of the church these days. I love this fun, educational book.

The God of Amazing Gifts: Family Devotions for Advent Lizzie Laferton (The Good Book Company) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

We shared this one last week, but it really fits here, so we’ll tell you about it again:

In other years we have sold well the family and seasonal devotionals published by this gospel-centered, solid, evangelical publishing house. They do impressive books and we’re happy to announce this one, a wonderful and fresh devotional that, as one parent put it, “will keep on giving far beyond Christmas.”

The God of Amazing GIfts has 25 devotions that can be used during Advent or spread out before or after Christmas.

Helpfully it has different questions routes for different aged children from 7 – 14+, and a variety of suggestions for application. There are some extra ideas in the back, too, for further family activities and deeper conversations. It might be the thing to help your family dig just a bit deeper this season.

One reviewer says that it is “thought provoking, awe-inspiring, and Jesus-magnifying, a brilliant resource.”

God’s Holy Darkness Shared Green & Becky Selznick, illustrated by Nikki Faison (Beaming Books) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This is one of the most amazing children’s books in many a year, powerful, aesthetically stunning, exceptionally well done. I highly recommend that you find a way to integrate this into your Advent reading with kids of various ages, even though it isn’t directly an obvious Advent book. There is one facing spread that does speak of Advent, so I guess it is an Advent book.

There are two important threads of import in this striking picture book. Firstly, it is (obviously) about darkness. That in itself resonates with themes of Advent, doesn’t it? We really appreciate how artfully it shows this and how vital and captivating this book is, inviting us to “celebrate the beauty of God’s holy darkness.” (Perhaps you recall the wonderfully written memoir exploring this by the exquisite Barbara Brown Taylor called Learning to Walk In the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night; this children’s book is a good companion for that.)

The second theme is wanting to — how do I say this? — redeem the notion of blackness. Too often we hear, or assume subconsciously, that black is bad, that dark times are irredeemably bad, that night and dark are scary and troubling. We needn’t overstate the case but some black friends have said this can be hurtful or confusing, so we need to think this through. God’s Holy Darkness is, in a sense, an anti-racism book.

As it says on the back cover of God’s Holy Darkness:

From the darkness at the beginning of creation to the blackness of the sky on the night when Christ’s birth was announced, this captivating picture book deconstructs anti-Blackness in Christian theology by exploring instances in the story of God’s people when darkness, blackness, and night are beautiful, good, and holy.

We often talk about how Christmas is best understood in the flow of the unfolding drama of the history of redemption. That is, we should frame the Christmas season by the whole story of God as portrayed in the big story of Scripture. (In the book by Daniel Spanjer that I highlighted in the last BookNotes, Advent is the Story: Seeing the Nativity Throughout Scripture, it shows how to do this.) This exceptionally artful book does just that allusively, simply, walking us through the pages of Scripture. This is redemptive, nearly subversive, Biblical theology for children. What a book!

The Light Before Christmas: A Family Advent Devotional  Marty Machowski, illustrated by Sarah Bland-Halulko (New Growth Press) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59.

A handsome, slim hardback with a nice deep blue cover and some rich, colored pages and the occasional bright ink makes this four-week Advent family devotional a special treat to behold. Machowski is the Family Life Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, PA (where he has served on the pastoral staff for over thirty years and has made a name for himself as a leader in the new generation of up-beat, grace-based, gospel-centered, Christian curricula.) 

This new one combines devotions on the themes of light and darkness with the story, as they explain, of eleven year old Mia and her grandmother as they prepare for Christmas. “Grandmother loves to share her faith, especially at Christmas time, and although she is bind, she can see the light of Jesus shining bright and helps Mia — and children of all ages — to do the same.” 

Reset: Advent Devotions for the Whole Family J.D. Walt (Seedbed) $9.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.96

This is one of the lovely, compact sized “Seedbed Daily Text” volumes, designed to be read out loud in families, written by the editor (who they call “sower-in-chief”) at Seedbed, the Wesleyan renewal ministry out of Asbury Theological Seminary. Walk has four children and is a preacher, poet, and songwriter.

I like that they say that since Advent is the first month of the church calendar, “it’s like a giant reset button crying out to give us a fresh start again.” More than two thousand year ago, they say, “God reset the world.” Indeed.

A Jesus Christmas: Explore God’s Amazing Plan for Christmas Barbara Reaoch (The Good Book Company) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

What a great resource, clear about the gospel and the centrality of Jesus in our lives.

Maybe you know Barbara Reaoch’s book from 2020, (which we recommended last year) A Better Than Anything Christmas: Explore How Jesus Makes Christmas Better; I love it that the very wise (and very smart) Joni Eareckson Tada says of that book “consider this unique book your Christmas toolbox. I give it my double thumbs-up!” Well, A Jesus Christmas is her previous one and is arranged very similarly and is a great companion to it. Who doesn’t want to make their Advent and holiday season more of a “Jesus Christmas”? This will help.

It is a family devotional, each day’s entry looking at a passage from the Gospel.  There is a helpful question and even a space for journaling and occasionally an invitation to draw something. (Unless you have a huge family, each member can share this space, which could be fun.). Of this one, A Jesus Christmas, Joni exclaimed,

With every Christmas becoming more commercialized, parents are earnestly seeking new ways to make the true story of Christmas much more clear to their children. One glance through this remarkable book tells me that A Jesus Christmas is just what mothers and fathers are looking for. What a great family project this is, providing guide points for discussion, age-appropriate activities, and homework for every child. I highly recommend this book as a practical and powerful way to keep Jesus Christ and his Word at the very center of your family’s Christmas.

A Better Than Anything Christmas: Explore How Jesus Makes Christmas Better Barbara Reaoch (The Good Book Company) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

What a great resource, clear about the gospel and the centrality of Jesus in our lives. I love it that the very wise (and very smart) Joni Eareckson Tada says to “consider this unique book your Christmas toolbox. I give it my double thumbs-up!”

Maybe you know Barbara Reaoch’s previous book from 2018, A Jesus Christmas: Explore God’s Amazing Plan for Christmas; this is arranged very similarly and is a great companion to it.

It is a family devotional, each day’s entry looking at a passage from the Gospel  There is a helpful question and even a space for journaling.

Here are what some stellar folks have said about it:

This is yet another outstanding family devotional book for the Christmas season by Barbara Reaoch. If you’ve been blessed by any of her previous books, you’ll enjoy this one as well. She has a knack for starting with something interesting to children and quickly turning it to Jesus and the Bible. This one will appeal both to younger and older children, and parts of each chapter are directed to both groups. The book is imaginatively interactive as well; not just something for kids to listen to. Best of all is how she conveys 25 core truths about Christ in a simple way to show the children how Jesus is Better Than Anything.  – Donald S. Whitney, Professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY and author of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Praying the Bible, and Family Worship.

In a world where Christmas is more commercialized than ever before, it is all too easy for parents to drown in the noise of it all. Barbara Reaoch’s A Better Than Anything Christmas is a welcome and refreshing opportunity for parents to zero in on what is truly important: the gospel. The daily advent readings and questions make for excellent family discussions around who Jesus is and why He came. We loved Barbara’s A Jesus Christmas for how it offered our children an opportunity to grapple with big doctrinal ideas in a way that was easily digestible, even cross-culturally. I look forward to sharing A Better Than Anything Christmas with the family this Christmas, most especially for how it promotes theologically robust discussion and a deepening and enduring understanding of God’s Word. From toddlers to teens, this devotional offers far greater value than even the most beautifully wrapped packages beneath the tree.     – Taryn Hayes podcast host, The Gospel Coalition Australia’s The Lydia Project: Conversations with Christian Women

Families Celebrate 2022-2023 Advent and Christmas deck of cards (Augsburg Fortress) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

Give new meaning to the phrase “Christmas cards” by using these (small) cards to do family devotions. As they promise on the back, each card features a ritual, prayer, reflection, or activity. For families with kids ages 3 -13. Cards are dated for use each day from the first Sunday of Advent to the Day of Epiphany (January 6, 2023.) Of course, you could use or re-use them. These are really cute and feature full color art on 56 cards. While supplies last…

Wonders of His Love: Finding Jesus in Isaiah Family Advent Devotional Champ Thornton, illustrated by Jeremy Slagle (New Growth Press) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

The cover may not fully communicate it but this is a very full color, lively, contemporary looking for kids, creatively done thin hardback (with nice, glossy paper) full of gospel-centered good news about God’s grace and Christ’s fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Sweet, good stuff, theologically solid and yet playful asides, cookie recipes, conversation starters and some family fun ideas. The book’s four weeks of daily readings explore four images from Isaiah’s prophecies — the Light, the Branch, the Shepherd, and the Savior. 

Endorsements are from pastor and children’s ministry expert Marty Machowski (author of WonderFull, The Ology, Long Story Short and many other stellar kid’s theology books) and Barbara Reaoch, author of A Better Than Anything Christmas.

Coloring Advent: An Adult Coloring Book for the Journey to Bethlehem Christopher Rodkey, with illustrations by Jesse & Natalie Turri (Christian Board of Publication/Chalice Press) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

We tell folks about this every year and I am happy to list this among our favs even though I suppose it isn’t for everyone. Back at the start of the adult coloring book craze. Rev. Dr.. Rodkey, a neighbor, friend, and Dallastown UCC pastor, came into the shop wondering about adult ed options for December at his small, creative church. He had a hunch folks were burned out, tense, in need of some serenity. He thought about just doing an arts and craft thing for adults, a contemplative coloring time. It went over well and he set himself to the task of collaborating with some Pennsylvania illustrators and created this Coloring Advent, based on lectionary readings from the Revised Common Lectionary. There is nothing like that and his brief comments about the Biblical text — yes there are footnotes in a coloring book! — are beyond intriguing with his penchant for including lesser known feast days from the world Christian traditions, from Orthodoxy and Catholicism’s liturgical calendar. A thoughtfully arranged, annotated, ecumenical coloring book that follows the lectionary.

Rev. Rodkey’s subsequent Coloring Lent and Coloring Women of the Bible are equally as fascinating and a lot of informative, clarifying fun. Coloring Advent: An Adult Coloring Book was created here in Dallastown and we are glad to list it here. It isn’t designed for children, but, obviously, anybody can use it, even teens.

Faithful Families for Advent and Christmas: 100 Ways to Make the Season Sacred Traci Smith (Chalice Press) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

This is a nice holiday companion to the popular Faithful Families: Creation Sacred Moments at Home. It offers 100 nifty ideas, some pretty ordinary that anybody would do, some a bit more extensive that are thoughtful and good, and a few that are a bit, uh, unique. Not everyone will “get” each one, granted. Even if you do a few of these or ponder a few others, this book is worth its inexpensive price. Give it a try.

In each of these simple, hands-on practices, Smith gives families the tools to slow down, wait, and focus on all that Jesus coming into the world means. — Karyn Rivadeneira, author, Grit and Grace: Heroic Women of the Bible 

Christmas is Coming! But Waiting is Hard! Family Activities and Devotions for Advent Karen Whiting (Abingdon Press) $16.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This book is not new but we wanted to highlight it for you; some of our customers are looking for useful resources that have basic lessons and conversation-starters and little crafty type  activities for young ones. This author used to work for Focus on the Family and has developed curriculum for others who want to share basic Christian insight for children. (She was a producer and host of a puppet show on public TV in Miami — yay!)

Besides the reading, each day’s entry includes a prayer, discussion questions, explanation of a Christmas symbol, some reproducibles to help with the symbol activity, and suggested activities to put the Scriptures into action.

The 25 Days of Christmas: A Family Devotional to Help You Celebrate Jesus James Merritt, illustrated by Connie Gabbert (Harvest House) $19.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This was a big hit a couple of years ago not only for its solid, Biblical content but for the rich artwork, nice cloth hardback feel. It’s 9 x 12, so bigger than most (although not thick.)  It will be a keepsake edition. Merritt is a Southern Baptist pastor and co-host of a TV show. He’s written bunches of books.The 25 Days of Christmas has a story to read aloud each day and an activity — things to do, discover, apply.

The Advent Jesse Tree: Devotions for Children and Adults to Prepare for the Coming of the Christ Child at Christmas Dean Meador Lambert (Abingdon Press) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This is an old classic that originally came out in the mid-1980s. We used to sell it widely and encouraged folks to do this great project of creating ornaments that each are related to an Old Testament text that lead up to the Christmas story. What a great way to teach the history of redemption and the unfolding drama of salvation history. The writing here is a bit old-fashioned, the black and white illustrations even more-so; they were old-fashioned when they were in the first edition. Vintage, eh? Still, the idea is solid. We enjoy letting people know about this. These are devotions based on the Biblical texts and symbols but not a craft book to make the symbols for the Jesse Tree. (Let us know if we can help you with that; there are several.)

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas Ann Voskamp (Tyndale) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

This is a contemporary classic, beloved and used by many. It is colorful and excellently made. It is playing on the old Jesse Tree custom. It has vivid, full-color illustrations, downloadable ornaments, and moving scenes from the Bible.  As the publisher says, “Person by person, story by story, retrace the lineage of Jesus. Fall in love with Him all over again as you experience God’s plan of salvation for us–from the Garden of Eden to the manger and beyond.” This is an oversized hardback, like a big coffee table book, a real keepsake.

The Wonder of the Greatest Gift: An Interactive Family Celebration of Advent  Ann Voskamp (Tyndale) $34.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $27.99                                                               We’ve exclaimed about this before, a beautifully designed, big, lavish hardback with pop-up features and lots of extras that serves as a contemporary take on the old Jesse Tree tradition. There’s a little devotional by Voskamp for each of the ornaments — what a keepsake volume.

Here’s how they describe what is included:

• 13-inch 3D pop-up tree
• Devotional booklet with 25 family devotions written by Ann Voskamp
• 24 Christmas tree ornaments with hangers
• Star-shaped tree-topper

Based on her bestseller Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, Ann Voskamp expands her presentation of the timeless Advent tradition of the Jesse Tree with this beautiful keepsake that can be handed down and enjoyed for generations.

Each December, families can celebrate the coming of Jesus by opening the book to see a stunning 13-inch, three-dimensional Jesse Tree pop up from the page. At its foot are 25 doors, one for each day of Advent, which hide meaningful, beautifully detailed ornaments–including the Christmas star–that are ready to be hung on the tree.

The Jesus Storybook Bible: A Christmas Collection: Stories, Songs, and Reflections for the Advent Season inspired by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jago, narrated by David Suchet (Zonderkidz) $24.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $19.96

I hope you know this. Here is how we wrote about it before when it was brand new in 2020.

Oh my goodness, we’ve saved the best for last. We are so excited to tell you about this. This Sally Lloyd-Jones Christmas Collection, though, really is a great choice to use during Advent with little children so we wanted to announce it here, now. It is, of course, at our 20% off sale price.

The Jesus Storybook Bible: A Christmas Collection: Stories, Songs, and Reflections for the Advent Season is one of those great books that is oversized and handsome and has a battery/computer gadget thingie that speaks or plays music when a child presses the button.  There is narration, and there are excerpts of four Christmas carols that fit well into the appropriate pages. Kids love these interactive books. That it spreads out widely in the lap is great, too. Kudos, Zonderkidz!

They say this is for ages 4 – 8 but I can imagine a slightly older kid reading it herself. And a slightly younger one could press the buttons and smile at the music, so I’m going to suggest this, being a bit optimistic, for ages 3 – 10.

There are key moments to “press the button” throughout and it will bring hours of pleasure and spiritual formation for children and families using this very cool new product. We’re excited. And the art is cool, whimsical without being silly or sentimental.

You should know that we adore the Jesus Storybook Bible and while there are other children’s story Bibles that we like a lot, we are especially fond of the creative art and excellent writing of this one. And the framework and theological perspective — “Every Story Whispers His Name” — shows the interconnectedness of the Bible stories that unfold and point to the promises fulfilled in Christ. It’s really good. And Advent is the perfect time to plumb those obvious interconnections.

This edition has content that is explicitly Advent themed.

All About… Christmas Alison Mitchell (The Good Book Company) $17.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I suppose this isn’t an Advent book as such (since it is about Christmas) and we’ll list it again when we do a list of children’s Christmas books in December. But this is so chock-full of information and content that kids are going to want to dig into the Christmas story from the Bible books (of Matthew and Luke) sooner rather than later. They will be able to investigate what life was like in that time and place and discover why we still celebrate this King every Christmas holiday.

All About… Christmas is accessible and fun but really a wonderful guide to so very much about the season. It is full color in the classic style of upbeat kid’s nonfiction books with a terrific blend of illustration and photographs. There are facts and figures, questions and answers, things to explore and things to consider.

We’re glad for this colorful hardback book of about 50 large sized pages (complete with a glossary, of course.)  I can’t say enough about this and if you don’t have children or grandchildren, nieces or nephew, by golly, buy one and give it away, of for each of your congregations Sunday school teachers. It’s that interesting.

One Great Love: An Advent and Christmas Treasury of Readings, Poems, and Prayers edited by Paraclete Press (Paraclete Press) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

We featured this in last week’s Advent newsletter but it dawns on me that some of these nicely presented pieces — not least the fiction excerpts from Louise May Alcott and Charles Dickens, and the holiday poems and prayers and promises — really can be used in a family setting, read out loud or passed around. The artwork is mostly classic, the print in a handsomely done, good sized font, the classy color making it a beloved holiday treasure for you and your children.

From the ancient words of Isaiah to the timeless writings of Henry van Dyke, O. Henry, and contemporary poets (Gayle Boss, Eugene Peterson, Nikki Grimes and more), One Great Love is a fine and lovely book with a real assortment of readings. Not too much, not too fussy or heavy, this is a “just right” volume to have on hand for your family gatherings.

The Birth of Jesus Advent Calendar: The Light Shines in the Darkness Agostino Traini (Beaming Books) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

We have bunches of different sorts of Advent Calendars, of course, classic one-page (9″ x 12″ or so) with old fashioned art and nifty little doors to open. Many are inexpensive and some are larger and some are small. They come and go each year depending on what we find that’s useful.

But this. This is a larger one with a more sturdy wooden design making it truly reusable, year after year. It is modern,  colorful and fascinating —  like a combo pop-up book and nativity scene, perfect for the whole family to use together. This is designed by the illustrious Italian paper artist, Agostino Traini, who has also done, for instance, the Birth of Jesus: A Christmas Pop-up Book and an array of other lavish, pop-up book creations for Beaming Books (such as an incredible one on the creation story, the Lord’s Prayer, an Easter one, and more.) The Birth of Jesus Advent Calendar is a unique item, though — instead of a “window” to open there is a cut-out figure to punch out of the page which becomes a developing, stand-up nativity scene.

If you order this we’ll send you a link to a free guide to download that has a brief bit of info about each of the 25 characters (including the three wise men that are used the day after Christmas.)

“And so, to understand the truly radical nature of Advent, it is necessary to get its relation to Christmas in perspective…”

 

“In a very real sense, the Christian community lives in Advent all the time. It can well be called the Time Between, because the people of God live in the time between the first coming of Christ, incognito in the stable in Bethlehem, and his second coming, in glory, to judge the living and the dead. In the Time Between “our lives are hidden with Christ in God, when Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3: 3-4). Advent contains within itself the crucial balanced of the now and the not-yet that our faith requires.”  — Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ

Welcome to the 2023 Hearts & Minds Advent Book List, a yearly extravaganza that I love sharing. There are some perennial classics that I would love to remind you of (so please check out HERE or HERE or HERE or HERE.) There are some recent ones that maybe came out in the last few years but that are not yet well known. Happily, there are plenty of brand new ones. There really is something for everyone. 

(I will do children’s Advent and Christmas books in another post, soon.)

I often say that while Lenten spiritual practices are somewhat more sober and intense and Easter is, obviously, the most important Christian high holy day there is, for many of us, Advent is our favorite time of the year. I think it is wise to not overemphasize the countdown to Christmas and recapture the older, truer meaning of this slow, longing, season of our liturgical calendar, but, let’s face it: there is a lot of joy — even as we struggle with very hard things — in focusing on the hope of Christ’s final victory, the return coming when all will be (as Brits like C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright put it) sorted out and put to rights. Whether you and your family or group is somewhat new to the liturgical practices of this waiting/hoping season or whether you are a seasoned soul, whether you are upbeat this time of year or somewhat dreading it, these books can help.

There are others we have in the store and there are hundreds of others that can be found. We’ve curated this list for you, selecting what we have found to be the most interesting or helpful for our discerning (and delightfully but really diverse) BookNotes readership. All are 20% off (with a few small exceptions, noted below.) Send us an order today, please.

WEEKLY STUDIES AND THOSE GOOD FOR GROUPS OR BOOK CLUBS

Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans) $33.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $27.19

Buy this and you’ll hardly need to buy much more for years as it is a thick substantive collection of dozens of sermons. It is, I often say, one of my all time favorite collections and it is lasting years and years and I read and read essays and mostly sermons (many which she calls “pre-Advent) into Christ Our King Sunday and through the Advent season. Get some folks together and pick a few to study together, one or two a week. There is nothing programmatic or any discussion questions, just great chapters. You can do this. 

Invigorating — edgy, intelligent, unflinching, and joyful in all it reclaims. A timely, lively, prophetic word. — Marilyn McEnytyre, author of Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

Fleming Rutledge’s Advent preaching bursts upon us with the same elemental force as the preaching of John the Baptist…Do not drive anesthetized through another season of Advent; read this book.  — Richard Hays, author of Reading with the Grain of Scripture

The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope Kelly Nikondeha (Broadleaf Books) $24.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

This is nothing short of stunning and we very highly recommend it this year. There are maybe 10 chapters so it might be harder to do in five weeks with a group, but maybe you could do two chapters each sessions. (They are fairly short, if eloquent and very thoughtful.) Wow.

Kelly has written a wonderful pair of Eerdmans books, one called Adoption about “the sacrament of belonging” (viewing adoption both theologically and rather practically as a white woman living in Africa in an adoptive, bi-racial and multinational family) that was beautifully provocative. Her second one is also not to be missed, an eloquent and passionate reflection called Defiant:What the Women of Exodus Teach Us About Freedom. What a writer she is and a bit of a hero of ours.

Although she lives in Burundi, in East Africa, Nikondeha has long been interested in the plight of Palestinians and has amplified voices there. With blurbs from the likes of Shadia Qubit and Naim Ateek and James Zogby, you will know that this author and her book are highly regarded and respected. I do not know anything quite like this, rooted so clearly in the Biblical narrative and yet with this very contemporary application. This really is an excellent authentically Christmasy advent book.

If you are wearied by or bored with the sentimentality and careless religious nostalgia of American Advent and Christmas, this is the book for you. Kelley Nikondeha takes a deep, alert dive into the natal poetry of the Gospels that has become for us too trite and jaded in its familiarity. She reads this poetry differently because she has, at the same time, made a deep investment in the contemporary life of real people in the actual circumstances of Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, people who happen to be Palestinians who continue to be outsiders to imperial power. The outcome of her bold reading is to see that these Gospel texts initiated a peace movement into the world that defies and subverts the phony peace of every imperialism. This rich, suggestive book permits us to reappropriate in knowing ways the good news of Advent-Christmas, news that destabilizes and emancipates. — Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, author of Names for the Messiah: An Advent Study

The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ Timothy Keller (Penguin) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

This is an excellent, intelligent, faithful survey of the reasons for Christmas, what has been called “a profoundly moving and intellectually provocative” examination of the nativity story.

There are hard edges to the Christmas story and this illuminating journey may be surprising to traditional Christians (or those who don’t see themselves as religious but can’t escape the season’s presence.) In other words, this is a great gift book for Christians wanting to dig a bit deeper and know why they believe (or even some of what they believe) and for seekers or or unchurched folks who wonder about this talk of the redeeming power of God in this curious question of incarnation. Perhaps yoiu know a skeptical (or religiously disinterested) college student. Give ’em this, please!

As a great Reformed pastor, Keller is known for a gospel-centered message; that is, we cannot rescue ourselves, we can not rustle up the magic or meaning to sustain a purposeful life. If we cannot generate within ourselves enough, then what do we do? Christmas, as Christians of all sorts confess, is very good news indeed, the answer to our human predicament, which he explores curiously and realistically. I love this book, thoughtful without being stuff, offering a winsome apologetic for anyone willing to think things through. 

There are eight interesting chapters, but none are too lengthy. Your group could do two chapters for four weeks, easily, or stretch it out a bit. Highly recommended.

Advent Is the Story: Seeing the Nativity throughout Scripture — A Journey of Reading Through the Advent Season Daniel Spanjer (Square Halo Books) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I waited for this book a long time — I know that Mr Spanjer is a highly respected public leader in Lancaster; he is a department chair and professor of history at Lancaster Bible College and is involved in Alcuin Society, a thoughtful evangelical ministry among college professors in higher education. His pastor at Wheatland Presbyterian was very encouraging of this project and it ended up to be a fabulous little book. I really want to recommend it to you and thank the good folks at Square Halo for offering such a Biblically-wise Advent title to their classy inventory.

It is compact in size and jam-packed with Bible study and thoughtful Scripture reflections, insisting that the coming of Jesus is the Bible’s story. It is arranged as a daily devotional but the entries are grouped in such as way that a small group could use it individually day by day and then come together weekly to discuss that week’s theme. 

The rich readings are grouped in six sections, each with a primary topical essay and then the daily reflections which follow. These topics include The Word, The Temple, The King, The Exodus, The Sacrifice, and The Now and the Not Yet (ending on December 31st.)

I love how Heidi Johnston (author of the UK release, Life in the Big Story: Your Place in God’s Unfolding Plan) puts it:

This is an Advent book that goes where many others do not… From Eden to Babel, from the promised land to the New Jerusalem, this book reminds us that all of history has been marked by the same drumbeat of hope, as God relentlessly pursues the people he loves, stopping at nothing to make his dwelling place among them. 

Prepare the Way for the Lord: Advent and the Message of John the Baptist Adam Hamilton (Abingdon Press) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I am sure that if you are a person who follows religious publishing at all you have heard the name of Adam Hamilton. We respect him a lot and I think that as his popularity has grown he has matured and developed. He’s not too heavy, but is learned. He’s not too punchy but he has great concerns about peace, justice, and civic leadership. He’s not too preachy but has an evangelical heart. He’s a pastor of a huge United Methodist Church but seems really down to Earth. This one looks really, really good.

Philip Yancey has said that Hamilton has “proven to be a faithful guide to applying the Bible to modern life in a sane and balanced way.” Brian McLaren calls him “a national treasure” who “embodied the kind of generous orthodoxy so many of us have been dreaming of and praying for.” 

This book has four fairly short chapters and a nice fifth “afterword” piece. There is, as there usually are with many of his book, a DVD, a Leader’s Guide and even a youth edition. Check out his older ones, too, like Not A Silent Night or The Journey, which we also have. For now, though, we celebrate this 2023 release, Prepare the Way for the Lord: Advent and the Message of John the Baptist as a stand alone book, or to be used in a book study or the fabulous DVD study.

• Book  $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99
• DVD  $39.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99
• Leader’s Guide $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

The Angels of Christmas: Hearing God’s Voice in Advent Susan Robb (Abingdon Press) $16.99       OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This handsome four chapter book invites us to “experience the angelic visits surrounding the birth of Jesus.” I suspect this has been done before, somewhere, but I do not know of any four session study that offers this fascinating glimpse into the angelic visits in the seasonal narrative.

Susan Robb recently retired as the Senior Associate Minister at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas (where she served for more than 20 years.) Believable, thoughtful, a great preacher, Susan’s loves teaching the Bible and inviting folks into conversational Bible studies. There is no doubt that she is a gifted, practical scholar, a educator in and for the local church.

Naturally, a study like this is getting at not only the nature of these miraculous events, but, notably, GOd’s presence in our own daily lives. As one reviewer put it, she intersects the miraculous happenings of 2000 years ago with the experiences of people’s lives — their joys, sufferings, and hopes. What a beautiful way to hear and study the Nativity story.”

Our old friend who used to live in York, the Rev. Alyce McKenzie (professor of preaching and worship at Perkins School of Theology) says this has Robb’s “trademark clarity and eloquence” and is “ideal for personal growth or small group study.” She even recommends it for all-church studies tied to the sermons of Advent.

• Book  $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59
• DVD  $39.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $31.99
• Leader’s Guide $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Names for the Messiah: An Advent Study Walter Brueggemann (Westminster/John Knox) $15.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.00

If you scroll back through the archived BookNotes from previous Advent lists you will see this little study listed a few times. This is how I described it a year or so ago: Names for the Message has the brilliant Biblical scholar Walt Brueggemann holding forth in rich essays about the four names of the son who has been given to us as described in Isaiah 9:6. There is in the back a four-week study guide and discussion questions for group conversation complete with a closing prayer.

This tackles some tough historical questions too — what would the Jews in exile have thought about this oracle from the prophet? Did Jesus fulfill this hope; naturally, Christians believe Jesus was the royal Messiah foretold in the Old Testament, and Brueggemann helps us tease out the implications.

Advent in Plain Sight: A Devotion Through Ten Objects Jill J. Duffield (Westminster/John Knox) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

I wrote about this when it came out two years ago. Here is what I said, then, gladly: we premiered last spring a similar one by this author, Lent in Plain Sight, and had so much good feedback on the Lenten one we were glad to see a new Advent one as well. It has great possibilities for a study group or book club or adult ed class.

What an interesting way into the story, focusing on eight objects (and a bonus ninth, the water of Jesus’s baptism) — gates, tears, belts, trees, cloth, light, hearts, gold, water. There are discussion questions and a prayer after each chapter. You could do two chapters each week for four weeks and there would be plenty to ponder. Short, interesting, fresh.

DAILY ADVENT DEVOTIONALS

The Art of Advent: A Painting a Day from Advent to Epiphany Jane Williams (IVP) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

The Art of Christmas: Meditations on the Birth of Jesus Jane Williams (IVP) $17.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

We have touted and sold bunches of The Art of Advent in years past and it remains one of the best bargains you will find — excellent of often classic artwork explored and reflected upon by the great British art scholar (and wife of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.)

The new “Christmas” one that just came out this year is a bit shorter, but richly wonderful. The Art of Christmas is still 115 pages and excellently done.

Both are just thrilling to have, delightful in a profound way, a glory to know that people think up and make such fabulous books. Each are about 6 1/2 x 5 1/2, easy to mail, making great little gifts — not too weighty but impressive. Get a few of each, while supplies last.

Making Room in Advent: 25 Devotions for a Season of Wonder Bette Dickinson (IVP) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

With contemporary art on glossy paper, this is a very handsome little book, cool, a bit edgy, but very nice. I never like that formal font, and it doesn’t do the contemporary vision of the art much justice, in my view. But it does show that it has weight, gravitas, even if the point is pointing us towards joy. Bette Dickinson is described as a “prophetic artist” who has an artful ministry called “Awakening the Soul.”  This hardback book helps us make room. Make room for what, you ask? Each of 25 reflections and art pieces will answer that with 25 different answers. This really is a tremendous book, one of the best of this year. You will love pondering it, I’m sure.

Terry Wildman — an indigenous leader who was the lead translator of the First Nations Version of the New Testament — says that Making Room in Advent is “a welcome contemplative offering birthed from her own experiences… offering artistic depth combined with theological breadth and personal applications.”

Listen to what the very wise Curt Thompson (Soul of Shame and Soul of Desire) writes:

If spaciousness for God and the flourishing He promises is what you desire, I cannot think of a better place to start.

Expecting Emmanuel: Eight Women Who Prepared the Way Joanna Harader with Michelle Burkholder (Herald Press) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Once again, Herald Press hits it out of the park with this fabulous resource, a handsome, full sized book loaded with both Biblical insight and contemporary application. It obviously is an Advent journey, a devotional inviting us through Advent and into Christmas with the women of Jesus’s family line. What a great idea!

Herald Press, which is a Mennonite publishing house, is one of the most fresh and interesting publishers these days bringing lively and provocative, Biblically faithful, progressive voices into the religious conversation. Harader is the pastor of Peace Mennonite Church in Lawrence, Kansas, and is known for creating moving, faithful, worship liturgies. (She has written in Christian Century and the “Shine” Sunday school curriculum.)  

Michelle Burkholder is a pastor in Hyattsville, Maryland and offers illustrations and art design for this volume — something akin to linocuts, she does paper cuts which offer shapes and lines and abstract designs. It adds a very nice touch to the volume.

Besides the standard daily devotions, this book can be used as a guide to preaching and creating worship liturgies. They give readers a lot of tools to use this, from small groups and Sunday school to worship settings with sermon ideas and candle-lighting litanies. There is even a guide for an Advent retreat using this over the course of a few days. (I bet after individuals or small groups use it this year, there will be some who insist on pulling off an Advent retreat next year!)

Expecting Emmanuel is a treasure trove, solid, helpful, interesting. Highly recommended.

In prayers like poems and meditations that weave together the stories of women in the Bible with the lives of readers, Joanna Harader offers a gentle invitation: sit, wait, hold one, don’t give up.  — Melissa Florer-Bixler, author of How to Have an Enemy

Three Wise Women: 40 Devotions Celebrating Advent with Mary, Elizabeth and Anna Dandy Daley Mackall (Paraclete Press) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Paraclete Press is a premier publisher of ecumenical books with a liturgical and sacramental perspective; their Advent and Lenten books are not just staples for us, but true joys to promote. We stock almost everything they do and, in this case, we’re delighted for this lovely book by an author who is known for doing charming children’s books, YA stuff, and delightfully evangelical resources for Christian living. This may be her most sophisticated project yet and yet it carries her grace and insight. Writing from rural Ohio, she help us, as she says, “anticipate, celebrate, and marvel” at Jesus’s birth.

I suppose this is designed mostly for women readership, but you know us — we’d recommend it to anyone who needs this Biblical content, this encouragement, this bit of healthy calm, published in a handsome hardback. It has illustrations and even a ribbon marker, making it a very nice gift.

None other than New York Times bestselling novelist Bret Lot (who himself has guided many a writer with his Letters and Life: On Being a Writer, on Being a Christian) has a rave endorsement:

Dandi Mackall has done something important, and beautiful, and good, calling her readers to ponder anew this miraculous season when the gift of all gifts was bestowed upon us all, and to do so through the eyes of the blessed women involved. This is a wonderful book.

Brightest and Best: 31 Advent Devotions on Jesus Philippa Ruth Wilson (Christian Focus) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

Christian Focus is a conservative, often Reformed, evangelical publisher from Scotland and we appreciate their no-nonsense theology and their clarity about doctrine and salvation and holiness. Here, then, is a book like no other: it is about the comfort Advent could bring to those who are hurting. Philippa Ruth Wilson has written a lot about Jesus and depression at her blog “A Certain Brightness” (and has published a book of that name about her depression.) This rejects the “happiest time of the year” nonsense and yet communicates “joyful, uplifting, and glorious Christmas truths” to those who need encouragement.

As it says on the back cover, “in a world of poverty, prejudice, and sickness, it can be hard to sing tis the season to be jolly. Brightest and Best is a collection of advent devotions that point to the comfort God has promised in the coming of Jesus.”

Some readers may recall our fondness for the book by Amy Boucher Bye, a sharp thinker and deeply spiritual writer who not too long ago did 7 Ways to Pray: Time-Tested Practices for Encountering God. She has an endorsement here, saying:

Interweaving the wisdom and grace of her aptly termed Carolsville with the wonderous story of Jesus, Philippa Wilson in Brightest and Best sparks longing and love within us during the Advent and Christmas seasons. She welcomes us to share her deep love of the ‘little Lord Jesus’ – a mind-bending notion of the God who became Man. I commend it with joy.

By the way, if this is a topic dear to your heart, don’t miss others we’ve highlighted in past years such as the stellar 2022 WJK-published reflection, A Weary World: Reflections for a Blue by the excellent progressive activist and Denver pastor, Kathy Escobar, and the exquisite, art-filled, one-of-a-kind Wounded in Spirit by David Bannon (published by Paraclete.) Check those out, for sure.

Fully Human, Fully Divine: An Advent Devotional for the Whole Self Whitney Simpson (Upper Room Books) $17.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Okay, this really is a workbook sort of resource in a fine hardback with some contemporary full color art by artist Lauren Wright Pittman. Wow.

It is a four week devotional by an author who has written Holy Listening with Breath, Body, and the Spirit which is informed by a contemplative perspective and vibrant yoga practice. (Some know her from her work at the Wild Goose Festival.) Simpson says that we literally sense Christ’s coming and she here invites us to embrace this, moving through a more intentionally embodied Advent. She works often in the spaces between inner peace and peacemaking, from breath prayer to justice activism, so she is very wholistic. I know this will appeal to some of our friends.

As they put it on the back cover, this is “an opportunity to prepare for God to come into our midst, to prepare for God to become human just like us.”

The chapters are entitled Slow Down and Hope, Simplify for Peace, Sit with Joy, and Savor God’s Love. The publisher explains, “Within each week are a rotation of daily practices including breath prayer, mindful movement, lectio divina, visio divina (which utilizes beautiful, colorful works of art each week), Christian meditation, creative contemplation, and practicing presence.” Theologian and mindfulness teacher Amy Oden calls it “a true Christmas gift.”

Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World Hannah Anderson with illustrations by Nathan Anderson (B+H) $22.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

Some of our faithful readers recall how we were taking pre-orders and sending out bunches of Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit, Hannah and Nathan’s splendid devotional guide to the outdoors, her gentle and creative writing of nature observations beside her designer husband’s lovely illustrations. Turning of Days was a good seller for us; we were proud to promote it and we talk about it, still. Hannah is a good writer and that was a particularly lovely book.

This new Advent one seems to carry the same care and tone, offering a nice rumination on the often overlooked things in the holiday weeks.

“What does it sound like when rocks, hills, floor, and plains echo his praise” they ask? And what would it mean for you to join the chorus? Isn’t that a million dollar question? If all creation sings, and we get to get in on it, what does that all mean?

She has a light touch and although informed by serious theology of the best sorts, this is a book designed to evoke joy and attention, wonder and awe, helping us see and hear.

It is a Scripturally-rooted book, a Biblical devotional, but it is the little things in the text that she notices (and in our own lives) that she captures as they point to the Babe in the straw. These 25 Advent readings look fabulous and I, for one, am going to savor them this season.  

Gifts of Grace: 25 Advent Devotions Jared C. Wilson (The Good Book Company) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

I’ve appreciated this author for his deep commitment to the first things of the gospel, seen clearly in titles like Gospel Wakefulness (what a title, eh?) and Gospel Deeps (which was on the “excellencies of Jesus.”) But I also like that he is sort of whimsical at times, and has a big-picture worldview. I love, even for teens, his fun book called The Story of Everything: How You, Your Pets, and the Swiss Alps Fit Into God’s Plan for the World. He’s fun, but doesn’t mess around — he wants to draw us to the gospel of God’s grace, help us rely on Him, and set us free to see our story in God’s redemptive story, that all-of-life-redeemed hope of a new creation.

This brand new title just came and I am sure it is packed with gospel truths. One can hardly get more clear than the title: these are gifts of grace. I like that a thoughtful social critic like Daniel Darling says that Jared’s words will “speak to your soul and stir your imagination.” Let’s admit it, many of us need to return to simple gospel truths to prevent us from inhabiting this season in a way that is less awestruck and more wearied and weighed down. Maybe this will help.

The Expected One: Anticipating All of Jesus in the Advent Scott James (B+H) $12.99  OUE SALE PRICE = $10.39 

I like the look and feel of this trim-sized, smaller hardback with two color ink, lots of pull quotes or discussion questions of Bible texts (some on a single page) making this short and, while not “busy”, certainly with a lot going on, visually and otherwise. There’s a vivid forward by David Platt, author of the very Christ-centered, Radical that offer an evangelical vision of global mission as trumping the American dream.

There are twenty-five devotions that can be used by individuals or families, actually. He did a similar family devotional for Lent called The Risen One: Experiencing All of Jesus in Lent which many folks really liked. This one came out last year, but I think many missed it.

Be Ready: An Advent Devotional edited by Courtney Richards (Chalice Press) $3.99  NO SALE PRICE

This is a staple bound booklet, nicely done, by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ.) We enjoy stocking their annual Advent release each year as the writing is always upbeat and fresh, rooted in the ecumenical, mainline denomination vision. This year, this month long devotional (which can be used with Advent candles) helps fund their “Week of Compassion”, the relief and development mission fund of the Disciples. In keeping with their justice-seeking, compassionate work, many of the contributors work in multi-ethnic relief, refugee or housing ministries. Nice.

SPECIAL TREATS

One Great Love: An Advent and Christmas Treasury of Readings, Poems, and Prayers (Paraclete Press) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

With what almost feels like a lightly padded cover, this is a lush and handsome volume full of great readings, from ancient hymns to modern poems, from Presidential speeches to classic fiction. You will find credited literature from the Bible to Louisa May Alcott, from O. Henry to Gerard Manley Hopkins. Alongside old favorites like Charles Dickens and Jane Austen you will find moderns like Nikki Grimes and Luci Shaw. There is plenty here for almost anyone — classic theology and seasonal poetry and a bit of joyful whimsy. All garnished with lovely art work, lots of it.

The art in One Great Love is a delightful hodgepodge, from icons to Linotype, from nature scenes to renaissance painters. It strikes a gorgeous balance with holly and ivy and nativity paintings and glorious art from across time and across the world. There are nifty little illustrations, wreaths and candles but they do not distract from the more serious art pieces. It’s a very lovely collection, a beautiful gift and a fabulous book to own and keep. Wonderful.

All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings Deluxe Gift Edition Gayle Boss, illustrations by David G. Klein (Paraclete Press) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

I trust you have seen our reviews here before of this marvelous, evocative, wintertime book. (And the Lenten one, on endangered species and the groaning of creation called Wild Hope: Stories of Lent from the Vanquishing.) We have highly recommended this Advent one for the vivid writing, the profound Biblical and theological worldview that hovers over the work, and the fabulous black and white illustrations — skillfully prepared woodcuts, actually — of animals as they prepare for winter rest. Who would have thought that a book about hibernation would yield such profound insights about the world’s darkness and the December season of Advent?

This one with a bright red hardback cover is a new edition (the regular paperback is still nicely available for $18.99, but at our sale price just $15.19.) For those that wanted a nice gift edition, this deluxe new one is, well, a gift. The cover is different, there is a ribbon marker, the print size a bit bigger and there are classy endpapers, giving this favorite a new energy and making it a real keepsake. Kudos to Paraclete.

Sleepers Wake: Getting Serious About Climate Change Nicholas Holtam (SPCK) $14.99           OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Not only is this as timely as ever (with the UN Climate conference going on this very week in Egypt) and urgently necessary, it is the Archbishop of York’s Advent Book of 2022. You didn’t know the Archbishop of York in the UK had an Advent Book of the Year, did you? Well, now you do. And it is an urgent one.

As the good Archbishop (Stephen Cottrell) himself puts it, this book is “shot through with hope.”

Further, it has some striking, classic artwork, full pages and in full color. It’s very cool, nicely done. My quick skim might suggest that it isn’t integrated deeply into the Advent theme and while it is arranged as a seasonal book for the time in the church calendar, it isn’t overtly such. So buy it now and you can even read it later. Nicely done.

The God of Amazing Gifts: Family Devotions for Advent Lizzie Laferton (The Good Book Company) $14.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

In other years we have sold well the family and seasonal devotionals published by this gospel-centered, solid, evangelical publishing house. They do impressive books and we’re happy to announce this one, a “wonderful and fresh” devotional that, as one parent put it, “will keep on giving far beyond Christmas.”

It has 25 devotions that can be used during Advent or spread out before or after Christmas.

Helpfully it has different questions routes for different aged children from 7 – 14+, and a variety of suggestions for application. There are some extra ideas in the back, too, for further family activities and deeper conversations. It might be the thing to help your family dig just a bit deeper this season.

One reviewer says of it, “Thought provoking, awe-inspiring, and Jesus-magnifying, this is a brilliant resource.”

Emmanuel: An Invitation to Prepare Him Room at Christmas and Always Ruth Chou Simons (Harvest House) $29.99                      OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99  

Ruth Chou Simons has an amazing following these days and her watercolors and calligraphy has become her signature art, as in popular books like GraceLaced and Beholding and Becoming. She is sharp and deeply committed to the Word of God and its reforming influence on our lives. This new one, too, is fully illustrated, a lovely and striking hardback laden with soft colors and wondrous tones, floral prints, leaves, branches… on every page!

As they say on the back slip, “If there is one name for Jesus that captures the whole heart of God, it is Emmanuel — God with us. No other name similarly expresses the fullness of God’s eternal desire for His image-bearers. He’s always wanted us to be with Him.”

As Ms Simons notes, Christmas Day is not the end of our celebrations but the beginning! Emmanuel is an invitation to rejoice in “the everlasting fellowship and hope God extended to us on the day of His Son’s birth, guiding us to realize that having God with us all year long is Christmas’s most incredible gift.” 

Prophets & Promises: Devotions for Advent and Christmas 2022 – 2023 Richard Bruesehoff, Laura Hock, Lydia Posselt, Harvard Stephens and Troy Troftgruben (Augsburg Fortress) $3.00        SORRY, NO DISCOUNT ON THIS ITEM

This is a tiny book, full color with nice photographs for each day alongside the typical Bible verse, short reading and closing prayer. These authors include pastors and spiritual directors, evangelists and a musician and a New Testament prof at Wartburg Seminary (in Iowa.) I love the title, I love the look — the quotes that the authors occasionally use and the authors they draw from are indigenous, people of color, artsy (from Anne Lamott to Zora Neale Hurston.) There are liturgical theologians, sacramental thinkers and contemporary prophets like Braiding Sweetgrass’s Robin Wall Kimmerer. Short and sweet, we thought you might like it.

Leave it to the Lutherans to produce a beautifully attractive, upbeat-looking, full color pocket size devotional and is so inexpensive. While supplies last. 

Families Celebrate 2022-2023 Advent and Christmas deck of cards (Augsburg Fortress) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

Give new meaning to the phrase “Christmas cards” by using these (small) cards to do family devotions. As they promise on the back, each card features a ritual, prayer, reflection, or activity. For families with kids ages 3 -13. Cards are dated for use each day from the first Sunday of Advent to the Day of Epiphany (January 6, 2023.) Of course, you could use or re-use them. These are really cute and feature full color art on 56 cards. While supplies last…

 

Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany Malcolm Guite (SPCK) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79  

We’ve featured this nearly every year since we discovered it several years back and we are glad for his rich and thoughtful poems. It’s fabulous, rich, and “helps us fathom the depths and inhabit the tensions of Advent’s many paradoxes.”  We stock almost all of Guite’s amazing volumes (including a lovely little book that explains how he relates faith and literature called The Word Within the Words (Fortress; $12.75.) Still, we are especially fond of his Advent/Christmas one. 

 

God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God’s Unexpected Coming Drew Jackson (IVP) $16.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

We raved about this last year and wanted to share it again. Drew is a black pastor in New York who created and refined these hip-hop infused poems during Covid, informed by the realities of being a person of color in recent years. They are similar — if not in style, in approach — to Guite and others who have done overtly Biblical poetry. Here he walks us through the book of Luke (the first poem is “Theophilus (Lover of God)” while the last is inspired by a healing miracle in Luke 8. So, yes, there is some Advent, Nativity, and other seasonal themes here, at least in the first batch. There are nearly 100 poems (and a great, great forward by Grammy-winner, Jon Batiste.)  Jackson carries on the project, by the way, in a book we’re taking pre-orders for which will be released early January 2023 called Touch the Earth: Poems on the Way. It, by the way, has a foreword by Padraig O Tuama. I’m telling you, Drew is one to watch.

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BookNotes

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In the last BookNotes I mentioned being at the Doxology conference sponsored by The Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination (at Western Seminary in Holland MI.) It was thrilling, meeting people who in one way or another had a connection to or interest in the Center’s work, and who, naturally, found themselves somehow in the legacy of Pastor Pete, as Eugene was sometimes called in his early days of ministry. My own workshops on reading and how the printed page can be counted on to inspire our Kingdom imagination were well received and it was fun, then, to list for you at BookNotes some of the books I highlighted, cited, or waved around from up front. Do go back and read that post if you missed it.

Peterson, famously, read novels and wrote poetry and while he was also known as a Bible guy and being a no-nonsense, spiritually-minded pastor, he thought that he did his work —living out his vocation — with more Biblically-faithful verve if he was paying attention to the world in all its splendor and trouble. Which is what fiction and memoir and good journalism can do. It is not surprising that in his annotated listing of recommended books, Take and Read, he has pages of fiction and memoir and history.

The other day I did an intro to Eugene Peterson in an adult ed class (the link is to facebook) at my church, playfully called “Bible Verses that Rocked the World” which explores famous Christians and how they were shaped by the Scriptures. From Luther and Calvin to the Wesleys to contemporaries like Alan Boesak, Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa, we’ve highlighted important figures and a bit about their love for the Word of God.

Perhaps because I knew Eugene a bit or perhaps because it was almost exactly four years since his death last weekend, I found myself sad by this recent reminder of Eugene and the stories I’ve so often told about his love of novels and his love of the Bible. I re-read much of Winn Collier’s tremendously-written, beautiful biography, A Burning in My Bones, which, frankly, doesn’t explain Peterson’s The Message project that much. Love it or not — I’ll admit my feelings are mixed — The Message is more than a clever paraphrase, but a deeply considered, seriously rendered, dynamic equivalence of the Holy Scriptures.

I happen to know some of the heady books he was reading (about Hebrew poetry, Biblical archeology, translation philosophy and such) as he waded through every line, every phrase, in the Hebrew. (I was proud that I was the first to introduce him to Calvin Seerveld’s colorful, occasional translations, too.) The Message became a cultural phenomenon as he paraphrased the ancient Scriptures into the cultural vocabulary of late 20th American, the New Testament appearing in 1993 and the full Bible coming out in 2022. I’m still surprised when I learn of folks who don’t know about it. Doing that little class was a delight, but made me even more melancholy.

And then the new Bono book came out this week; Surrendered: 40 Songs and 40 Stories and he very earnestly mentions Peterson in the acknowledgments, as I expected. Reading that simple line, I broke down in tears.

Here is a beautiful video of Eugene and Jan that is gloriously done, a lovely glimpse of their Montana home and a bit about his convictions and dreams. 

Here is the popular 22-minute video produced so wonderfully by David Taylor at Fuller Theological Seminary of Bono and Eugene (and Jan) talking about the Psalms in their Montana home. 

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In early 1982, before we opened our bookstore here, we were still in Pittsburgh and I was learning a bit about the book trade at the Family Bookstore in the Monroeville Mall. I hate to sound gossipy but the store really didn’t have that many books that interested me; it was an average pop Christian bookstore in the hey-day of evangelical goofiness. A new title came in from somebody named Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society, and the allusive title itself captured me. I soon learned it was a line from Nietzsche, and I was hooked. Who was this guy, a Presbyterian from northern Maryland, not far from York, were we were soon moving? He wrote almost like the poet/activist Dan Berrigan, whose work I was immersed in, and he had a great awareness of so very much about the Bible — in the case of Long Obedience, the Psalms of Ascent. By 1982 we had opened our store and IVP released Travelling Light, Eugene’s study of Galatians which was quickly followed by Run with the Horses, on Jeremiah. He always loved the prophet with a burning in his bones, but you can read in Collier’s Burning… what inspired Peterson to write that one and why it is dedicated to “the son of a priest.” These books were lively but astute, culturally aware without being primarily about social issues. He was gritty but not heavy handed and held the laity of his church in high esteem, knowing that the gospel must be lived out in ordinary, daily sorts of circumstances and context. Who has this guy, indeed?

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Here is a guide to most of Peterson’s many books. This list is a bit idiosyncratic, with my own quick annotations, not in chronological order. I hope it is a useful “reader’s guide” helping you work through his many pages, even though I’ll skip some of the devotionals and compilations and a few that are out of print. He is, doubtlessly, one of my all time favorite authors. 

POPULAR LEVEL BOOKS

The Invitation: A Simple Guide to the Bible (NavPress) $12.99  This is a small one that I adore, compact sized, paperback. They took the vivid and very insightful introductions to each book of the Bible that appear in many editions of The Message and put them together as a Bible handbook or interesting introduction. It captures Peterson’s take on things very well and is a real keeper for fans and an easy-to-read starter for nearly anyone. It’s a good introduction to Peterson’s writing and to his solid understanding of the unfolding drama of the history of the Scriptures. One of my favorite small overview’s of the Bible, a great gift for young or old.

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society  (IVP)  $18.00   I don’t know sales histories or that sort of official stuff, but I suspect this is by far Peterson’s best seller and certainly the volume that is most beloved. It is not a commentary, as such, but reflections on the Psalms sung on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, inviting us to this “long obedience.” You see his critique of society (and its easy-answers, self-help truisms, and technical fixes) and of cheap faith. Wow. I’m glad IVP entered this into their ”Signature Classics” collection.

This recent edition has the moving eulogy written by son Leif, delivered at Eugene’s funeral. Obviously, you should own this.

There is a good study guide that can be purchased as well ($12.00) that is good for individual use and certainly for any group using this in a Bible study or book club.

Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life At Its Best (IVP) $18.00  I’ve long been drawn to “the weeping prophet” and this study of Jeremiah was very important for me, learning to engage the Biblical text and apply it with insight to today’s milieu. I’ve never loved the subtitle, but the book is profound, radical, and very well written. Like Long Obedience, it isn’t a full-on commentary, but offers thoughtful reflections on key passages. This edition includes a second preface that was in the anniversary edition and the commemorative sermon his son Eric preached at his funeral. The books is dedicated to Eric, “also the son of a priest.”  Very highly recommended.

 

Where Your Treasure Is: Psalms That Summon You From Self to Community (Eerdmans) $19.99 This was first published by IVP as Earth and Altar which was a line from a poem by Chesterton. It is a great companion, I’d say, to Long Obedience, offering extraordinary insights into the more public psalms. His phraseology of “the un-selfing of America” was timely and prescient, even if a tad clunky. He was convinced that reading and praying these Psalms would have an effect on us, un-self us, undoing our rugged individualism. I think this is his most under-appreciated book, a true must-read. I’m glad Eerdmans picked it up and re-issued it with the second title.

In any case, it is an excellent book, very highly recommended, espeically if you liked his Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Traveling Light: Modern Meditations on St. Paul’s Letter of Freedom (Helmers & Howard) $17.95  I am not sure why this study of Galatians didn’t sell so well at first — I think it may have been the cover sporting a colorful hot air ballon. After IVP let it go out of print in the late 80s, it got a new cover— a Marc Chagall painting that I’ve never cared for much — but does give it more gravitas. An old college thought it was nothing short of brilliant and was the most transformative book he ever read. I think some of this may date back to that Bible study group from which Peterson first started The Message, doing what he could to help his Bel Air congregants get excited about this revolutionary stuff. It’s a very strong book, about true freedom.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God (Waterbrook) $16.99  This is the only collection of old sermons that Eugene himself helped edit before he died. He also wrote an extraordinary introduction to this big collection, which itself is wise and makes for great reading. I’ve read just that part more than once and you will do, I’m sure.

Old messages culled and published before his death, As Kingfishers Catch Fire shows a remarkable consistency and common-place brilliance as he preached, year in and year out, at the PC(USA) church in Bel Air, MD. Very nice to work through or dip into from time to time. 400 pages.

Subversive Spirituality (Eerdmans) $27.50 This ought not be so pricey but it is nonetheless worth every dollar — it is a gathering of talks, studies, interviews, essays, poems — a real miscellany anthology. There are some legendary pieces in here, excellent stuff you shouldn’t miss. These diverse pieces were mostly published in journals (some academic, like Theology Today or The Princeton Journal or several on homiletics, for instance) and magazines (from Eternity, Leadership, Crux, and Christianity Today.) Taken together they are a goldmine of good stuff.

There are several pieces on literature and writing that will thrill most BookNotes fans. I often cite his “Novelists, Pastors and Poets” and “Pastors and Novels” which are worth the price of the book and make a great case on why reading widely matters for the Christian life, especially for pastors, preachers, and leaders.  

Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life (NavPress) $9.99 This may be Peterson’s shortest book and it is a gem. I once created a four week after-Easter Sunday school class from it.

The newer, paperback edition has a great forward by his Presbyterian pastor son, Eric, written after Eugene’s death. The three chapters about the post-resurrection accounts in the gospels are called “Resurrection Wonder”, “Resurrection Meals”, and “Resurrection Friends.”

Small, but so good and easy to read. Don’t miss it.

The Wisdom of Each Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends (Zondervan) $10.99 Again, this is very short and maybe overlooked. It was part of a fabulous set of “Growing Deeper” books by other like-minded writer friends — Walter Wangerin, Luci Shaw, Philip Yancey, Calvin Miller — and this one was a creative experiment, written as a set of letters.

Peterson says his conversation partner, one Gunnar Thorkildsson of Moorhead, MN, is made up but, yet, he also says it is all true. Apparently, this includes verbatim letters he has sent offering spiritual friendship to others over the years. Just about 100 pages, this is one to savor.

Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (HarperOne) $15.99 In the late 1990s, while at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Peterson did a number of books that, while technically not commentaries, were, perhaps, a bit deeper than his classics like Long Obedience and Run with the Horses. This one is on the life of David, working on texts from Samuel. It is truly a stand-out volume, capturing his quintessential “earthy spirituality.” Leap… is among the very best books on David I’ve read, and his talking about growing up in his father’s butcher shop is precious and revelatory. It was reviewed in the Washington Post and called an “epic everyman analysis.”

Answering God: The Psalms As Tools for Prayer (HarperOne) $16.99  Also published by Harper during his Regent College years, this is one of the great resources we have for understanding the Psalms as a book of prayer. We see his a great confluence of his interest in the Bible, in ancient liturgy, and in prayerful sorts of spiritual formation. It’s not too difficult, but one to read carefully. I think it may be especially helpful for those whose prayer life is unconvincing and unsatisfying. He certainly addresses the causes of dissatisfaction, for some, at least, and offers the Psalms as a way into a more faithful sort of prayer experience.

 

Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination (HarperOne) $16.99  I have read somewhere that this was, in his estimation, the book he worked hardest on; the laborious research and writing taking a toll. He suggests that John was a poet and he cites his fair share of literary figures to open us to the mystical truths here. He loved the Apocalypse of St. John (and after his death, Waterbrook published an old set of sermons from Bel Air on Revelation, a stunning project, called This Hallelujah Banquet: How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be, showing that Reversed Thunder had been peculating a very long time.)

This Hallelujah Banquet (Waterbrook; $18.00) being a set of sermons, is an easier read, of course, and perhaps more inspiring, but Reversed Thunder, remains an allusive, if important, resource for anyone reading and praying this mysterious last book of the Bible.

On Living Well: Brief Reflections on Wisdom for Walking in the Way of Jesus (Waterbrook) $20.00  I am sure I am not alone in worrying if Eugene would have wanted his older work to be released by publishers these days, maybe giving the impression they are capitalizing on his fame.

I trust his family, his sons and daughter, who I am sure have the right cares and commitments in thinking about all this. I am confident they approved of this posthumous project and those involved are sure this is all good. And, ya know what? They are right — this is really good, honoring him and showing the world what the dear folks at Christ Our King in Bel Air read back in the early days.

This is a collection of shorter pieces drawn from his sometimes witty, sometimes clever, church newsletter back at Christ our King Presbyterian. Many pastors have a column or regular piece in a church newsletter but not all are worthy of publishing as this surely is. I’m glad for On Living Well, dated as it may be. Here’s what a few good folks say about it:

Eugene insisted that the crux of Christian spirituality was to get all these God-truths lived, to get them moving into the street. God’s wisdom, Eugene knew, is always relational, always drawing us into the questions, complications, dangers, and joys of genuine life pursued before God and alongside one another. This is why the context of much that we read here — pastoral words written to Eugene’s small congregation — matters so much. These pages are not pious abstractions but personal words to friends, inviting all of us to embrace God’s enchanting invitation to truly live.                — Winn Collier, Director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination and author of  A Burning in My Bones and Love Big, Be Well.

Among the many gifts of human language, the greatest is the use of words for the worship of God, who is the Word. On these pages, over and over, Peterson’s words raise our sense of God’s sheer worthiness out of the clutter of confusion and complication… On Living Well should be greatly treasured. These words are pure acts of worship that will bring the reader into beautiful worship of the source of all beauty. — Karen Swallow Prior, research professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of On Reading Well

We don’t hear the word sage much anymore because there are so few sages these days. But Eugene Peterson was one of deep wisdom. In an age awash in banal how-to books, On Living Well is something else entirely — something we need. On Living Well is a series of meditations on what constitutes the good life, written by a man who indeed knew how to live well. This book brims with the wisdom our day needs.          — Brian Zahnd, pastor of Word of Life Church and author of When Everything’s on Fire

Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager (Eerdmans) $16.99  Initially released as his first book in 1976 and entitled Growing Up in Christ: A Guide for Families with Adolescents (John Knox Press) this was then re-issued by Revell and called Growing Up in Christ: A Guide for Families with Adolescents. I think it is fair to say it was “critical acclaimed” but not popular and was finally reissued with this more allusive, Biblical title by Eerdmans in the mid-90s once he had become better known. This is not the most well-known book of Peterson’s but while may be a bit dated, it brings a certain sort of vision and insight and tone to the sacred task of parenting. Nothing quite like it in his oeuvre and nothing quite like it on the market. I’m glad it’s still in print, so many years later. 

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LITERARY WORKS

The Pastor: A Memoir (HarperOne) $17.99  Eugene didn’t want to write this, at first, but was sort of talked into it, and he came to enjoy the writing and was glad to tell the story. From his “sacred” mountain home of Montana, and rough-cut upbringing there to his introduction to the broader world of ecumenical scholarship and his eventual call to ministry, this shares it all with eloquence and without didactic sermonizing. He makes much of the phrase “every step an arrival” as he, looking over his shoulder, sees God’s hand guiding the unfolding of his unpretentious life.

Some think it is a must-read, moving and eloquent. I have to admit I liked Collier’s authorized biography, A Burning in My Bones better, but, still, this is from the pastor himself. It’s quite a story, well told!

Holy Luck (Eerdmans) $15.50 Peterson wrote poetry often, and read it widely. He was delighted when we asked him — standing in the parking lot of a Presbytery meeting at First Presbyterian in York, actually — to do a poetry reading at our store. It never happened, so we were especially glad when a bunch of his work got published in a trim sized, handsome paperback. Very nice.

The publisher shares this helpful overview:

Holy Luck presents, in one luminous volume, seventy poems by Peterson, most of them not previously published. Speaking to various aspects of “Kingdom of God” living, these poems are arranged in three sets:

Holy Luck — poems arising out of the Beatitudes
The Rustling Grass — poems opening up invisible Kingdom realities through particular created things
Smooth Stones — occasional poems about discovering significance in every detail encountered while following Jesus

Take and Read: Spiritual Reading, An Annotated List (Eerdmans) $16.50  I wasn’t sure where to list this but for many, it is a cherished volume that has led them wisely into the depths of great Christian literature. It is a whole college class in one inexpensive volume!

I found some small parts of it a bit off-putting, but that’s me, more inclined to easier-to-read modern writers than, say, Alexander Whyte or P. T. Forsyth, who he loves. For anyone that wants a mature guide to the deepest, best books — from ancient mystics Gregory of Nyssa to Theresa of Avila, from fiction by Walker Percy to the grand three-volume novel Kristen Lavransdatter or Buechner’s Godric, memoirs from Dakota to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, theology from von Balthasar to von Rad, this is remarkable stuff and his annotations are exceptionally informative and really interesting. Read the actual books or not, reading his appreciation for them is priceless. I think this is a book that will be very valuable for discerning readers.

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SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY

This five-fold set which is considered to be his magnum opus, can be read in any order although there is a bit of a flow to them, so it makes sense to read them in order, although one surely doesn’t have to. This is his most mature and serious work but designed for thoughtful readers of all sorts, not only those with a bent towards theology and the like. Mature and rich as it is, it actually isn’t technical or academic. Take your time — this is a life-time of good reading.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Eerdmans) $18.99  Published in 2005 this is the first in the series which is his magnum opus, his magisterial, extraordinary, beautifully written and highly regarded set of what they called “spiritual theology.” I’m not sure he liked the phrase but this is the first and complex of this series. I think it may be the most significant book he has done. It is also his biggest at 380 pages.

The title comes from the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem and the book is arranged in three major units, “Christ Plays in Creation” and “Christ Plays in History” and “Christ Plays in Community.” In each section there is a bit of a template of four things he does to show how God shows up in these four arenas. The orderly flow and rhythm makes it helpful and how he does what he does is half the fun. Highly recommended. 

Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Eerdmans) $18.99  This, the second in the series that has been called “monumental” is the shortest and (among those we know, at least) the most popular. It is on the role of the Bible, even a bit about translation and hermeneutics, and then offers great guidance on lectio divina and how to read deeply. Eat This Book — a phrase uttered by two prophets in the Bible, by the way — is one of the best books on this topic, lovely, thoughtful, interesting and helpful. A fabulous little ending appendix has his annotated description of other authors on this topic. He loved the Word and it is beneficial to keep company with a thoughtful pastor guiding us in this elemental Christian practice. Do it!

The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way (Eerdmans) $18.99  Here is how the publisher describes what Peterson is up to in this marvelous book on discipleship, exploring what it means to follow Jesus, doing His work in His way. They say: 

Arguing that the way Jesus leads and the way we follow are symbiotic, Peterson begins with a study of how the ways of those who came before Christ revealed and prepared the way of the Lord that became complete in Jesus. He then challenges the ways of the contemporary American church, showing in stark relief how what we have chosen to focus on — consumerism, celebrity, charisma, and so forth —obliterates what is unique in the Jesus way.

Wow. This is hard-hitting. And pretty obviously just what we need, now more than ever. In a way, this is the most revealing book about Peterson’s approach to a non-sensational, no-glitz, down-to-Earth faith that does the right stuff in the right way. Whew.

Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers (Eerdmans) $18.99  Don’t you love the often-cited line from the Emily Dickinson poem (that ends with the truth dazzling us gradually)? This Peterson work is so good, a natural follow-up from The Jesus Way. If we are to be shaped in the ways and way of Jesus, then, naturally, we must immerse ourselves in His teachings. Much of his teaching was told “slant” — in parables, stories, and, naturally, his routines of prayer. 

Tell It Slant is a good overview of the parables and a good glimpse into the style of teaching Jesus used. More foundationally, it is about how Jesus used language, how “slant” language is indirect and oblique, “requiring a participatory imagination.” It points readers “to Jesus’ engaging, relational way of speaking as a model for us today.” 

One appreciative Gospel Coalition reviewer of Peterson’s memoir (The Pastor) liked the book but worried that he didn’t explain his doctrine, that there wasn’t enough dogma, that he shared his life story without didactic theology. Maybe this book explains why that is. Peterson reads theology and is immersed in the Scriptures and it has shaped his worldview, his imagination, but he, like his Master, often told it slant. He lived his life naturally, without cant. I think understanding that about him is important and this book helps us appreciate his use of language.

Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Eerdmans) $18.99  This is the fifth volume in this groundbreaking set of “spiritual conversations” around foundational, lived, relational theology, looking at growth, maturity, wisdom — as the subtitle puts it, “growing up in Christ.” Attentive readers will guess that some of it is drawn from the book of Ephesians and it invites us to that wondrous phrase, practicing resurrection. What a wonderful, meaty, thoughtful, and captivating vision, what has been called a tour de force and a beautiful, culmination to this magnificent series. 

I’ll let his friend Marva Dawn explain its importance:

This is the perfect culmination to Eugene Peterson’s fivefold Conversations in Spiritual Theology. How much the church would be transfigured if we could all more fully live as one with Christ in His Resurrection! You will delight in the way Peterson takes portions of Ephesians and displays the results of ‘rocket’ verbs and other word choices, of disciplines toward maturity, and of movements ‘upward, inward, Godward.’ This is a life-transforming book for us all!”  Marva Dawn, author of A Royal Waste of Time and Truly the Community

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VOCATIONAL HOLINESS FOR PASTORS

I started off this part of the list with the lovely set of letters between Eric and Eugene since they are about pastoring. And, at the end, I listed an all-time fav, a book he co-authored with his pal and our former customer, Marva Dawn, The Unnecessary Pastor. It isn’t snobby or off putting, and I often wondered if it would have sold better with a different title. In any case, it’s wonderful, vivid, and shows his good collaboration with Marva and deserves to be in this section of our guide to Peterson’s work.

The middle four have uniform covers and comprise a quartet. I am no pastor and you may not be either, but I’m telling you, this is rich, wonderful, stuff, good for anyone. Read them all — you won’t regret it. And them give them to your pastor. Whether she is old or young, new at the job or a seasoned saint, Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran or non-denominational, these are perfect pastoral gifts.

Letters to a Young Pastor: Timothy Conversations Between Father and Son with Eric E. Peterson (NavPress) $19.99  This is a short and lively set of real letters Eugene and his son, Eric, then a new Presbyterian pastor, exchanged. Tender, wise, interesting. Just published in 2020, this is a lovely book, part Eugene, part Eric; he mentions some fatherly stuff, books he’s reading and lectures he’s preparing, so there is a small bit of autobiography that you’ll enjoy. But it is mostly about pastoring, replying to Eric’s very real questions.  Don’t miss the companion volume, Letters to a Young Congregation by Eric, himself, by the way. Or, for that matter, Eric’s excellent study Wade in the Water: Following the Sacred Stream of Baptism.) Letters to a Young Pastor is a very, very nice book and it is great to see Peterson in conversation with this colleague in ministry, his son.

Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (Eerdmans) $20.99  This is a seminal book, providing a sea-change for many (maybe for Peterson himself) as he describes his early efforts and process of teaching parishioners how to pray and read the Bible. His descriptions of the pastoral task, of the “angles” to work, are priceless. I could say more, but you should read it yourself. Very nicely done, a bit intense and often tender, it is highly recommended. I think it is the one in this series to start with.

 

 

 

Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (Eerdmans) $20.99  I know there are some who have said this is Rev. Peterson’s most important book, a deep and profound study of the calling of a pastor and his coining of that phrase “vocational holiness.” The image he plays with — the “unpredictable plant” — is from the end of Jonah. Ha!

He say that book is “a parable with a prayer at its center” and yields some nearly subversive views for pastoring well. Yes, in his hands it does. Wow.

 

 

The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (Eerdmans) $19.99  This is a very good read, good for anyone, and certainly vital for pastors these days. Curiously (and not often recalled) this was first out in the series of white hardbacks done by Leadership Journal. It wasn’t so much about leadership skills and didn’t fit their style or expectation and went out of print. Happily it was given a new cover and entered into what then became a trilogy of three great titles by Eerdmans in Grand Rapids. Nice.

 

 

Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (Eerdmans) $21.99  Ahh, this was one of Peterson’s early books, first published by John Knox, a Presbyterian publishing house, in the late 1970s, I think. After it went out of print in the 1980s it eventually was repackaged and released as the first in the pastoral set of “vocational holiness” books. It fits and, as the publisher insists, sets the stage for the others in the series.

Written at the height of pastoral care movements that drew on psychology and social science, this returns to the Old Testament and the Jewish roots of faith to determine what pastoral work is about. This may be his most demanding book, a very creatively written, playfully allusive but intense study of various Biblical books and their contributions to forming the character and faith of a serious pastor. I love this book, truly, but some find it a bit complex.  From five Old Testament books he draws these tasks of the called pastor:  prayer-directing, story-making, pain-sharing, nay-saying and community-building. 

The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call co-authored with Marva J. Dawn (Eerdmans) $27.00  As I noted above, this is a fabulous read, and a great study of the church — the people and the leadership and the pastoring that goes on as we gather as God’s people. Designed for pastors, I guess, I’d highly recommend it to one and all. It’s a real delight seeing Marva and Eugene in collaboration, in all their counter-cultural, even radical, glory. Marva looks to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians for instruction for churches seeking to live faithfully in today’s world. In turn, Eugene explores Romans, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus, drawing from them a gospel-informed view of pastoral identity.  Rediscovering the call, indeed. 266 pages.

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BIBLICAL STUDIES

Westminster Bible Companion: First and Second Samuel (WJK) $33.00  Not too many people know that Peterson did a major commentary on his beloved history books of 1 & 2 Samuel. It’s in the WBC series and is readable accessible, with good opening up of the narrative flow and stories of these core portions of the Old Testament drama. Nicely done.

I like this description:

The power of story as God’s word to the community of faith is never more clear than in the books of Samuel. Emotion, drama, complexity of character, and mystery fill the pages of these two biblical books. Eugene Peterson’s commentary emphasizes the resonance and interplay between these stories of kings and prophets and the social and cultural issues that concern us today.

The NRSV Life With God Bible (HarperBibles) $49.99 (burgundy leather) // with Deuterocanonical books  $44.99 (deep (brown leather)

I want to give a loud shout out to this smaller-sized, beautifully made NRSV study bible. It was dreamed up by Dallas Willard and Richard Foster with the Biblical oversight offered by Peterson and Walter Brueggemann. This doesn’t have as complex a study apparatus as most major study Bibles do, and it only comes in a compact size. But it is wonderful, having garnered praises from folks as diverse as Max Lucado and Tony Campolo, calling it thrilling and impactful and outstanding. Besides spiritually attuned study notes, 16 good maps, profiles of Biblical characters, topic indexes and such, there are challenging spiritual exercises and a developing set of fifteen essays on living the “with-God life.”  You can see Peterson’s hand in this, for sure.

The Message Devotional Bible (NavPress) $29.99 (hardcover); $39.99 (brown leather-like); $39.99 (large print hardcover)

There are just bunches and bunches of editions The Message and we carry most of them. (Take a look at the NavPress website to see the beautiful designs and various sizes and shapes and prices and send us an order or just give us a ring, please.) This one is special because it has interspersed devotional and reflective notes and study aids from Peterson. As you’d expect there is a Bible reading plan and helpful index and a topical guide (and those great introductions to each book of the Bible.) There are insights galore, meditative reflections and a “neighboring” set of comments about incarnating the gospel in our places. These notes are drawn from previously published books, but many are for previously unpublished sermons and writings. I like the balance and guidance this useful edition offers. I happen to use the large print hardback which is a bit heftier, but still quite handsome.

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Pastoral Work: Engagements with the Vision of Eugene Peterson edited by Jason Byassee and L. Roger Owens (Cascade) $24.00  How can I not mention this, a collection volume of serious engagement with Peterson’s unique style of vocational holiness and Biblical orientation. This isn’t a glowing tribute, really, although all of the many authors are true fans; most were friends. They do tell some stories, naturally, but each offers an important exploration of as aspect of Peterson’s vision and practices. I love this book and highly recommend it to one and all, even though it is designed, I suppose, mostly for church leaders.

I suppose there hasn’t been much critical engagement with Peterson’s body of work because he hasn’t mostly served in the typical academy. Pastoral Work brings together some of the finest scholar-pastors working today to describe the way “Peterson has inspired and infuriated them” on the way to (hopefully) more faithful pastorates.

Most of these authors are mainstream ecumenical names, from Stephanie Paulsell to Anthony Robbins to Will Willimon to Marty Copenhagen to Carol Howard Merritt.Most have certain leanings of a deeply Biblical sort. The chapter by Trygve David Johnson (chaplain at Hope College) is tremendous. I admire Kristen Deede Johnson — co-author of The Justice Calling — very much and her chapter is tremendous comparing and contrasting Peterson and James Davison Hunter on institutions. Don’t miss Tim Condor’s somewhat edgy piece “Twenty-five years of Working the Angles.” I really enjoyed the vibrant Lilian Daniel’s chapter, “Eugene Peterson Saved My Ministry, and Ten Ways He Can Save Yours Too, with Jesus’s Help (Not).” Prince Raney Rivers brings a black megachurch pastor’s voice into the mix showing just how wide Peterson’s influence was. What a book.

A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene Peterson Winn Collier (Waterbrook) $20.00 (paperback) $28.00 (hardback, while supplies last.) OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE =  $16.00 (paperback) and 22.40 (hardback, while supplies last.)

I’ve said it before and I need to say it again — this is one of the great books of our time, a lovely, gorgeously- written, insightful, entertaining and officially authorized biography. Winn — who understands Peterson deeply and is a sympathetic writer — is honest, too, not offering cheap applause let alone hagiography (which Peterson wouldn’t have wanted.) He had the complete blessing of the Peterson family, had access to the crawl space below the Flathead Lake house where bunches of boxes of bunches of papers were kept — diaries, copies of letters, even records of conversations with his Dallastown bookseller. Nobody could have picked a better writer for this major project and it was a huge labor of love. We have a few hardbacks left and plenty of the paperbacks. Get some as Christmas gifts, why don’t you. It’s a super book, highly recommend by both Beth and me. And lots of more famous folks, too. You can’t go wrong.

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