Who We Are

Here's a chance to understand just a tiny bit more of my current thinking by seeing what I'm reading! Please feel free to share with your thoughts on any of the books, magazines, or articles that you've read!

[For a list of my regular magazines and journals, scroll down this page, or click HERE!]

From the publisher's Website: Craig Groeschel, founder of LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK), witnessed a powerful presence from God that he calls It at work in many churches. What is this transformational force? How can you and your ministry get—and keep—It? Combining in-your-face honesty with off-the-wall humor, this lively book tells how any believer can obtain It.

Description:
When Craig Groeschel founded LifeChurch.tv, the congregation met in a borrowed two-car garage, with ratty furnishings and faulty audiovisual equipment. But people were drawn there, sensing a powerful, life-changing force Groeschel calls “It.”

What is It, and how can you and your ministry get—and keep—It? Combining in-your-face honesty with off-the-wall humor, this book tells how any believer can obtain It, get It back, and guard It.

One of today’s most innovative church leaders, Groeschel provides profile interviews with Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Tim Stevens, Mark Batterson, Jud Wilhite, and Dino Rizzo.

This lively book will challenge churches and their leaders to maintain the spiritual balance that results in experiencing It in their lives.

"In this new volume in the popular For Today series, Ron Allen provides an exciting introduction to the life of Jesus and an engaging discussion of what Jesus' life means for modern-day believers. Setting Jesus in his ancient context, Allen examines many stories about Jesus' life and shows how these different stories relate to one another to express the core of Jesus' message--a message that, as Allen helpfully shows, is of central importance for believers today.

The For Today series was designed to provide reliable and accessible resources for the study and real life application of important biblical texts, theological documents, and Christian practices. The emphasis of the series is not only on the realization and appreciation of what these subjects have meant in the past, but also on their value in the present--"for today." Thought-provoking questions are included at the end of each chapter, making the books ideal for personal study and group use."

On a personal note: Dr. Allen was the Bible Lecturer for the 2010 Adult Conference and was magnificent! This is a great book for folks who have not been to seminary, but who really want to get into some of the current scholarship and thinking about how the scriptures see Jesus and his message. ~ Pastor Allen

The Power Of Stories: A Guide For Leading Multi-Racial And Multicultural Congregations by Jacqueline J. Lewis

Most congregational leaders find it difficult to resist the dominant cultural expectation that different cultural and ethnic groups should

stick to themselves–especially when it comes to church. But some congregational leaders have learned the secrets of breaking out of these expectations to bring together communities of faith that model God’s radical inclusiveness. What makes the difference?

Jacqui Lewis explains that it resides in the stories these leaders tell: stories about who they themselves are, and what the communities they lead are about. These leaders are able to embrace the multiple, complex stories within these diverse communities, hearing in the many voices a particular echo of the living voice of the gospel. In this book Lewis shares with the reader examples of congregational leaders who have successfully overcome the challenges of leading multicultural congregations, and the lessons that can be learned from them.

Jacqueline J. Lewis is Senior Minister for Vision, Worship, and the Arts at Middle Collegiate Church in New York.

Today's pastors often expected to be multitasking marvels who can make their churches "successful" are understandably confused about their role. Craig Barnes contends that the true calling of a pastor is to assist others in becoming fully alive in Christ to be a "minor poet." The pastor absorbs the wisdom of major poets the biblical poets as well as the churchs theological poets and distills its essence for parishioners. / The Pastor as Minor Poet calls pastors to continually search for a deeper, truer understanding of what they see both in the text of Scripture and in the text of their parishioners' lives. Discerning the subtexts beneath these texts reveals the core truths that allow pastors to preach the heart of the Word and to understand the hearts of the people to whom they minister. Written with a seasoned pastors depth of understanding and a poet's sensibility and sensitivity, this book will minister to and inspire pastors everywhere.

Pastor Allen's Review: Clearly this will become, if it already hasn't, a standard textbook for the discussion of class in America. Framing the discussion in her own story, which grounds the book and gives it a rich authenticity, hooks looks at the multifaceted issue of class from various perspectives: race (from both African-American and White perspectives), gender, white poverty, age and the youth culture, real estate, etc. This was *very* helpful.

In then end, I was most taken with hooks indictment of "predatory capitalism" and the willing (even audacious) involvement of the mass media in convincing people of all races, classes, ages, etc. that the ultimate goal is to own as much stuff as possible, and that stuff has to be bigger and more extravagant than anyone else's stuff. Without dealing with historic injustices, this uber-selfish craving for consumption not only maintains, but solidifies those injustices, albeit with minute differences.

I've posted a few quotations from the book on my facebook page. I strongly urge you to read this book. It has become part of my "toolbox" for life.

Fourth Revised Edition. People in poverty face challenges virtually unknown to those in middle class or wealth--challenges from both obvious and hidden sources. The reality of being poor brings out a survival mentality, and turns attention away from opportunities taken for granted by everyone else. If you work with people from poverty, some understanding of how different their world is from yours will be invaluable. Whether you're an educator--or a social, health, or legal services professional--this breakthrough book gives you practical, real-world support and guidance to improve your effectiveness in working with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Since 1995 A Framework for Understanding Poverty has guided hundreds of thousands of educators and other professionals through the pitfalls and barriers faced by all classes, especially the poor. Carefully researched and packed with charts, tables, and questionaires, Framework not only documents the facts of poverty, it provides practical yet compassionate strategies for addressing its impact on people's lives.

From the Random House website:

ABOUT THIS BOOK

A powerful tragedy distilled into a jewel of a masterpiece by the Nobel Prize–winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier.

In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root.

Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, “with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady.” Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master’s house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.

There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who’s spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens’ mother. These are all men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness.

A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and of a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

Acts of mercy may have unforeseen consequences

To learn more about this book, or to order it, go to: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307264237

* Thanks to the Christian Education Team for the gift card with which I purchase this book!

Drawing on their research involving urban pastors from across the United States, Bryan Stone and Claire Wolfteich identify and examine spiritual practices that foster excellence in urban ministry. After discussing the specific challenges facing urban pastors and presenting the kinds of excellence required of them, Stone and Wolfteich explore several practices that help sustain ministers working in urban contexts, such as cultivating holy friendships, practicing Sabbath, maintaining lives of prayer and study, and setting appropriate boundaries. Throughout, the authors weave together stories from urban pastors from a variety of denominations with insights from the history of Christian spirituality and theology to chart a theological course for the formation and renewal of pastors in diverse contemporary contexts.

Bryan P. Stone is E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Boston University and cofounder and director of the Center for Practical Theology. He is the author of several books, including Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness.

Claire E. Wolfteich is Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Spiritual Formation at Boston University. She is the author of several books, including Lord, Have Mercy: Praying for Justice with Conviction and Humility.

PBS's Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, which Bob Abernethy conceived and anchors, has been described as "the best spot on the television landscape to take in the broad view of the spiritual dimension of American life . . ." by the Christian Science Monitor. “Finally,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, “something intelligent on TV about religion.” Now, together with his coauthor William Bole, Abernethy has turned his attention to making a book that asks all the big questions—and elicits the most surprising answers from a who’s-who of today’s serious religious and spiritual thinkers from across the spectrum of faiths and denominations.

In this thoughtful collection, extraordinary people give their personal and private accounts of their own spiritual struggle. Their insights on community, prayer, suffering, religious observance, the choice to live with or without a god, and the meanings that are gleaned from everyday life form an elegant meditation on the desire for something beyond what we can see and measure.

More than fifty contributors, including Jimmy Carter, Francis Collins, The Dalai Lama, Robert Franklin, Irving Greenberg, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Harold Kushner, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, Thomas Lynch, Martin Marty, Mark Noll, Rachel Remen, Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Brown Taylor, Studs Terkel, Thich Nhat Hanh, Phyllis Tickle, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, and Marianne Williamson.

Synopsis (from www.Powells.com):
The sharp, funny, and heartfelt follow-up to her bestselling Plan B, Anne Lamott's newest collection is a personal exploration of the faith and grace all around us.

In Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, Lamott examines the ways we're caught in life's most daunting predicaments: love, mothering, work, politics, and maybe toughest of all, evolving from who we are to who we were meant to be. This is a complicated process for most of us, and Lamott turns her wit and honesty inward to describe her own intimate, bumpy, and unconventional road to grace and faith.

"I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things," she writes in one of her essays, "that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark."

Whether she's writing about her unsuccessful efforts to get her money back from an obstinate carpet salesman, grappling with the tectonic shifts in her relationship with her son as he matures, trying to maintain her faith and humor during politically challenging times, or helping a close friend die with dignity, Lamott seeks out both the divinity and the humanity in herself and everything around her. Throughout these essays, she writes of her struggle to find the essence of her faith, which she uncovers in the unlikeliest places. By turns insightful and hilarious, pointed and poignant, Grace (Eventually) is Anne Lamott at her perceptive and irreverent best.

About the Author
The bestselling author of Plan B, Traveling Mercies, and Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott is a past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is a former columnist for Salon magazine and lives near San Francisco.

Publisher Comments:
This is a thoughtful collection of prayers that emerged from Brueggemann's thirty-five years of teaching in seminaries. Full of reflection, hope, and dialogue, they reveal another side of this gifted author from what his many readers are accustomed to.

Synopsis:
This thoughtful collection of prayers emerged from Brueggemann's thirty-five years of teaching in seminaries. Full of reflection, faith, and dialogue, they reveal another side of this gifted author from what his many readers are accustomed to. These deeply felt and sparklingly articulated prayers reflect a wide range of life experiences. As readers, we are taken from the depths of pain and loss to the heights of joy and praise. The author takes on life in its fullest as he utters his praise and lament, petition and thanksgiving. Brueggemann's prayers lead us to deeper commitment, deeper faith, and deeper reflection.
The volume also includes an index of biblical allusions that will be useful for preachers as well as the general reader looking for the biblical roots of these fears, hopes, struggles, and aspirations.

[Note: Other books used in my devotional time each morning are noted by the subtle "DEVOTIONS:" in front of the description. AVH]

Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

What a quirky, delightful, terribly irreverent, and completely provocative book! I will never look at Jesus' life in the same way. I highly recommend it, but not to the fainthearted or biblical literalists (not that they would take my recommendation anyway.) But I would encourage anyone who wants to know Jesus more fully and personally to read this book. Biff is my newest, bestest hero!

Quite seriously, the author's take on what influences may have been brought from Jesus' life history, and on the events that are recorded in the biblical narrative, have deepened my faith. I read some of the familiar stories of the New Testament with fresh eyes (not to mention a wry smile on my lips.) Bravo to Moore! ~AVH

Everyone knows about the immaculate conception and the crucifixion. But what happened to Jesus between the manger and the Sermon on the Mount? In this hilarious and bold new novel, the acclaimed author Moore shares the greatest story never told: the life of Christ as seen by his boyhood pal, Biff.

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years -- except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work "reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams" ("Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more -- except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala -- and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

Take This Bread: The Spiritual Memoir Of A Twenty-First Century Christian by Sara Miles

This is a great book for those who want to be inspired toward making real their faith and who believe in practical Christianity at its best. I love the fact that the author doesn't feel the need to "prettify" her language or couch her feelings about either her mystical experience with Christ nor her frustrations with the organizational side of the church. She has come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread, and by God she's going to help others experience the sacred through bread... and carrots, and ground beef, and milk... if it kills her. And it almost does!

I was so inspired by this book that I scheduled a visit and tour of the Cleveland Food Bank and several "Circle Service Spots" for church members to get "down and dirty" and serve God's people! We've taken an evening at the Catholic Worker Storefront, are scheduled to stay overnight at with families in the Interfaith Hospitality Network, and who knows what else.

I think that all-too-often we get so content serving other Christians inside our beautiful church buildings that we forget that Christ had nothing to do with such service! Miles brings the beautiful but battered folks of the neighborhood into their precious sacred space and allows Holy Communion to be what it was meant to be -- hope for the world! ~AVH

Early one morning, for no earthly reason, Sara Miles, raised an atheist, wandered into a church, received communion, and found herself transformed–embracing a faith she’d once scorned. A lesbian left-wing journalist who’d covered revolutions around the world, Miles didn’t discover a religion that was about angels or good behavior or piety; her faith centered on real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. Within a few years, she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen food pantries in the poorest parts of their city.

Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.

“The most amazing book.”
–Anne Lamott

“Engaging, funny, and highly entertaining . . . Miles comments, often with great insight, on the ugliness that many people associate with a particular brand of Christianity. Why would any thinking person become a Christian? is one of the questions she addresses, and her answer is also compelling reading.”
–Booklist

“Powerful . . . This book is a gem [and] will remain with you forever.”
–The Decatur Daily

“What Miles learns about faith, about herself and about the gift of giving and receiving graciously are wonderful gifts for the reader.”
–National Public Radio

“[A] joyful memoir . . . advocates big-tent Christianity in the truest sense . . . a story of finding sustenance and passing it on.”
–National Catholic Reporter

“Rigorously honest, Take This Bread demonstrates how hard–and how necessary–it is to welcome everyone to the table, without exception.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“Moving, delightful and significant.”
–The Christian Century

Don’t miss the reading group guide in the back of the book.

About the Author
Sara Miles is the author of How to Hack a Party Line: The Democrats and Silicon Valley and co-editor of Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan and the anthology Opposite Sex: Gay Men on Lesbians, Lesbians on Gay Men. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Progressive, La Jornada, and Salon, among others. She has written extensively on military affairs, politics, and culture. She lives in San Francisco with her family. Visit the her website at www.saramiles.net .

Novembe

r 16, 1997
Sleight of Hand

In Ann Patchett's new novel, magic includes unexpected love and redemption.
Read the First Chapter

By SUZANNE BERNE

Parsifal is dead,'' reads the startling opening of ''The Magician's Assistant,'' Ann Patchett's third novel. ''That is the end of the story.'' Since more than 350 pages follow, the reader has been fairly warned to expect surprises and a few contradictions. And sure enough, they begin appearing like doves from silk scarves. Instead of a medieval knight, Parsifal turns out to be a gay magician, the owner of a rug store in Los Angeles who has AIDS and who has just died of a ruptured aneurysm while holding hands with his assistant, Sabine, whom he recently married. ''I love you,'' Parsifal had said. ''I want you to be my widow.''
A contradiction in herself, the beautiful Sabine has rejected many admirers to devote her entire adult life to loving Parsifal, assisting his magic act and finally helping him tend his dying Vietnamese lover, Phan. Now middle-aged and alone in Phan's enormous house in Los Angeles with only a rabbit for company, she slides into a dangerous, somnolent despair, mourning the loss of a man she never had -- which means there is no need ever to quit mourning him. Like Sleeping Beauty, she has fallen under a spell that seems impossible to break.

This curiously fraught situation becomes more so once it is revealed that Parsifal had a secret history. The tragic, privileged background in Connecticut he had described to Sabine was all smoke and mirrors; it turns out he grew up as Guy Fetters in Alliance, Neb., where his mother and two sisters still live, though he hadn't seen them for decades. When the frumpy Dot Fetters and her daughter Bertie show up in Los Angeles to meet Guy's wife and see his grave -- right next to Phan's -- what began as a complicated story becomes almost baroque. The Fetterses prove to be tolerant, caring folks. Alarmed by her unhappiness, they invite Sabine to visit them in tiny Alliance, and she surprises herself by going, hoping for some sort of connection with the Parsifal she has just discovered. ''When Parsifal died she lost the rest of his life, but now she had stumbled on 18 years. Eighteen untouched years that she could have; early, forgotten volumes of her favorite work. A childhood that could be mined month by month. Parsifal would not get older, but what about younger?''

The difficulty with this unusual romance is that it is never clear why Sabine loves Parsifal so obsessively. He was generous and good-hearted, but so are his mother and sisters and nearly everyone else she encounters, including Phan, who regularly visits Sabine's dreams to report on the afterlife and advise her on her quest. We are reminded several times that Parsifal was a magician, and ''without magicians, the assistants were lost,'' but that answer isn't satisfying either, even for a novel that insists on becoming a fairy tale. Sabine remains an enigma, a woman entranced by her own enchantment. Which explains why she never generates enough sympathy to make her predicament truly absorbing.

Yet the kindliness of ''The Magician's Assistant'' is beguiling, and Patchett is an adroit, graceful writer who knows enough tricks to keep her story entertaining. She is especially practiced at the razzle-dazzle of odd juxtapositions. As Sabine notes: ''People long to be amazed, even as they fight it. Once you amaze them, you own them.'' Few readers will be amazed that Sabine's search for Parsifal in Nebraska leads her to find love unexpectedly or that by posthumously reuniting Parsifal with his mother and sisters, she helps unchain them from a painful past. But it is still gratifying to watch Patchett pull each rabbit out of the hat.

The real appeal of ''The Magician's Assistant'' lies in the small, accumulating ways in which Sabine and the Fetters family assist one another out of isolation and sorrow. By the end, they have all been somewhat transformed -- yes, by the magic of love. If it is hard not to squint at some of the flashy paradoxes Patchett uses to construct her narrative, then perhaps a struggle with credulity is precisely what she wants to encourage. Improbable relationships can flourish; strange havens do exist. Becoming accustomed to sad endings may be more naive than believing, now and then, in happily ever after.

Suzanne Berne is the author of a novel, ''A Crime in the Neighborhood.''

From the Back Cover:
A God you can know Is God a wrathful judge? A gentle healer? A father? Brother? Friend? In The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, Brennan Manning brings you to a deeper understanding of the true nature of God. Through poignant and unforgettable stories and challenging observations, Manning helps you stretch your mind and reject simplistic explanations of who God really is.

With rich insights you'll see how God can at once be a roaring lion, pacing the globe and seeking you out; and simultaneously a tender lamb, there to comfort you in any time of need. A unique experience, this book will forever change the way you think about God. "As I read these honest, grace-saturated, humbly iconoclastic, distinctly un-sugarcoated but still somehow gentle words, I could taste familiar water, living water that only people who are thirsty for life can enjoy. Read it--and hope again!" --from the foreword by Larry Crabb.

Brennan Manning is a former Franciscan priest and author of a dozen books including the best-selling The Ragamuffin Gospel. He has lived a faithful life of service to others and to God and shares his intellect and love through the words found in this book.

About the Author
Brennan Manning is a best-selling author and spends more than half his time on the road in a ministry of evangelism, directing weeks of parish renewal, retreats and missions. Ordained a Franciscan priest in 1963, he makes his home in New Orleans.

Walter Brueggemann, Author. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007.

Walter Brueggemann provocatively explores the complexity of faithful living and ministry amid contemporary forces that vie for the control of our attention and allegiance. These essays are wide ranging—probing such topics as forgiveness, welcome, hope, Sabbath-keeping, the need for theological certainty, and the use of the Bible in American Christianity. What holds them together is Brueggemann's insistence that "the church in this demanding moment of its life must recover and re-embrace its missional identity that sets it in significant tension with major political-economic-ideological developments in U.S. society." Also central is his conviction that—at its root—faith is about "openness to wonder" and "awe in glad praise." Amazon.com

“If you cringe at the boisterous, cocky new sound of religion in politics, if you worry about the divisiveness of ‘red’ and ‘blue,’ and if you are vexed that too many people claim to be speaking directly for Christ, you might think that our Christian faith is all about getting the moral issues right and leveraging others to think and act the right way, as do we. But if you think that, you are very wrong, because such contemporary loud posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety and maintaining control in the world. Our faith . . . is not about pinning down moral certitudes. It is, rather, about openness to wonder and awe in glad praise.”
—from chapter 1

In this his newest work, renowned Walter Brueggemann sets forth a new vision of the Christian church in today’s world. Based on recent speaking engagements surrounding his critical passion and conviction—that the church in this moment must set itself in tension with the rest of the world—the essays in Mandate to Difference call the church to courageously defy political polarization, consumerism, and militarism. “If this is God’s world and if the rule of love is at work,” he writes, “then our mandate is not to draw into a cocoon of safety; rather, it is to be out and alive in the world in concrete acts and policies whereby the fearful anxiety among us is dispatched and adversaries can be turned to allies and to friends.” - Cokesbury.com

To order, go to: http://www.cokesbury.com/forms/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=435917

Dr. Remen's New York Times bestselling book Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal is published in eleven languages and is presently used in the standard Introduction to Clinical Medicine course in 18 medical schools across the country. Kitchen Table Wisdom won the 1996 Wilbur Award for best work of spiritual non-fiction and the Friends of Libraries USA Readers' Choice Award for 2000.

"Rachel Naomi Remen is nature's gift to us, a genius of that elusive and crucial capacity, the human heart. She has much to teach us about healing, loving, and living." - Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of Emotional Intelligence

"This is a beautiful book about life, the only true teacher." - Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles

Pastor Allen's thoughts: I simply loved reading this book. B.D. has such an energetic and quirky approach to life. Plus, with my love of children and lost longing to be a parent myself, this book offered a glimpse into what it must be like to be a gay parent. I highly recommend it, especially for those people who have no idea about how gay men or lesbians could really be parents. ~AVH

Every now and then there comes along a literary voice so strong, so originally sincere, and so uniquely distinct that the words on the page seem to sing and to scream and to dance -- all at once and all on their own. Such is the wonderful writing debut of acclaimed actor B.D. Wong.

With a remarkable mixture of upbeat optimism, unexpected hilarity, and heart-wrenching sadness, Wong takes the reader deep inside both his psyche and the neonatal intensive care unit where he spent the better part of three months following the harrowing medical twists and turns that took place after the premature birth of his twins."Once upon a time," as Wong explains in his true story, Following Foo: (the electronic adventures of the Chestnut Man), "my partner and I found ourselves expecting, with the help of a surrogate mother, modern medical science, and lots of good luck and prayers. To add to our blessing, she was carrying twins! Things were pretty swell ... until the twins arrived almost three months early. For those of you who don't know, babies that come almost three months early are pretty little, and boy are they scary-looking. Especially when you're their dad ... "

Originally based on a series of real-time E-mails sent to keep his friends and family abreast of the daily madness and miracles of "early" parenthood, this book is a gem, a joy, and an inspiration to anyone who has ever taken a ride on the roller coaster of life and tried to keep both sense of humor and sanity intact.

Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith
by Eric Jacobsen

Description: There has been much ink spilled in the evangelical community about "claiming our cities for Christ" and plenty of lip service paid to the need to address urban concerns. But according to author and pastor Eric Jacobsen, this discussion has remained far too abstract. His Sidewalks in the Kingdom challenges Christians to gain a practical, informed vision for the city that includes a broad understanding of the needs and rewards of a vital urban community. Building on the principles of New Urbanism, Jacobsen emphasizes the need to preserve the nourishing characteristics of traditional city life, such as shared public spaces, mixed-use neighborhoods, a well-supported local economy, and aesthetic diversity and beauty.

Sidewalks in the Kingdom includes three appendices: a glossary of urban vocabulary, an annotated bibliography of related sources, and a detailed description of the principles and goals of New Urbanism. A companion website with posted discussion questions, www.sidewalksinthekingdom.com, makes it ideal for study groups. Pastors, city-dwellers, and those interested in urban ministry, politics, and development will be both encouraged and informed by Sidewalks in the Kingdom.

Author Information: Eric O. Jacobsen is adjunct professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. He previously served as associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Missoula, Montana. Jacobsen is a member of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Where Have All The Prophets Gone? Reclaiming Prophetic Preaching In America by Marvin McMickle

"Prophetic preaching in the American pulpit has suffered a decline in the last 20-25 years. Several things are to blame: an overzealous preoccupation with praise and worship; a false and narrow view of patriotism; and a focus on prosperity and personal enrichment themes.

"Where Have All the Prophets Gone? is a call for preachers to learn the importance of keeping their eyes on the vision of Jesus and biblical prophets when preaching - that of doing justice, caring for others, and being equitable. The book attempts to make a biblical argument for the importance and the content of prophetic preaching, and argues that the issue is not preaching from a text taken from the prophetic corpus but preaching on the themes that echoed over and over from the biblical prophets themselves.

"MARVIN McMICKLE is pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Ph.D. From Case Western Reserve University, his D.Min. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and his M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He is the professor of homiletics at Ashland University and the author of six books."

Book review by Jeremy Quittner

Karl Soehnlein's stunning first novel, The World of Normal Boys, reads like a cross between the film American Beauty and Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story. The book, set in 1978 suburban New Jersey, unfolds through the eyes of precocious 13-year-old Robin MacKenzie, who feels the stirrings of his nascent homosexuality while his family suffers a crisis that nearly tears them apart.

Robin's discovery is that he can't ever be normal, and his realization unfolds with a hyperclarity that scrutinizes the complex tangle of emotions--rage, love, repressed desire--that govern suburban relationships. Along the way Soehnlein skillfully excavates the 1970s, pulling up old Patti Smith lyrics, Galaxie 500 convertibles, and scoop-neck T-shirts that, say FOXY LADY. He sets these reminders against a familiar backdrop of the idiotic gym teachers, hypermasculine jocks, stoners, bimbos, and family tyrants who made life hell for gay boys everywhere.

Even if you're not a child of the '70s, The World of Normal Boys will force you to relive the most painful moments of your adolescence. In the process you'll reaffirm your decision to be who you are now.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Liberation Publications, Inc.

A Minister's Meditations
"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson takes readers inside the head of an elderly minister.

Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Reprinted with permission from Spirituality & Health on www.BeliefNet.com.

This beautifully written novel is set in 1956 when John Ames, a third-generation Congregational minister, has decided to write a long, memory-filled letter to his seven-year-old son. At seventy-six years, this reflective man has been diagnosed with angina pectoris and doesn’t have very long to live. John wants to pass on the faith that has filled his life with meaning, the love that has sprung from his second marriage to a serious young woman, and the forgiveness that has been a challenge to several generations in his family.

John Ames, the narrator of this epistolary novel, is a sensitive and intelligent country minister in Gilead, Iowa. He wants to share with his young son important bits of family history. One of his fondest memories is of a month-long journey with his father to find his grandfather's grave in Kansas. The two men did not hit it off very well: one was a violent abolitionist who was connected with John Brown and the other was a pacifist. John sees this fissure of father and son repeated in the life of his best friend, Old Boughton, Gilead's Presbyterian minister. When his son Jack returns to town, this former prankster seeks out John Ames for counsel and advice. He wants to know what the minister thinks of predestination. Suddenly, Ames finds himself assessing his negative feelings about Jack and wrestling with the meaning of forgiveness. The final meeting between the narrator and this prodigal son is capped with a deeply spiritual event that demonstrates the remarkable healing power of certain Christian rituals.

What is so wonderful about this novel is that it slows us down to the rhythms of the elderly narrator and the regularity of life in a small town. In his meditative letter, the minister touches upon the battles between fathers and sons, the meaning of friendship, the wonderful beauty in the natural world, the rituals of baptism and blessing, and the healing he has sought and found in Gilead. The time span covers the bounties of Christian faith and service during 100 years of family history. Here is a clergyman who loves hymns and has preached thousands of sermons. He reflects on his 2250 sermons stored in boxes and his respect for theologian Karl Barth. Ames has learned to respect the mysteries of life and the small pleasures of living by honing the spiritual gifts of wonder, attention, and listening.

With sober-mindedness, Ames tallies up the legacies of his pacifist father, his wild grandfather with one-eye and many visions of God, and the impact of losing his first wife and child in childbirth. He has spent much of his life listening to others, and at one point, states: "That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things."

Whether pondering the delights of baseball, appreciating the beauties of nature, or commenting on the many books he has read, Ames demonstrates how the Christian life can be awash with enchantments if one takes the time to count one's blessings and give all the praise to God, who is wrapped in one mystery after another.

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