After my big post last week listing books about food, eating, the joys of God’s creational gifts and the sorrows of a hungry world, I got a few great suggestions from customers, asking me to list a few titles about agriculture.  With Wendell Berry gaining in national prominence—I want to  be prideful a moment and say that we stocked him since the day we opened 29 years ago, a few then-recent books like The Unsettling of America and The Memory of Old Jack—that certainly is a theme many care about. (If you haven’t, see the video of Mr. Berry’s prestigious Jefferson Award speech a few days ago here, or read it, here.)  More on Berry, land use, and farming later.

Most of us, though, come to the table not as farmers or growers, but just folk who want to eat.  Sometimes we do it quickly, some of us admire the “slow food” movement.  Most of us want to be more careful about toxic stuff, realize the importance of the organic movement, and at least want to be good stewards of God’s gifts of food and nutrients.  We want to learn to cook more wisely, and eat more responsibly, even if we aren’t going to go, as the appropriate animal metaphor has it, hog-wild.

Here are three great cookbooks that we think are nearly essentials, all in what is called the “world community cookbook” series.  We’ve used the first one for decades and given find it makes a lovely shower or wedding gift.  The second is fabulous to grow a bit into greater global awareness, and the third, as you will see, couldn’t be more fitting, giving the theology and insight described in some of the books in last weeks list.  All three of these are released by the Mennonite Publishing House (Herald Press) and come in sturdy, colorful, hardback editions, with a covered comb binding.  (That is, they are spiral-bound to lay open nicely, but the wires of the spiral binding don’t show, but are covered up by the hardback cover.  Is there a name for that, anyone? Anyone?)

More-With-Less Cookbook (updated edition)  Doris Janzen Longacre (Herald Press) $24.99  This is not only a fabulous cookbook that has helped thousands of families establish a climate of joy and concern for others at mealtime, it can help you improve your nutrition and save money, too.  It outlines three ways to eat more-with-less and invites us to consider the global implications of our dietary choices.  There are sidebars with stories, pictures, prayers and verses, making this truly a distinctively Christian cookbook, solid with great recipes, and wholesome, faithful ideas scattered through-out.  We have some friends that have literally worn out several of these, as they are truly that useful—with simple, helpful stuff about complimentary proteins and ways to create meals that respect what is now called “sustainable agriculture.”  As it says on the back, these recipes are “kind to your wallet, your waistline, and the larger world.”  Three cheers for the Mennonite Central Committee and their good work bringing global concerns to the table in such a refreshing, pleasant way.  500 recipes!

Extending the Table: Recipes and Stories from Argentina to Zambia Joetta Handrich Schlabach  (Herald Press) $24.99  After the success of More-With-Less, a cry was heard demanding a sequel.  Folks so loved the enjoyable first simple-living type cookbook, and the little stories and factoids that nicely decorated it, that another soon followed.  The uniqueness of this one is that the recipes were sent in from development workers and missionaries and local folks from all over the world.  The title of this says it all—as human family, we can “extend the table” to offer hospitality to all, and to learn from other parts of the globe.  God bless the Mennonite Central Committee, again, for bringing these fabulous, easy to cook, and nicely accessible recipes from all over God’s good world.  One of the nice things about this, by the way, is they avoided recipes that include hard to find ingredients, expensive, luxury items, or things that ordinary folk in ordinary towns would find impossible to locate.  That is, this is a nice, usable, day-to-day cookbook that offers inexpensive, joyful dishes, and a happy reminder of the needs of those in other parts of the planet, a guide to international cuisine that isn’t too demanding or extravagant.

Simply in Season (expanded edition) Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert (Herald Press) $24.99   Oh my, what a fine resource this is, a cookbook that came out a bit before everyone started lamenting the crazy environmental impact of importing tasteless strawberries or cardboard-like veggies (etc. etc.) and calling for cooking with some sense of the limits built into God’s creation by buying more locally.  These are recipes, they say, “that celebrate fresh, local foods in the spirit of More-With-Less.”  Again, this “world community cookbook” is a beauty to behold, colorful and interesting, but not one of those fussy ones that are mostly pictures of food that are created to win design awards; this is one that is really made to be used in the kitchen. It is sturdy, handsome and inspiring, but, mostly, filled with great ideas and good recipes arranged for good eating season-by-season. Whether you are support a CSA or do backyard gardening, whether you want to be a “locovore” or not, this, as one reviewer put it, “will allow you to drift along with the current of a different stream.”  Wonderfully done.

Exodus From Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger  David Beckman (Westminster/John Knox) $15.00  Speaking of good looking covers that have an upbeat and helpful reminder about some pretty ugly stuff, this recent book by one of our heroes—Beckmann is a former World Bank guy, Lutheran clergyman, and Director of Bread for the World—is a must-have resource for anyone who cares about global justice.  We have met David on several occasions and have promoted the citizen organizing efforts of Bread for years.  We recently heard him at the Q gathering in DC where he was upbeat about the possibilities of seeing huge successes in the anti-hunger movement in our lifetime. 

Global poverty and unjust food systems and complicated things like third world debt and cash cropping and all manner of frust
rating issues on every inhabited continent make this a great, multi-faceted struggle.  With God’s help, God’s work can be done, starvation can be minimized, and the poor can be given new opportunities.  Beckmann knows as much about this as nearly anyone around, and he offers his sober considerations as an way to help us understand, to care, to be involved. The subtitle is important: “We Are Called to Change The Politics of Hunger” and this inspiring book tells us how.  Learn more about their citizen lobbying efforts (and what you can do!) on everything from foreign aid to the Farm Bill at Bread for the World’s excellent webpage.  Read this book, start a study club, share it with your Bible study group.  A very, very important resource, up-to-date and inspiring.  You will be a different sort of citizen once you learn what this book has to teach.  And with the above mentioned cookbooks, you can eat better, too.

BookNotes

I have often been struck that in the days after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead his biographers wrote about several meals.  The famous epiphany during the breaking of bread, of course [shown here as imagined by Caravaggio] but also a middle eastern breakfast of fish on beach.  This reminds me once again that the resurrection was bodily—a theme developed by authors like Brian Walsh who I reviewed in the long piece over at the April column and, of course, by N.T. Wright, among many others. Dualism between the so-called sacred and secular realms, or, worse, sly, modern versions of the heresy gnosticism, will not do. Matter matters (“God quite likes it,” C.S. Lewis has wryly noted, “He made it.”) and this new creation that has broken into the old order includes human, creaturily stuff like preparing and eating (and, I suppose, cleaning up after) meals.  I hope your Easter feast last week was in some way a reminder of and witness to the goodness of a creation that is now being redeemed by the Risen Lord.

Not only does this common human experience of eating together show up in the  post-resurrection Bible narratives in a way that reminds us of the down-to-Earth bodily nature of the resurrection life, but it may say something about the importance of food and meals, too.  Jesus surely did a lot of other things, but meals are notably mentioned.  And they seem revelatory.  Eugene Peterson explores this for us magnificently in a wonderful little book which I often commend this time of year called Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life (NavPress; $16.99.)

And so, our church is doing an adult education class which started on Easter morning about the relationship of food and faith.  (And we did some old fashioned egg poaching in the church kitchen in that first class session, too! )  We are using a curriculum called “Just Eating: Practicing Our Faith at the Table”  published by the Presbyterian Hunger Program of the PC(USA.) 

Just as being a foodie is sort of trendy right now and the Food Channel has created a whole new genre of rock star—the celebrate chef—so thinking theologically about food and eating is also au courant.  It isn’t new, of course, but there have been some great books released in recent years.

I’ve highlighted some of them here before but thought it would be fun—for my friends at church and in the spirit of what the creeds have taught us to insist upon, “the bodily resurrection”—to do a food list.  You can order these at the discounted prices by using the order form below.

Some of these titles were previously annotated in a chapter in a book to which I contributed called Eat Well: A Road Map, edited by Kirsten Vander-Geissen-Reistma (*cino; $8.00.)  It is a splendid little volume, a companion to their equally nice little book, Doing Justice: A Roadmap (where I also did a chapter which was another bibliography.) There are short stories and essays, and a truly great piece by Sylvia Keesmaat, another by a favorite writer, Denise Frame Harlan. The editor, Kirsten, also edits the online zine catapult and is herself a fabulous cook and a fabulous writer, so her contributions in the book are délicieux.

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This Sunday school class is just one example of a larger trend in our culture, a good and healthy interest in sustainable agriculture, organic food, how animals are treated, how land is farmed, buying local, and caring about nutrition and fresh food, creatively and aesthetically prepared. I will review it in great detail later, but I just finished a truly spectacular paperback, Making Peace with the Land: God’s Call to Reconcile with Creation by Fred Banson and Norman Wirzba (IVP; $15.00) which offers an excellent overview of how the Bible teaches that the reconciliation Christ brings includes not just our renewed relationship with God and each other, but with the creation itself.  Forgive my pun, but such is the soil from which any discussion of eating and food can grow — we can envision more meaningful meals because of what Christ has done in restoring His good creation.  It isn’t surprising that a common Scriptural metaphor for the new creation is a banquet, or a feast.  Nice, huh? 
      
We’ve celebrated this trend and have offered books along these lines for years.  Although I suppose some Christian bookstores don’t have sections on creation-care or even cookbooks, I sure can’t imagine why.  There is a lot in the Bible about food and feasting, about farming and famine.  We simply must allow our faith to inform our principles and practices in this side of life.  After all, as the Apostle Paul says, we are to “eat to the glory of God.”  Edith Schaeffer hinted at this years ago in a lovely book The Hidden Art of Homemaking  (Tyndale Publishing; $12.99.) which invited us to consider the importance of beauty in ordinary life (and she had a chapter on food!) We still stock it.  She may have been an early voice helping evangelicals, at least, see that home-making and cooking and sustaining a household with creativity is serious, spiritual business, a human art, to be offered in hospitality to our loved ones, neighbors, and even strangers.  

So, we have long been interested in this matter of food and eating, not only because of the “daily spirituality” that it evokes but because of our interest in food systems, matters which I explored while learning about world hunger and poverty decades ago.  Even now, those who pick our tomatoes continue to struggle for justice.  (And, yes, the Presbyterian food curriculum has a unit on hunger, as well it should.)

To remind us of this reality–that we can enjoy the goodness of food, but must be aware that there are those who have little food, and that even those who help us get our food themselves cannot afford much of it— here is a prayer prayed at a grocery store protest in a recent campaign to get that grocer to work with a union of migrant workers–not unlike the famous United Farm Workers founded by Cesar Chavez.  Here is another article about the Immokalee Farm Workers and how some faith leaders have affirmed their desire for food justice.  I am deeply moved by this, and sad that some conservative Christians have made light of it, or disapproved.  Perhaps they’ve never actually talked to a hungry person before, or met a migrant worker family.  Or read Isaiah or Amos or James.  But I digress. 

Maybe this list will be of some help to enhance your understanding of the urgency and joy and irony of this recent foodie movement.  (The irony being that so many cannot afford these very good gifts of raw milk cheese or high end vinegar or even fresh produce, for that matter.) The first part of the list brings specifically Christian insights to the goodness of food, even in a fallen world, while the second half includes more general concerns by fine social critics, chefs, food writers and farmers and they help us take steps towards reforming our own shopping and eating habits, and perhaps bring just reforms to the food system.  Enjoy!

Food & Faith: Justice, Joy and Daily Bread edited by Michael Schut (Living the Good News) $14.95  If one were to buy one book on this essential topic, this may be our first recommendation.  A lovely companion to Schut’s ecumenically-minded,  Simpler Living, Compassionate Life, this collection includes essays or excerpts by Wendell Berrry, Thomas Moore, John Robbins, Marion Nestle, Eric Schlosser and so many more.  It includes readings on the celebration of food, health and diet, politics and economics.  It has some lovely reflections on the spirituality of food, essays on agriculture and land use, family farms and sustainable, local economies.  It  looks a bit at world hunger, and ends with stories of hope, suggestive of ways to renew our eating attitudes and habits.  There is a fabulous study guide in the back, making this a fabulous resource for book clubs or small group reflection.

The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Towards God edited by Leslie Leyland Fields (Wipf & Stock) $30.00  What a stunning and great book.  Here is a link to a review I did of this–I do hope you saw it as this book really means a lot to us. ( I wrote the review after returning from the funeral of my aunt whose story I briefly tell in my reflection on the book’s importance.) I said it there, but will say it again: this book is spectacular, just spectacular—the lovely, inspired content and the excellent, artful writing!  It is mostly about cooking and eating (rather than growing crops and reforming food systems) but it does explore many, many aspects of growing, eating, cooking, enjoying, and sharing food.  I won’t recount all that I said about this, but there are some fantastic pieces in here that are very very well written, and recipes, too.  No wonder I named it the book of the year two years ago.  One of my all time favorite book, with chapters by some dear friends (and some famous folks, like Robert Farrar Capon and Wendell Berry.)

The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection Robert Farrar Capon (Modern Library) $14.95  This book is so insightful and beloved, it has been cited in a Reformed theology class, and in gourmet foods cooking classes, and is regularly anthologized in great writing about food. Capon is feisty Episcopal  priest and an excellent wordsmith (a prolific author) and a great cook, too, making this book a true classic. This recently re-issued paperback edition is very nice.  As The New York Times Book Review said, it is “as awesomely funny, wise, beautiful, moving, preposterous a book as this reviewer has come across in years…It is a love letter to a world that “will always be more delicious than it is useful.”  Capon uses this narrative of cooking a leg of lamb meal for a group of friends as a platform to wax eloquently on everything from the kind of knives one must have in the kitchen to the sheer, God-given wonder of an onion.  Glorious.

Sharing Food: Christian Practices for Enjoyment          L. Shannon
Jung (Fortress) $15.00  This is a solid and thoughtful theological
guide to a more abundant life—starting with the life-giving and
life-sustaining gift from God called food.  Sharing Food
reminds us of the crisis of world hunger, and yet is itself a feast of
faithfulness, with—as one reviewer put it—“luscious lines and savory
stories, both dished up with joy.”  Of course we need mindfulness of
the economics and politics of food, but also we are shown why and how to
be more attentive to the daily joys of shared, common meals.  As you
might guess, the author explores how Christian Eucharistic table
theology helps illuminate our daily use and abuse of food in the human
community.  The best book of its kind, a sustained, Christian teaching
on the theology of food.  Good study questions make it ideal for an
adult Sunday school class or Bible study group.

Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating  Norman Wirzba (Cambridge University Press) $24.99 What an amazing book!  This is a recently released, major theology of eating–a long overdue masterpiece, but it is pretty dense.  You’ve heard of “slow food?”  This is slow reading!  And that is a compliment, of course, but it is demanding theology, most likely the best substantial work on this topic yet done.  I think his Living the Sabbath Life: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (Brazos; $20.00) might also be really useful to approach this topi;, although it is morally serious, it is not quite as dense as the new one.  Unlike most books on sabbath, it explores the lifestyle of non-consumeristic, normative, sustainable living, rejecting the go-go-go of consumerism and the American way, taking sabbath principles into how we think and live, how we think about education, about agriculture, the ways we shop and eat and play.  So while he does teach about sabbath, it is about jubilee and freedom and alternative living more than just spirituality and rest. Obviously, it is an important foundation for his new Cambridge volume which is more precisely on food.

Eating and Drinking  Elizabeth Groppe (Fortress) $15.00  This little book is a serious study, despite it’s slender size and chatty style, exploring the ways in which profoundly construed Christian theology might shape our daily experience of meals.  This “compass” book takes its place next to others in the series, serious books, briefly written, on work, play, shopping and parenting.  Groppe is an Associate Professor of Theology at Xavier University (although the whole series is edited by David Jensen at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.)  There is an alarmingly bad sentence about her experience of coffee, but once I got over that, and realized she had some sort of sacramental view of creation, I realized that this more contemplative consideration was well worth reading.  All five of these rigorous, small books are provocative and timely, written by authors deeply aware of the need for serious social criticism.  Impressive.

Good Eating Stephen H. Webb (Brazos) $21.99  The first in the highly regarded “Christian Practice of Everyday Life” series, Webb asks distinctively theological questions about food, vegetarianism, animal rights, fasting and more.  Historical insight,  helpful ponderings and thoughtful reflections rooted in Biblical study.  As we know more and more about the ugliness of factory farming and such, this is a serious, good study at the ethics of eating.

The Year of Plenty: One Suburban Family, Four Rules, and 365 Days of Homegrown Adventure in Pursuit of Christian Living by Craig Goodwin (SparkHouse) $12.95  For a fun and very readable memoir, I’d really, really recommend this, which I have happily promoted before, giving it a rave review!  This is the story of a Presbyterian pastor (a Fuller grad) and his family trying to grow their own stuff and buy local for a year.  He cites lots of interesting authors, narrating his own study and journey into increasing faithfulness in this side of life. I love that he describes books by Ron Sider, Wendell Berry, Scott Sabin, Richard Mouw and of course essential titles like The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen and the beautifully done literary memoir of local farming by Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.) Because it is overtly Christian and intends to be somewhat educational, it is a perfect choice for faith-based reading groups, adult ed classes and the like.  Craig Goodwin writes a popular blog that focuses on food, faith, and justice in the rich agricultural region of the Inland Northwest. His family’s story has been featured on NPR, PBS, and in The New York Times. He is a Presbyterian pastor, a farmers’ market manager, a master food preserver, and a fire chaplain and his book is a real gift to us all.  Buy a few and spread the news.

A Meal With Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community and Mission Around the Table  Tim Chester (Crossway) $14.99  This is a fantastic book, a six-chapter study which takes a serious, happy look at Jesus and his meals, bringing his table fellowship into the conversation about hospitality, dining, feasting and such.  This is obviously more a small group Bible study sort of book (it would make a great class or sermon series) than a reflection on localism, free range beef, or the health benefits of eating well, but it will appeal to anyone who understand that “food connects” (as he puts it.) This is getting rave reviews from those, like in the Gospel Coalition, who have used it. Chester himself is an urban church planter and knows how eating together can be foundation for very significant ministry.  We are thrilled to see such a sound, evangelical work on this fun and fruitful topic.  Highly recommended.

Soul Banquets: How Meals Become Mission in the Local Congregation John Koenig (Morehouse) $15  Koenig has thought long (and published before) on the implications of a eucharistic worldview. Here, he offers local congregations a very practical book about outreach, sharing meals, and other related food concerns.  Very useful.

The Other Journal: The Food and Flourishing Issue  (Wipf & Stock) $18.95  The Other Journal is a remarkable, curious, fascinating, theological journal that focuses on all sorts of issues—and they occasionally republish their special editions in bookish form.  This one has poems and theology, essays and stories, from authors such as Comment magazine editor Alissa Wilkinson, Stephen Webb, Norman Wirzba, poet John Leax, Elizabeth Antus I(who does a very interesting study of the important work on eating disorders by Geneen Roth.)  What an amazing collection.

Bringing It To The Table: On Food and Faming Wendell Berry (Counterpoint) $14.95  I’ve reviewed this one before as well, but it simply has to be noted again.  I’m sure most Hearts & Minds fans know of our affection for Mr. Berry and his astute social criticism of modernity, consumerism, and ideologies of mechanized progress.  He is an agrarian essayist and a Christian farmer whose largest legacy may be his body of wonderful fiction where his heart’s themes are given storied character.  What a great way to read him by enjoying this collection of various pieces he has done on farming, the joys of eating, and
the community of those who understand the connections between field and table.  There are some splendid portions of novels, here, too, making this a lovely, multi-dimensional way in to this vital topic.  Includes a nice introduction by Michael Pollen.

Making Supper Safe: One Man’s Quest to Learn the Truth About Food Safety  Ben Hewitt (Rodale) $24.99  You may know this author for his splendid book The Town That Food Saved.  Like that one, this is full of characters, strong on story-telling, and a stunning achievement in doing muck-racking expose journalism without making us overly depressed or cynical.  He is, as one reviewer in The Atlantic wrote, “an amiable skeptic and a storyteller of rare skill who seems incapable of crafting a dull sentence.”  We understand that it is stressful to think about factory farms and pesticides and a bit disappointing to learn even more about the dangers of the pseudo-foods we often enjoy. Still, if this is a wake-up call, it isn’t that hard to swallow.  It offers a better way.  I moves from a critique of the mega-corporations and broken food system to a more wholesome and sustainable and joyful way to buy and eat our daily bread.  As farmer Joel Salatin says, “read this before your next bite!”  (Speaking of Joel Salatin, who you may recall from being featured in Pollen’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and in the documentary “Food, Inc.”  his long-awaited book came out in October 2011.  I mention it below.

Food, Inc: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer—and What You Can Do About It  edited by Karl Weber (Public Affairs) $14.95  What a feast of a book this is, with chapters by Eric Schlosser, Michael Ppollan, Marion Nestle, Anna Lappe, Joel Salatin, and more.  It is a “participant guide and companion to the acclaimed film.

Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas  Mark Winne (Beacon Press) We are glad this just came out in paperback as it, too, is a must-read if one is to grow in more profound awareness of this new trend, how to resist the deformation that agribusiness has caused, and ways people are forming genuine alternatives.  Here is a great video clip of Winne speaking about his new book and how we can be empowered to be more involved in the matters of our lives.  Helps us fight back in the age of industrial food systems.   Very inspiring!

Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty  Mark Winne (Beacon Press) $16.00 Winne is a must-know author, a fine and passionate writer who explores how the recent foodie interest in farmer’s markets, organics and sustainable co-ops and such tends to fail the poor–many who most need more viable options for food purchases–remain “under-served.”  This new healthy trend makes us glad, but this major gaffe must be addressed, and Winne shows us how.  Excellent.

Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable, Food System by Oran Hesterman (Public Affairs.) I briefly reviewed this in Capitol Commentary (the weekly of the Center for Public Justice) and couldn’t say enough about it.  This is a spectacular new hardback that studies the problems of our food system and offers the sorts of alternatives that Winne describes.  Yet, this is more thorough, more systematic, more behind the scenes examples not just what “smart cookin’ mamas” are doing, but how major business executives are attending to their supply chains, learning about the global economy, and working for helpful changes that will offer better food to more people and cause justice to be seen in the local farming communities that supply the food. This is amazingly hopeful and shows in powerful ways how to move towards solutions and new just ways of working the food system. Dr. Hesterman is himself a scientist (agronomist) and has years of valuable experience from which we can be inspired and informed.  He knows who is doing what and how to create more sustainable businesses. Here is a trailer for the book.  Learn about his Fair Food Network, here.

Growing at the Speed of Life: A Year in the Life of My First Kitchen Garden  Graham Kerr (Perigree) $18.00   I trust that you saw my rave review of this last year.  Kerr, you may recall, was the “Galloping Gourmet” and pre-figured the current phenomenon of the rock star TV chef.  He got drunk on the air, was remarkably wasteful, and, when that proved disastrous, he found a relationship with Christ, changed his eating and cooking and writing, and now does responsible, wonderful work on food and nutrition.  This is his first “field to table” book, learning to garden and cook what he grows.  Very nice, full of stories of gardening and of cooking, including recipes.  What a great example of a life transformed, offering new ways to life joyfully, faithfully, simply.

Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World Joel Salatin (Center Street) $25.99  I just raved about this last year, and named it as one of the Best Books of 2011.  What a fun and funny author, a religious man who has done organic and natural farming for years. A truly interesting man by a hero of contemporary farming—offering up righteous ecological concern and better flavor, too.

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table  Tracie McMillan (Scribner) $25.00  Many of the books on this list expose the dangers of our industrialized American way of eating, laying bare the stupidness of our food system and warning of the dangers of toxic pesticides and harmful practices.  This book does this an more, reporting from those who work “at the bottom of the food chain” from migrant laborers to restaurant staff to grocery store produce workers. There is courage and compassion here and some great writing.  We have always known that justice for farmers, food workers, and consumers are related, and now we can feel it in our bones.  What a book!

Starting From Scratch: Memoirs of a Wandering Cook Patty Kirk (Nelson) $22.99  Kirk is a recent Christian memoirist, and this thoughtful survey of her growing up in a food-loving, if  culinarily diverse, family, is a splendid read.  Her passionate life of longing comes to us alongside food stories, recipes for the foods that shaped her experiences, from the fried okra she ate with her Arkansas grandparents to the hors d’ouvres of her parents’ 1960s suburban cocktail parties.  Kirk has traveled a bit, so we learn of curries and stir-fries and such.  Reading this helps us experience food—and life, she hopes—in a more immediate way, even as she speculates on the social and spirit
ual significance of food’s pleasures and providence.  

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table  Ruth Reichl (Random House) $14.95  I cannot tell you how I enjoyed this spicy memoir of a famous food critics early years, leaving a hippie whole-foods commune for a job doing restaurant reviews for Gourmet magazine.  She travels all over he world, her marriage comes undone, she meets everyone from M.F.K. Fischer to Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck, and tells it with tender eloquence and splendid detail.  

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food Judith Jones (Knopf) $24.95  Jones was undoubtedly the most important cookbook editor of our time, and her friendships with everyone from Julia Childs to James Beard–and her many years in one of the most prestigious publishing houses afforded her opportunity to work with some of our era’s most esteemed authors, makes her a very important figure in food culture.  Here, she passionately decries the trends of mediocre home cooking, set among fabulous and sometimes surprisingly eccentric stories.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life Barbara Kingsolver (HarperOne) $15.99   What a wondeful book, excellently told, a full-length memoir by the respected novelist and essayist, about her family’s experiment in eating only food that they grow themselves on their Appalachian farm.  One of the most popular books of recent years, a bell-weather in many ways!

Stations of the Banquet: Faith Foundations for Food Justice Cathy C. Campbell (Liturgical Press) $19.95  A fairly serious theological study, the subtitle helps us understand the Scripture-based nature of this work: “Faith Foundations for Food Justice.”  Offers various virtues that emerge from Biblical “table etiquette” which helps us work for food security in a hungry world.

The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature Leon R. Kass (University of Chicago Press) $19 A stimulating, serious treatise on the anthropology and ethics of eating by a renowned Roman Catholic ethicist.  A broad-ranging philosophical inquiry, what one scholar called “an intellectual feast.” This will make you think!

Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Michael Pollan  (Penguin) $16.00  One of the most talked about books in years, this gloriously describes in great writerly detail, three classic sorts of American meals, tracing where the food comes from, how it is prepared and the social impact of the meal itself.  Called “An Eater’s Manifesto” by one reviewer, this is an outstanding study of the moral implications of our food choices.  The good sequel is entitled In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (The Penguin Press; $21.95) in which he takes on the commercial food industry and what he calls the nutritionism establishment as well. Next, he did the very small but helpful Food Rules: An Eater’s Manuel which is available as a paperback or a colorful, illustrated hardback (Penguin; $11.00 or $23.95.) Mr. Pollan is a philosopher at heart, who has written thoughtfully about the relationship of nature and culture (see, for instance, his Second Nature about gardening or the popular Botany of Desire.)

The Meat You Eat: How Corporate Farming Has Endangered America’s Food Supply  Ken Midkiff (St. Martin’s Griffin) $13.95.  This troubling expose–with a helpful forward by Wendell Berry—won a “Best Book” award from the San Francisco Chronicle.  Although bleak in it’s documentation of modern livestock farming, it offers hopeful alternative actions consumers can take.

The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements Sandor Ellix Katz (Chelsea Green) $20.  Katz has written on the flavors and nutrition found in “live-culture foods” and reports here on the political culture of food activism.  From bread clubs to the raw milk underground, grassroots activists come to life as they expose the dangers of commercial-produced food.  Fascinating.

Hopes Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet Frances Moore Lappe & Anna Lappe (Tarcher) $14.95  Lappe’s 1970s bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet nearly defined an era, and introduced whole grains and social justice to North American readers, helping us realize the relationships between our eating and global issues. This inspiring book further explores global connections with exceptional care.  Includes some recipes from ecological culinary pioneers like Alice Waters and Mollie Katzen.

Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution Jennifer Cockrall-King (Prometheus Books) $21.00  Bill McKibben notes that “All over the world I’ve watched urban dwellers begin to figure out that they can start growing food, too.  It’s one of the loveliest trends on earth, and Jennifer Cockrall-King does a fine job of captures its tremendous growth.”  From community gardens to backyard bees, this small-scale urban farming story is fascinating.

The Real Food Revival: Aisle by Aisle, Morsel by Morsel Sherrie Brooks Vinton & Ann Clark Espuelas (Tarcher) $15.95  This really is an A-to-Z guide for understanding and navigating the jargon about and the hidden dangers of the industrial food system.  This really does help you take practical steps to learn how to find real food, to resist the chemical junk, and to resist the hazards of GMO foods, toxic residues and other sorts of “pink slime.” Very helpful.

Organic Manifesto: How Organic Food Can Heal our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe  Maria Rodale (Rodale Press) $14.99  Even if the subtitle is a bit overstated, this is a masterpiece breakthrough book, drawing on updated health data and riveting reporting about the dangers of pesticides and herbicides.  With Monsanto continuing to push “roundup ready” crops, it is more urgent then ever to understand which are the most deadly chemicals and which in which foods they are most commonly found. Very important.

Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating Jane Goodall  (Warner) $14.99 The renowned conservationist here offers a guide to various food issues, global concerns, the dangers of abusing our land and seas, and how to support family farms, etc.  Inspiring anecdotes, global insights, practical guidance.  

A Cafecito Story: A Story of Love, Coffee, Birds & Hope  Julia Alvarez (Chelsea Green) $10  There are more thorough studies of coffee culture and the fair-trade movement within the global economy.  This, though–complete with two color ink and striking wood-cut illustrations, is a short story inspired by the coffee farm owned by world-renowned novelist Julia Alvarez..  This was inspired by the classic tale and the exquisite edition (with woodcuts) of environmental sustainability and personal responsibility, The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono,

CandyFreak: A J
ourney Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America Steve Almond (Harcourt) $13 One of my all time favorite books, this is a gonzo memoir of a road-trip to visit the best (and most likely failing) independent candy makers in the country.  Hilariously written, a tribute to locally produced and spectacularly tasty candy, by a great writer with a very serious jones for the sweet stuff.  As fun and interesting as this is, it ends up with a lot to say about local, indie companies, supporting local businesses and the importance of keeping things like heirloom seeds around.  Except he isn’t talking about seeds, but Mallo Cups and Chick-O-Stick.  You’ll enjoy this, I promise!

BookNotes

Almost anybody who has heard Bob Goff speak can skip this, and just order his new book, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World (Nelson; $15.99) right away. We have the link to our order form down below–and a good discount, too.  You know all about this Goff guy.  The first place we showed it off—just yesterday—one customer bought five.  It is that kind of a book, written by that kind of a guy.  His great humor, extraordinary life of whimsy and grace, his nearly unbelievable stories of capers around the world—freeing slaves, helping young couples find true love, forgiving a sad lady who hit his jeep, helping his kids talk peace with world leaders—are great to listen to, fun to read about, and unbelievably inspiring.  As Bill Hybels has put it, “If this book does not make your heart beat faster, book the next flight to the Mayo Clinic.”  If you’ve heard Goff speak, you know.  He’s a skin in the game, palms up, God-is-good kind of visionary.  As Donald Miller writes in the introduction, Bob will “wreck your American Dream and help you find your actual dream. You simply cannot live the same once you know him.”

If you buy this book—as I’m begging you to!—you will get to know him. Bob Goff is, I’m quite sure, as he appears; the real deal, as they say.  He is transparent, honest, energetic, optimistic, full of the love of God, illustrated by his being an active (and do I mean active) follower of King Jesus.  As he puts it, he likes to “leak Jesus” on others, and once he compliments you, affirming you for doing that (whether it is true or not) you want to rise to the occasion.  You want to be awesome.  You want to allow God to spill out into everything.  You want to live large, make a difference, take risks, have fun, and get busy leaving faint fingerprints of the holy on the things you touch.  You, too, want to leak Jesus.

I first met Goff at a Christian Legal Society annual affair a couple of years ago, a big event where he was, or so I thought, going to give a standard talk about an orphanage he started in Uganda.  I thank God for these great missions of mercy, and we have supported such anti-hunger programs for all of our adult lives (and before. My mom had us “trick or treat for UNICEF” in the mid-60s.  So yeah.) I must admit, though, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat at the banquet, waiting to hear another sob story about poor kids and another nice testimony of somebody doing routine mission work far, far away. 



And then he started excitingly telling about the lady that ran a red-light hitting and blowing up his jeep, watching it burst into flames (how cool is that? he exclaimed) and how he cared for her afterwards.  His academic past was less than stellar and his legal calling was sketchy, since he hardly passed his entrance exams.  The story about how he badgered the Dean of the law school to let him in anyway (told hilariously in the chapter “Get Your Books”) had me in stitches, and eager to be more audacious in my endeavors.  Hearing him explain how he has his law office on some faux island at Disneyland that you have to get to by a little boat—he is not making this up: he showed slides of his meeting with an important African diplomat on Tom Sawyer Island—had us texting friends asking if they had heard of this guy.  Could he be for real?  That zany, and that successful, and that adept at advancing God’s reign and glory through his uniquely Christian way of thinking about vocation and calling, profession and professionalism? Can an old Young Life nut who just loves everybody really pull off these whimsical spiritual stunts (which he calls capers) and make a serious difference in a broken world of serious evil and injustice?  If he’s just a postmodern clown, okay, that’s attractive and entertaining, but he seems also to be truly interested in changing the world, reforming legal institutions, working in the third world, literally saving lives.  Can funny stories change things?

Look.  Jesus rose from the dead, right?  Knocked that stone right away from that grave, right?  In a strange world like that, where a servant King whose regal crown was one of thorns, where a Messiah takes the city through riding not a warhorse, but on a donkey , well, in that kind of an upside down world, maybe a Bob Goffian sense of goofiness really is the new normal.  Maybe we don’t change the world through power, but through kindness and mercy, joy and goodness.  Maybe Dostoyevsky was a bit wrong: beauty won’t save the world, whimsy will.

Bob Goff does more than tell incredibly interesting, exceptionally entertaining and truly inspiring stories—like how he loaned his house to a kid he didn’t know who wanted to propose to his girl in a smashing way, or the one about pranking a best friend by checking into his honeymoon suite, or a great telling of a particularly fruitful game of Bigger and Better, or a funny remembrance of a childhood episode of being shot by his pal with a bb gun—he tells stories about profound structural reform in some of the most unjust places on the planet.

Which is to say, in Love Does, you will cry a bit.  Mostly tears of laughter, tears of hilarity.  Maybe you’ll even wet your pants.  But there will also be quiet tears of gratitude that God in his mercy has raised up a man like this, to do good work like this.

Like what?  Like getting child soldiers out of jail to get fair trails, like meeting world leaders to create space for international conversations of reconciliation, like getting laws passed to prevent ritual maiming of children, like fighting in the front lines in the battle against sexual trafficking.  Through his upbeat and graciously relational style—he’s obviously an off-the- charts extrovert, whatever Myers-Briggs letters indicate such buoyant, funny, courageous types—he has been able to finagle laws being passed in certain African countries.  As he told us at Jubilee in Pittsburgh 2011 (see my report, here) he has liberated children from hellish prisons.  He has helped consult with those making legislative initiatives in Uganda where he is now a diplomat.  And, by the way, he’s quick to report (in the chapter “Just Say Yes”) that this official designation gives him diplomatic immunity.  He can speed without fear of tickets.  In fact, he notes, he could probably kill you and get away with it.  Just sayin.

So, Goff mixes whimsy and courage, silliness with the sacred, daring and joyful capers with daring and important political reform.  And, although it is not terribly gratuitous, he even tells a fart story.

Love Does is a collection of really funny stories, each one entertaining and fascinating— some are so outrageous you will wonder. Really? He did that? Is he maybe exaggerating a teensy bit?  And each chapter brings home a certain lesson, a moral to the story, a principle of Christian living. (So as not to be missed, each chapter starts with the two sentence lesson as an epigram.) I must say, or I guess I think I should, that some of these are a bit simple; most of this stuff isn’t rocket science, really.  But through Goff’s energetic storytelling, Christian living becomes a whole new adventure; the phrase “taking it up a notch” hardly begins to explai
n this wild ride of a read.  Skip the basic Christian growth books that say life can be an adventure when serving Christ, that we can have passion and purpose.  Most of them have no idea. 

Few of us do, really: this is a vibrant, effective,  grace-filled, and Christ-like kind of adventure I swear I’ve never witnessed before.  I have not been so viscerally enthused and motivated and excited by an author since perhaps the first time I ever heard Tony Campolo at his best.  “It’s Friiiiiidaaaaay, but Sunday’s comin'” Tony used to preach. “The Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord” he would shout.  The crowds would be on their feet, shouting along, “and He shall reign for ever and ever and ever.”  Hallelujah!!  Oh yeah, with Campolo, we were fired up and ready to make a difference — and many truly did, signing up for urban living with Mission Year or adopting a Compassion International child, taking mission trips to Haiti or working for peace, rejecting materialism, thinking afresh about our callings and careers, wondering how to be most faithful in our work and public lives as well as in our “quietude” as he used to say.

Many BookNotes readers can recall that first time you heard Campolo and his funny, rousing sermons.  Oh, did he make us laugh.  And he spoke hard truth.  Tony is a world-changing, cultural-shaping, poverty-fighting, white professor who preaches like a historic black preacher, and some of his talks became legendary.
Bob Goff is equally energetic, and his stories are as funny as any Tony ever told. Perhaps some are more goofy; some are just sheer nuttiness (jumping into the bay dressed in a tux in order to greet some kayakers) and you can’t help but enjoy reading about them.  Love Does is a fun read, you could give it to teens, easily.  But, as with Tony and some of his fantastic stories, you can just know that a sovereign God is behind them (or at least some of them.)  I’m talking miracles of the first order, crazy stuff you just can hardly believe. Coincidences, as they say.  God is alive and well and his winsome followers like Goff are leaking his love all over the place, and the Spirit is blessing it in mighty ways.  When love does, good things happen.

I said a while ago to a small group of clergy that this book will no doubt be declared as one of the best Christian books of the year.  If for no other reason, the stories are a hoot and the shenanigans he gets himself into so interesting, that it will be used by storytellers and preachers for sermon illustrations, to help us make our points.  These stories are made for re-telling, and we commend them to anyone who wants to be a more interesting communicator.  Buy the book for the great stories.

But, as I have suggested, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World by Bob Goff is more than just a collection of funny stories and audacious examples of stepping out in faith.  There are lessons to be learned, ideas with which to struggle, principles of the Christ-life that need to be explicated, grappled with, embraced and embodied.  There is good stuff to learn here about discipleship.  Stuff we have to practice, habits of the heart to nurture (generosity, hospitality, trust, humor, kindness, freedom) and stuff we get to do.

You should buy the book for the whole package, the adventures and the principles, the stories and the lessons, but the bottom line comes through over and over and over.  The title says it all: true love causes us to get involved, to actually express our caring, to show our love, to do things for others.  You know the famous verse from the epistle of James: faith without works is dead.  Sweet Mr. Goff and his beloved Sweet Maria, don’t have to cite the verse, really.  Their lives, in little and big ways, in how they love their neighbors, how they help their friends, how they work for justice, how they get involved in global ministries, are a witness to the truth.  No, faith that doesn’t do much isn’t real faith.  And love that doesn’t reach out, well, it isn’t real love, I guess.  You learn this from the Goffs’ lives and from his compelling call to us all: just do it.

Love isn’t sentimental.  It sometimes picks fights.  (Yep, he has some good stories about that) and it almost always involves taking risks.  The risks Goff takes are recorded here for us to be encouraged by.  En-couraged.  I don’t know if it is true to say this, but, in Goff fashion, I’ll just say it anyway and hope I’m not too off-base: to be en-couraged means to be given courage.  This book will put some wind in your sails, some guts in your gusto, it will make you want to be a more courageous person.  I’m not kidding.  It is one of the best books of the year, by a man who has shown encouragement to many, whose parables of whimsy just might change your life.  And the world.  We would be pleased if you ordered some from us, at the link below.

A big PS:  I should have said this earlier, but if you don’t know, Goff plays a significant role in another great book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story by Donald Miller (Nelson; $15.99.) In that book (I hope you know, since we love it so) indie film-maker Steve Taylor shows up to make a movie inspired by Miller’s meandering thoughts about religion-less faith, Blue Like Jazz (Nelson; $15.99.)  Alas, to make a movie about a memoir supposes that the memoirist has some sort of life story, something good going on, a trajectory, a tale to tell.  Miller realized (by studying how to make a film script, as he explains in Million Miles) that he needed to get his life aligned with the larger story of God, a purpose-driven life with something big and meaty unfolding in some Biblically-shaped, coherent plot.  He needed to find himself a mentor, the kind of life-changing, one-of-a-kind, Jesus-leaking character that a character like Miller could take.  Goff is his man.  If you’ve read Million Miles in a Thousand Years then you know that Miller talks about Goff—-his annual New Year’s Day parade that one cannot watch, but must be in, his orphanage in Uganda, where he gets Miller to pick up a shovel and plant a commemorative tree.  Goff not only tells a better story than Donald Miller’s bohemian ruminations, but he invites him into that story.  Through Miller’s memoir, we learn that a good mentor does that.  In more traditional terms, although neither Miller nor Goff use these exact words, a faith leader does evangelism and disciple-making, helps get folks converted to Jesus and equips them to live into the new way of His kingdom. 

The amusing and powerful references to Goff in Miller’s book made me wonder—is that guy for real, or a literary device, maybe.  Could there really be such a zany and helpful mentor, who takes his kids out of school to meet world leaders and takes Donald Miller to the war zones of central Africa?  Who pulls pranks and can be seen beside his friends on the Ugandan
Supreme Court, as they try on Mickey Mouse ears on Tom Sawyer Island?  Who calls his engagement with Scripture not “Bible studies” but “Bible doings”?



Yes, that man does exist. 

Some of us have been drawn into his orbit. Now he has written his own book.  May Love Does en-courage many, as his life story unfolds in this book, warts and jokes and failures and passions and all, inviting us all to “get to the do part of our faith.”

BookNotes

For the next few days we’ll be selling books at one of the coolest events we’ve ever done, at one of the classiest venues in country.  The website I’ve sometimes mentioned (and written for) The Q Ideas is run by Gabe Lyons, author of the excellent book, first published by Doubleday, now just out in an expanded edition in paperback The Next Christians: Seven Ways You Can Live the Gospel and Restore the World (Multnomah; $14.99.) His organization–mysteriously just called Q— exists to inform, stimulate, encourage and network churches, Christian organizations, and leaders to be more creative in engaging the cultural and social issues of the day. They offer retreats with the likes of Eugene Peterson and storytelling workshops with Hollywood script writers; they bring together human rights organizations and network authors and activists, they participate in confabs on science and offer mentoring to humanitarian start-ups.  They befriend significant cultural leaders—Christian and not—offering behind the scenes spiritual guidance to gatekeepers, rising leaders, artists and social entrepreneurs.  And they keep their fantastic website updated, offering good pieces week by week.  (See there this week,  New York pastor Jon Tyson, and Steve Garber’s great lecture on vocation.)

Their annual national event is rather like a faith-based TED conference, with some of the best thought leaders and Christian scholars, activists, and reformers doing pithy, Power-pointed presentations which are then discussed in lively conversation. (In this regard they seem to me, for those follow these things, like a somewhat more youthful and edgy Trinity Forum, or as I sometimes say, a Jubilee conference for grown-ups.)

That we get to offer a book display at Q is a privilege and (I assume Gabe is too busy running this gig to read me writing this) not a little bit daunting.  The stunning building itself—the federally-owned Andrew Mellon Auditorium on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC—is enough to make us fret.  The remarkable line-up of speakers whose books we are providing creates in us an extraordinary amount of anxious energy (I still love hearing great lectures and sermons and interviews and I am still charmed meeting authors.)  And some fear and trembling.  Friends, please pray for us.

STREAMING TUESDAY MORNING
Better yet, after praying, plan to join us.  On Tuesday (April 9th) the programs of the first morning of the Q Gathering will be streaming live on-line, free. 

Go here: http://www.qideas.org/live/

Starting at 9:00 AM -10:30 AM EST you can hear Gabe Lyons, founder of Q, speaking briefly about “Ideas for the Common Good” and Andy Crouch, ruminating on the good and bad uses of power.  Andy’s Culture-Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (IVP; $25.00) remains one of my all time favorite books and is a must-read as foundational to appreciate Qsters. I can’t tell you how important he is to follow (his latest project involved research into practices that enhance urban life called “This is Your City.”)

Popular author and DC pastor Mark Batterson will speak about “Church & Place” (perhaps drawing from his new book The Circle Maker, drawing on the legend of Honi the Circle Maker, inviting us to learn how to pray through are dreams and fears.)  We have this new book (Zondervan; $19.99), a small paperback abridged edition (a sample, really; just $2.99) and a new DVD.

It will be really entertaining, and edifying, I’m sure, to hear New York Times columnist and PBS pundit David Brooks comment on his important 2011 book, now out in paperback, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (Random House; $16.00) and, mostly, offer some glimpses of his next project, a book on humility.  We adored his Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive and hope you know them. We even stock a hardback edition called The Paradise Suite (Simon & Schuster; $28.00) that has both in one volume.  These include incisive observations about America’s upper middle class and fabulously interesting social history.  Bobo’s is the phrase he coined describing bourgeoisie bohemians, and his study of these liberal, wealthy communities that seem to hold to old hippie values but live in quaint upscale communities is genius.  And funny as anything.

Q likes to mix it up—offering speakers from various channels of social influence (“spheres” the Dutch Reformed folks in the line of Kuyper would call them.  There will be a speaker on Kuyper, by the way.)  And there is the constant, big question of how we apply these visionary ideas, making the move from good ideas to new practices.  So next, there will be a panel discussion about creative ways to think about reducing abortion, a goal both pro-lifers and pro-choicers claim to desire.  Q leader Rebekah Lyons will host a remarkable gathering of thoughtful folks, which will include Jenell Williams Paris, the author of the provocative The End of Sexual Identity (IVP; $15.00)

The last speaker of the first streaming segment features Jonathan Merritt, author of Green Like God and the just released A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars (FaithWords; $19.99), who will give a brief overview of his story, a story of being raised in the heart of the Christian right and the Southern Baptist establishment, his family’s friendship with Jerry Falwell, and how, as a “next generation” evangelical, he struggled to affirm what was good about his conservative roots, and what was, perhaps, less than faithful. His work getting other religious conservatives to embrace Biblical concerns about justice for the poor and Earth-keeping and human rights, well, let us say it is a riveting read, and very very instructive for us all.
 
STREAMING TUESDAY NIGHT
You can join in again for a second free Q Gathering live streaming at 7:00PM until 8:45 PM, Tuesday night. Pray for good internet connection because you aren’t going to want to miss this.

Tuesday night’s schedule will start with worship music by the fantastic singer-songwriter, Sandra McCracken (she sings on the Indelible Grace CDs and sometimes with her husband, Derek Webb) followed by a must-hear message by Amy Sherman, whose book Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good (IVP; $16.00) offers one of the best-developed cases for taking faith seriously as it informs our view of callings and careers, vocations and jobs, using our talents not just to “bring home the bacon” but as a central way most of us serve our neighbors and enhance the common good. We named it as one of the best books of the year in 2011, even though it had just released.  Not all of us, in fact most of us, can’t be full time social reformers, cultural creatives, starting organizations and interesting initiatives.  Bu
t we can think more intentionally about how our workplace is in need of transformation, how our careers can be avenues of Christian service, how we can push for greater commitments to social responsibility in the marketplace.  Excellent.

Ross Douthat is up next, and is interviewed by the exceptionally astute think-tank dude, Michael Cromartie.  Ross is a conservative essayist and journalist and his insights into “Faith, Media and Politics” will only scratch the surface, but this interview will be great.  By the way, we are the first place in the nation to receive his brand new book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press) $26.00  Readers of the deeper end of the conservative pools will know this well, as it has already garnered some pre-pub buzz, but it is most urgently to be considered by those who have affirmed the need for looser doctrine and less demanding expressions of faith, whether they are classic 20th century mainline folks or emerging 21st century post-evangelicals.  I’ll describe it a bit more, below, but do take in the live conversation with Cromartie if you can.  It will be good.
  


We have long appreciated Rev. Joel Hunter whose book is bluntly called A New Kind of Conservative (Regal; $19.99) and tells his story of being fired shortly after being hired by the Christian Coalition for trying to shift that right wing political group to a more balanced, Biblical agenda (concern for the poor? the environment? peacemaking? Uh, not so much, they told him.)  Hunter is also speaking Tuesday evening.  His talk, “Government is Not the Enemy” illustrates a “third way” between the left and the right, it seems, and should be fruitful for the conversations happening later that evening, and into Wednesday.  

There will be plenty of speakers from various viewpoints throughout the event, from Jim Wallis of Sojourners to Gideon Strauss of the Center for Public Justice,  Mitch Hescox of EEN to Chai Ling, a hero of the Tiananmen Square uprising and author of the page-turner A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape and Her Quest to Free China’s Daughters (Tyndale; $22.99.)  From the high-end fashion industry to inner-city education, practitioners making a difference will give brief testimony. Vibrant Christian authors on various topics are there, like artist like Daniel. A. Siedell whose rigorous book God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Baker; $25.00) we love to promote. Top shelf theologians like Miroslav Volf, James K.A. Smith, and Anthony Bradley will present, as will cultural critics like Sherry Turkle of MIT (whose recent book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other [Basic Books; $28.95] is urgent and fascinating!) It will be great to see the ever-eloquent Os Guinness (and, once again, promote his Case for Civility [HarperOne; $23.95]) and hear about his forthcoming IVP book on American freedom,  and to hear NPR journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty (who has a fabulously smart book on faith and science, through the lens of neurology, The Fingerprints of God (Riverhead; $17.00.)  We will hear from, and promote the books of  environmentalist Nancy Sleeth (her practical and clever new book is called Almost Amish: One Woman’s Quest for a Slower, Simpler More Sustainable Life (Tyndale; $14.95) and Bread for the World Executive David Beckman (Exodus from Hunger (WJK; $15.00) and immigration advocate Jenny Hwang-Yang of World Relief (Welcoming the Stranger; IVP; $15.00).  Those who curated this amazing array of speakers—and I haven’t mentioned them all—are genius and so very helpful to us all.  I’m serious, we’ll will have a display of books written by some of the finest thinkers and social reformers in the land.

Do visit the streaming presentations Tuesday morning and Tuesday evening — again, you can sign up by clicking here.

OR AT LEAST BUY SOME BOOKS

We invite you to look at the speakers list for each day and if you see any authors whose books you may want to buy, let us know.  We’ll offer to our readers the BookNotes 20% discount on any Q authors this week, while supplies last.

Here are four titles that may be particularly germane, each brand new, by authors who we will see at the Q DC Gathering.  They are important titles, I am sure.

The Next Christians: Seven Ways You Can Live the Gospel and Restore the World  Gabe Lyons (Multnomah) $14.99  This is the brand new paperback edition, with a new chapter added (on civility, lessons learned from last years Q event where they hosted the controversial “Ground Zero Imam” Feisal Abdul Rauf, who Gabe has befriended.  This struggle to build bridges and offer a faith that is more generous and less divisive is hard for those of us who have deep convictions (it is easy to be civil if one doesn’t hold firm believes.)  It is a great chapter, added to the other six characteristics of “next Christians” and those who want to be counted among God’s agents of restoration.

There is a good discussion guide in the back, too.  In good Q fashion, it is hoped that this will be discussed together, used as a springboard for conversation, reflection, and new action.  I know I’ve talked a lot about this book this past year, quoting from it in many presentations I’ve done, and showing it at nearly every book display we’ve done.  The paperback is even better, and I hope you buy it from us.

A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars  Jonathan Merritt (FaithWords) $19.99  I mentioned this above, noting that it is at once a fabulous story of one man’s journey to a more wholistic, culturally engaged, and less partisan faith, but it is also a call to conservatives and liberals to distance themselves from their ideologies and to be more truly Biblical, following the reign of Jesus wherever that may lead.  He’s pretty sure it won’t lead to the political extremes, unless being courageously moderate and imaginatively counter-cultural is itself, these days, an extreme position.  It is radical, but graciously so.  It is wild, but joyful.  It is prophetic, but heart-broken, not mean. And wise. And hopeful. And really interesting.   As Sammy Rodriguez (President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference) puts it Merritt wants to “reconcile sanctification with service without embracing the extremes.”

I think the CNN religion editor Dan Gilgoff gets it right when he suggests just how important his work is: “The story of Merritt’s exit from a hard-edged political movement to a more centrists, more complex political place is a potent and timely symbol of the journeys of many young American evangelicals.”   

Or, as Ed Stetzer (whose brand new book I de
scribe below) puts it, “If you want to understand the shifts among many younger Christians, this book is a must read.”   You may have seen Jonathan’s essays and op-ed pieces in USA Today or seen him interviewed on TV.  He shows up on line a lot, and remains an active, energetic writer and pundit.  He’s an important guy. I’m glad to call him a friend.

I really like what Gabe himself writes of his friend’s book: “After a wearisome decade where younger Christians welcomed the downfall of the Religious Right, Merritt charts the way forward—helping us image a new, constructive way to advance the common good in the public square. A Faith of Our Own provides a roadmap for how Christians can engage the future.”

Here is a recent piece he wrote in the Huffington Post, replying to criticisms by the Family Research Council of an earlier piece he had written.  It documents the unseemly way some churches are linked to partisan political advocacy, replying to their odd claim that such things don’t happen in their circles.  

Thanks to our unsung sales rep, by the way, who helped us get this book before any other store in the country.  Because of our connection with Q this week, we can sell it early.

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics  Ross Douthat (Free Press) $26.00  I trust you know that the Free Press is one of the nation’s most respected public affairs publishers, indicating that this is a serious book that will be discussed in somber tones on the important talk shows.  Formerly a senior editor at The Atlantic, the author is the youngest columnist for The New York Times op-ed page, and author of several important books. Blurbs are from excellent, nuanced, careful writers and critics, such as Timothy Keller,  Alan Jacobs, the upbeat, popular Jesuit James Martin, and “crunchy con” author Rod Dreher.   We got the book in yesterday—the first place in the country, I believe—so I can do no better than to share these stellar blurbs.  Wow, if they are even partially right, this is going to be a book that you should consider.

“Not only is Ross Douthat’s account of orthodox Christianity’s decline provocative, but his critique of today’s ascendant heresies is compelling. This volume is a sustained proof of Chesterton’s thesis that when people turn from God, ‘they don’t believe in nothing–they believe in anything.’ Everyone who is interested in why the church is faring as it is in U.S. culture today needs to get this book.”
–Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City



”Bad Religion is superb: sharply critical of the amazing variety of American religious pathologies, but fair; blunt in diagnosis, but just; telling a dark tale, but telling it hopefully. For those trying to understand the last half-century or more of American religion, and to strive for a better future, it is an indispensable book.”
–Alan Jacobs, author of The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis

“Ross Douthat’s thoughtful, articulate, wide-ranging, sometimes contrarian and always provocative new book asks a tough question: Why has Christianity been so misunderstood, and so misused, in the past few decades? From those who (foolishly) watered down the most basic Christian beliefs, to those who (falsely) promised worldly success to the followers of Jesus, the values of orthodoxy (literally, “right belief”) have often been blithely set aside. With an impressive command of both history and contemporary social trends, Douthat shows not only how we ended up with a Christianity of our own making, but also how we can reclaim an adherence to the teachings of the real Jesus–not just the convenient one.”
–James Martin, SJ, author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

“Bad Religion is nothing short of prophetic. In a time of religious, political, and cultural upheaval, Ross Douthat tells the American faithful–liberals, conservatives, and everybody in between–not what we want to hear, but what we desperately need to hear. With this provocative and challenging work that no thoughtful Christian can afford to ignore, Douthat assures his place in the first rank of his generation’s public intellectuals.”
–Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons and senior editor of The American Conservative

Subversive Kingdom: Living as Agents of Gospel Transformation Ed Stetzer (Broadman Holman) $14.99  A few weeks ago I did a list of books about the missional church, about energetic new, culturally-savvy, future-facing church plants and “fresh expressions” of congregational life.  I don’t think I listed any of Stetzer’s many book on congregational life and Kingdom-driven church planting, but I could have.  He is energetic, upbeat, inspiration, and very wise, solid about how do to do this important stuff.  He has been a fan of Q since it’s inception, and it is great that he will be there again this year.  His brand spanking new book—it releases next week, and a few stores have just received them—is about this whole Kingdom vision, missional, risk-taking sort of radical discipleship.  It revisits and updates teaching he gave in his very first book, a small paperback we have sold for years, Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living (New Hope; $14.99)   It looks great, and we are happy to offer it now.  If you need some help getting your juices flowing and rekindling your fire for faith in action, this could be just the ticket. 

Q GROUP STUDIES

Here is another way to get into the Q spirit, even if you cannot be at the gathering.  We have, in the past, promoted the great DVDs and study books (which include articles to read and discuss).  These are grouped around themes, are presentations drawn from previous Q events, and are exactly the sort of culturally-engaged, big-picture, thoughtful faith-based stuff that we simply must be doing in our fellowships and churches if we are going to form people who are conversant and propelled to be involved in the world in distinctively Christian ways.

Here is a link to an older BookNotes page about these Q Group Studies and see our listing of the last batch of Q DVDs.  We have them listed, at sale prices, too.  We’d be happy to ship some to you, eager to keep this conversation going.  If you know any small group facilitator,  campus minister, social activist, or Christian leader who might find these helpful, do forward this along.  I’m surprised at how few church folks know about these kinds of resources and we are eager to promote them.  Thanks for your work in networking, evangelizing, sharing and promoting our efforts here.

BookNotes

  



I was pondering a bit today about gift-giving this time of year, and how appropriate books are to give.  The Christmas gift-giving season sees a spike in book sales and it seems that the happy holidays are great times to give books.  Often, though, we find stuff like how to crochet an outfit for your pet or books about your friends favorite sports team or rock star.  Cookbooks and jokebooks and colorful books about making your own party favors and (for the more serious set) books of history and current affairs are popular.

But what about now, holy week, and the next phase of the liturgical calendar, that of Eastertide?  Lent certainly seems a bit more somber of a season, and even as we move through pondering the passion, ending up in joyful celebration, there is this intensity to it all. Death.  Life.

I could be wrong, but it sees the festival celebrating the risen Lord isn’t quiet as mixed up with the sorts of sentimental stuff that we love in December —going home for the holidays, and kissing under the mistletoe, and getting ready for some New Year’s party.  For those who practice Easter, except for those confounding egg hunts, it is pretty clear what it is about.  Christ died.  Christ lives.  And, as Eugene Peterson might put it, we get it on it.

So what books can we give this time of year?  Well, it may be too late for a Lenten devotional (but one never knows; somebody may really appreciate reading this week about fasting and sadness and lament and passion; there is a reason many people appreciate Good Friday services, as it gives an opportunity to name our pain, to know that God, too, suffers.)

Here are a couple that are, if not forthrightly Lenten, and not celebratory, exactly, either, just are lovely good books for serious, enjoyable reading in this time after Winter but not yet Spring, this time of the end of Lent and the start of something else.

Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places  Chuck DeGroat (Square Inch/Faith Alive) $14.99  This book is special for a variety of reasons.  The “alligator-skin” suitcase feels neat, with a bit of texture, and the black and white picture of the suitcase before each chapter is a visual reminder as one moves through the pages that we really are on a journey, a journey away, a journey home.  It is handsome and a nicely made paperback. 

More importantly, it is wonderfully written.  It is not arcane or academic, but the author is obviously quite a scholar. But not only is it profoundly insightful about the human condition and what it takes to find deep change, it is–without a trace of being smarmy–very practical.  It is loaded with stories, some truly horrible, each that show the journey of a person stuck in Egypt-land, addicted, enslaved, fearful, oppressed.  Besides it being informed and thoughtful, well-written and full of stories, the author has a light touch (and a realistic one.)  This great book can be of immense benefit for anyone who is on a journey towards wholeness, seeking a break from the past, needing liberated from the Pharaohs that holds us back.  It wisely and winsomely and realistically points us to God’s promised land.

I like this smart guy’s Reformed worldview—-he explains well how that which we are often enslaved by is, in fact, a good impulse, or a wonderful part of God’s good creation.  He draws on Cornelius Plantinga’s Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, for instance, to expose the way sin works and to talk about how the gospel can counter our idols.  And he is clearly experienced in sharing grace, in rejecting legalism, in calling out toxic faith views and habits and institutions.

It is interesting that DeGroat has taught a class for decades at Reformed Theological Seminary (in Orlando, Florida) and is also a therapist (hence the tons of stories that he lovingly shares.)  He quotes Gerald May and Parker Palmer along with the Heidelberg Catechism and John Calvin.  I love a book with great quotes and fasincating footnotes and this has ’em, from Walsh & Keesmaat (Colossians Remixed) to Michael Gorman to Kenneth Bailey.  He makes good use of many medieval mystics and of contemporary psychologists like Paul David Tripp and Dan Allender.  I love that a book can quote Puritan John Flavel and modern novelist Toni Morrison, Tim Keller and Walt Brueggemann.

If this were a longer review, I’d quote most of the fabulous introduction where DeGroat explains how he got the idea for this book—that the journey out of Egypt is, in fact, the story of all of us—from studying with British theologian Alister McGrath.

This time of year, with the Holy Week resonance with Jewish Passover, especially, we certainly can realize that this God-inspired, God-empowered, God-mandated move from captivity to freedom, is the essential journey of the Christian life.  As Steve Brown writes of it, “If you’re trapped in “Egypt” and know there should be something far better, this book will change your life.  With profound biblical and theological insight, Chuck DeGroat has written a ‘travel guide’ for human and flawed travelers who want to be free.”  We highly recommend it.

Still: A Mid-Faith Crisis Lauren F. Winner (HarperOne) $24.99  I gave this a brief, positive review when it first came out—my wife had zoomed through our advanced copy and was deeply touched by it, taken with its artful literary style, and the realistic story of loss and confusion and loneliness.  I had read parts, found it very moving, wondrously written, and a bit sad.  In that review I noted that Harper even had a Lenten reading guide available for download for those that wanted to read it’s melancholy chapters bit by bit during Lent.

I want to suggest it again.  I know there are many people who are depressed.  Many people who have failed to live up to their best Christian ideals, many who suffer with disillusionment and even despair.  I think this book will help because it is honest about that stuff, well written, raw, real.  Lauren is one of the best in doing contemporary memoir and here she tells of her dark night of the soul after she left her husband.  Out of confidentiality or respect, I guess, she doesn’t say much about the nature or failure of the marriage, but she does write about her inner life in the wake of that sorrow.  More, though, it is about something that happens to many of us, regardless of how we’ve fouled up or how badly life’s hurts have hit us: we grow distant from God.  We think God has grown distant from us.  Our faith may or may not carry us through.  To use Chuck DeGroat’s powerful analogy, we want to go back to Egypt.  Ms Winner has done a spectacular job writing a restrained, insightful, pathos-filled story of this part of her life, this leg of her journey.  Some of the writing is luminous, poetic, and at times it is plain.  She writes about the biggest matters, and always places her quest amidst the details—antidepressants cause her to put on weight; she wants to come across as a spiritual mentor and helpful older friend to some students, but loses her keys, so they have to rescue her; she fines great grace in going to a pie eating thing at her church; she goes to her mother’s grave and sings hymns that her mother loved, but the Episcopal priest didn’t allow them to be sung as the funeral liturgy.

I am sure that many will find Still to be thrilling to read, taking in the clever
lines and interesting word choices, the flow of the paragraphs. Others will appreciate her candid discussions about her own spiritual practices, about prayer, about her journey through doubt and anguish. It seems like a good time to share it, now, in this week when we ponder Jesus’ own sense of being forsaken.

New Collected Poems Wendell Berry (Counterpoint) $30.00  Any collection of Berry’s work is a cause for celebration, and this “new” collection of previous work is the most comprehensive volume done yet.  It is a big, handsome hardback with, as you can see, a great brownish design and a beautiful hawk on the cover–and, the photo on the back is new, for what it is worth. There is one new poem, (“The Country of Deja Vu”), a short little piece about reprinting his old work, which seems kind of funny.   

Included, then, in this anthology are all the poems found in these earlier books: The Broken Ground (1964), Findings (1969), Openings (1968), Farming: A Hand Book (1970), The Country of Marriage (1973), Clearing (1977), A Part (1980), The Wheel (1982), Entries (1984), Given (2005), Leavings (2010.)   As you may notice, a few poetry volumes are missing (the gift book Window Poems, for instance or Timbered Choir) but all the others are here.  There is an odd note indicating that a few might have been excised by Mr. Berry, but I can’t tell which poems are missing.  Surely, most are there in these 489 pages.  It is the first time such a large, complete volume has been compiled.

Many prestigious literary voices have honored Mr. Berry’s work, and many have explained why he is so important.   He himself has written about poetry (I adored the one he wrote about William Carols Williams of Rutherford.  And, of course, he is respected for his novels and essays which seamlessly explore his agrarian vision.  A few months back,  I told you about a recent collection of essays about him, a brilliant analysis called The Human Vision of Wendell Berry edited by Mark Mitchell and Nathan Schlueter, published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.)  I hope you know just how esteemed he is. He was recently awarded the National Humanities Medal. Here is a bit from The New York Times Book Review,

Wendell Berry’s poetry is a validation of his decision…to give up the literary life in New York and seek a deeper bond with his ancestral home, a hillside farm in Henry County, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. His straightforward search for a life connected to the soil, for marriage as a sacrament and family life, affirms a style that is resonant with the authentic…He can be said to have returned American poetry to a Wordsworthian clarity of purpose.

Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son  Anne Lamott (Riverhead) $26.95  Well, not sure what this has to do with Lent, or Easter-time, exactly, but it is a new book that ought to be in some book lover’s Easter basket.  If you want to give a gift that will be a good read, a fun and funny and troubling and inspiring book, the new one from this beloved zany writer—colorful is putting it mildly—could be just the ticket.  I know this isn’t for everyone.  She uses some language.  Her theology is, uh, eccentric.  A few hardened secularists might find her too daffy in her love for Jesus.  Some conservative sisters and brothers will find her open-minded liberality just a bit much.  And the whole premise is about an unplanned pregnancy and a young couple that isn’t married. Yet, she talks about her church, she talks about her fears and hopes, she talks about her foibles, she talks about her incredible love for her son, Sam, his girlfriend who he got pregnant, and the wonderful little boy that came to be.  And the whole shebang, the extended family, the new relatives, the ups and downs, etc. etc.

Just as the addicted, bohemian, world-famous novelist was in the process of becoming a Christian, years ago (narrated so wonderfully in Traveling Mercies) Lamott wrote a memoir about raising her young son, Sam. That great book was called, cleverly, Operating Instructions.  Well, that Sam is mostly grown up.  (By the way, I mentioned in my previous post, that he had made a small appearance in Mark Yaconelli’s book Contemplative Youth Ministry because Mark had been the youth worker at Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, where Anne and Sam attended.)

Yes, this is a full on memoir, a year’s worth of ruminations, day by day, as the late teenage pregnancy turns Sam and Amy into a young mom and dad of a baby named Jax, who comes into their lives and hearts like a storm, bringing a houseful of extended family, friends, trouble and grace.  Yes, there is trouble, and yes there is grace. And adventures.  What a funny, creative, crazy, new tale—one some her her fans hadn’t quite expected.  If you like her loopy style and her liberal politics and her big, big heart, you’ll dig this.  Sam himself has co-written a bit, and his voice is in there, too.  He isn’t always happy.  Nobody is.  But there it is.

So maybe this is an Easter story, after all.   Despite broken, hard,
situations, love wins.  Grace extended, goodness happens, and, in God’s mercy, there can be
new life.

BookNotes

What a privilege it was to get to set up a large book display at the 7th annual Youth Workers and Student Leaders event held at Messiah College, near us here in Central PA.  (By the way, you can earn a Masters in Youth and Young Adult Ministry at Messiah, from some folks I greatly respect.) Youth workers, volunteers, teens and college students browsed our books, asked good questions, and complimented us on the diversity of titles we stock.  We’ve been told that we have one of the best selections of youth ministry books—theoretical stuff and “how to” books, visionary resources and curriculum pieces, books on service projects and books on retreat planning, books and DVDs of Bible study and goofy resources for games, getting kids talking, and various sorts of experiential activities.  

We carry much of the classic backlist of major youth min monsters, Youth Specialties and Group.  We have Anabaptist resources from Mennonite and Brethren publishers and Roman Catholic titles (like the good stuff from St. Mary’s Publishers.)  We have almost all the youth-related books done by Pilgrim Press and Westminster John Knox as well the ones from Presbyterian & Reformed. Abingdon does a lot and we stock ’em.  We love Barefoot Press, an edgy and thoughtful publishing venture of the Nazarene Publishing House, who are doing some of the very best youth books out these days.  Anyway, we try to represent a lot of different sorts of resources and trust that our display at Messiah illustrated the good work of many different presses, many different gifts from many corners within the Body of Christ.

It was great to listen to Mark Yaconelli, the keynote speaker this year, whose three books are very, very important and really useful.  But before I name them, let me set the stage.

 A good number of years ago, I made a prediction, and I’ve patted myself on the back a couple of times (hee-hee) when it came to pass.  When The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry by Kenda Creasy Dean & Ron Foster was published by the Upper Room in 2005, I said it was a watershed moment in the history of youth ministry publishing.  It was seminal, offering a new model, and a new emphasis, drawing on the new millennium revival of contemplative spirituality that had been sweeping the churches.  From Henri Nouwen to Richard Foster, Joyce Rupp to Dallas Willard, Richard Rohr and Ruth Haley Barton, harkening back to desert fathers and mystics like Brother Lawrence and A. W. Tozer, folks were yearning for deeper encounters with God.  It was only a matter of time until somebody seriously said that we should let the kids get in on it, too.


The Godbearing Life looked askance at the entertainment model, the approach that tries to be oh-so-relevant and high energy fun. (See the new book by PCA author, Brian Cosby, who just released Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Your Ministry From an Entertainment Culture (P&R; $12.99), for an even more crabby–and mostly right, I think—insistence that we can, to use Marva Dawn’s famous formulation, “reach out with out dumbing down.” Gospel-centered youth ministry, indeed!) 

Godbearing suggested that programs and curriculums and techniques and games and activities need to be toned down; kids in their fast-paced world—a social context that has only gotten faster, and much more virtual—need, mostly, for the church to provide a place to calm down.  To be quiet, unplugged, to know God in the gentle ways shown to us by the monastic traditions.  Godbearing Life wasn’t interested in boring kids, but it also wasn’t interested is stoking their energies, winning them over by sheer fun and enthusiasm; okay, maybe it wanted to bore them a little; the authors are from Princeton, after all. (Sorry, that was a joke.)  It was wonderfully counter-cultural, seriously theological, and, mostly, contemplative.  It was to usher in a new approach to youth ministry, inviting spiritual practices, quiet discipleship, and a radical perspective that seemed unlike the big, slick programs of the big slick churches (or the little frumpy churches trying to ape the big slick churches.)  It was nearly evangelical, embodying really good news that there are ancient ways that help us know the triune God. We can help kids slow down, grow in grace and mindfulness; we can learn the art of attentiveness.  We can see our ministry not about numbers or pizazz, but bearing witness to God’s work, already active, in the world, and in the lives of our teens.



Well, this didn’t change everything, but it changed a lot.  From Group Publishers, within a year, came youth labyrinths, and from Youth Specialties came great stuff about going deep.  Barefoot did remarkable, fabulous little books like Sacred Life: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Living ($9.99)  Conservative evangelical Protestants inviting their Bible-quizzing kids to also light candles and pray using prayer beads or going the the Ignatian Examen? (Sacred Life, with a chapter by a good friend from here in York, was followed up by several more in their “Ancient Faith” series, small, cool volumes such as Sacred Time, Sacred Space, and Sacred Community.)

Well, that brings us to the Messiah Youth Ministry Conference, always a great, solid event. This year, as I noted, the remarkable
 Mark Yaconelli was their keynote speaker.  Mark had us all howling in laughter, just like his crazy dadio, the late, great Mike Yaconelli—would have, with wild stories of outrageous pranks and Kingdom trouble-making.  Mark is a great example of this next generation of spiritual leaders within youth ministry leaders and authors.  Yac 2.0 can be as zany as his dad, but speaks in ways that sound less specifically evangelical and more ecumenical.  His imaginative prayer experience could have been done at a Taize service or taken from an Upper Room prayer book.  His vision of listening deeply to the kids who hurt—and, according to Chap Clark’s essential books like Hurt, that is an inordinate percentage of youth, including many, many church kids—was quite profound.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share the gospel with kids (he clearly, clearly does!) but the way into that is at first, and largely, incarnational, being in authentic, healing relationships, shown mostly by beholding.  Listening.  But who knew contemplative, Nouwen-esque spiritual work could be so darn fun?  It was a good day.

And, for the record, thanks to at Messiah who sat through my rambling workshops, presented on sheer adrenaline and the good grace of God’s sustaining energy.  I had gotten virtually no sleep the night before, so my show and tell book time was half revival service and half infomercial.  I hope it was helpful.

Here are a couple of youth ministry books I’m excited about, including Mark Yaconelli’s, and a few more that are pretty foundational.  Spread the word to those who you think might appreciate this.  We’re glad the BookNotes tribe is so diverse, and so willing to share the news that there are solid books, interesting resources, good stuff, available from Hearts & Minds.  Any of these are 20% off. Just use the link shown below which takes you to
the secure webpage order form. Thanks.

Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church  Kenda Creasy Dean (Oxford University Press) $24.95  I suppose almost everyone who pays attention to youth ministry and church-related publishing will know this is a heavy, academic, research-based indictment about the feeble views of religion that are articulated by most American churched teens.  We have championed it, and referred to it here. From conservative to mainline, Catholic to Jewish, Dean shows (drawing on Christian Smith’s research) that congregations are failing at giving their kids a theological framework and vocabulary to know what in God’s name we’re supposed to believe.  Bleak.  Essential.

To say this is a wake up call is putting it mildly.  I was glad some ordinary lay volunteers seemed to have heard of it (good for them) and not surprised that a lot of folks had not.  If you’re not buying it from us at our discounted price, get it from your church library, who ought to have it available.  Or your public library if your church doesn’t have a resource room for sharing books. It is worth it.

The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry  Andrew Root & Kenda Creasy Dean  (IVP) $18.00  This is the Andrew Root who teaches at Luther Seminary and who wrote the important Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry (IVP; $17.00) and the wonderful Promise of Despair: The Way of the Cross as the Way of the Church (Abingdon; $18.00. ) And, yes, this is the KCD who rocked us all with Godbearing Life.  And, yep who wrote the must-read Almost Christian.  This new one is spectacular, offering truly theological takes on various aspects of youth ministry culture.  It is not silly and it is not light.  It is amazingly astute, and of interest for anyone who (a) likes theology or (b) doesn’t like theology because it is so often abstracted away from life.   There are chapters like “The Eschatological Significance of Church Camp” and one on “Hormonal Theology” and an amazing one on hermeneutics. I like the way the theology of the cross comes up time and again (Root is a Lutheran, you know) and it is good to have ruminations on important stuff like mission trips, confirmation mentors, and outdoor wilderness trips. (There isn’t much really good stuff on outdoor education from a profound theological frame so some—you know who  you are!—should buy this just for this chapter.)  I named this a book of the year after it was released late in 2011.  There is nothing like it in print. 

Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus Mark Yaconelli (YS/Zondervan) $19.99  I love the preface of this by Anne Lamott.  Her son Sam, introduced to the world in the beautiful Operating Instructions, ends up being a kid with the good fortune of having Mark Y as a youth worker at his church in a formative year or so.  A conversation with Sam ends up in the book, so Anne glowed and commended the book, and the integrity of Mr. Y.  You can read more about Sam, by the way, in the brand new memoir he helped out with by his famous mom, Some Assembly Required which I’ll review here later.  It is poignant and funny, Anne’s first bone fide memoir, about becoming a grandmother.

More to the point for this post, though, you can read Mark’s description of his contemplative model for doing the God-bearing life thing.  This is a truly wonderful book, very highly recommended.

Downtime: Teaching Kids to Pray (Zondervan) $19.99  The first few chapters offer fabulously written overviews of the contemplative life, why youth need adults to help them into this sacred space, and how to live into the model of ministry he so wonderfully described in his previous book.  The second half is loaded with exercises, experiences, lessons, and tools for teaching historic practices that create transforming encounters with the Holy.  In some ways, this is like the great little paperback (another book that illustrated this movement of spirituality books for teens) Soul Shaping by Tony Jones (Zondervan; $19.99.)  I hardly can think of a more practical handbook to doing what so many of us talk about: actually doing the spiritual disciplines in a way that allows us to deepen our knowledge of God and be transformed into Christlikeness by God’s very present Spirit.  Thanks to Jones, and certainly to Yaconelli, for guiding us in ways to not only embrace these spiritual disciplines (I don’t really like to call them tools, and even less to refer to them as techniques) with teenagers.

Wonder, Fear,& Longing: A Book of Prayers  Mark Yaconelli (Zondervan) $9.99  I have a very good friend who routinely uses this with middle school kids, and it certainly is accessible to high school youth.  This is a paperback collection of short devotions,  great stories, ruminations and parables on the divine presence, Biblical studies that point us to God in a way that names and honors and attends to our own longings, the need for wonder, our fears and hurts.  All of us — including youth– have these mystical longings, these desires to appreciate God’s creation, an appreciation for quietude. This is really, real stuff, raw, sometimes, but good, and, I believe, beautiful.  It is a prayer book, a book of prayers, Biblically-based and imaginative, grounded and poetic, wonder-full, and yet very usable.  Love it.

OMG: A Youth Ministry Handbook  edited by Kenda Creasy Dean (Abingdon) $26.00  This may be a bit pricey for a paperback, but it has become the definitive resource for creatively ruminating on the meaning of youth ministry in mainline denominational churches.  Others should learn from it, but the style and ethos of this multi-authored work is rooted in a realistic sort of faith perspective… I have a few friends who I really trust who work in or teach youth ministry and they all agree this is one of the best books they’ve seen on this topic.  If you don’t do youth ministry yourself (and your still reading this) ask the youth pastor at your church if she or he knows this. They should.

Sticky Faith Teen Curriculum with DVD: 10 Lessons to Nurture Faith Beyond High School Kara Powell & Brad Griffin (YS/Zondervan) $19.99  We have been promoting books like You Lost Me and Derek Melleby and CPYU’s College Transition Initiative and this new material is a godsend for those wanting to help senior high students deepen their faith in ways that will last. They need a
faith that really sticks (get it?)  There are three books in this series, first, a basic book (for anyone, really, but perhaps aimed at parents and the everyday ways we can help pass on a sticky faith. There is a youth worker’s edition, obviously for those in congregational leadership, volunteers youth workers or Sunday school teachers or others who want the church to be more influential in the lives of their youth.  And then there is this one, the one that is the curriculum piece, designed to use with older youth.  Fabulous stuff, coming out of the significant studies being done out at Fuller Theological Seminary.  All three are tremendous.  Thanks to those at Messiah who purchased one or more of the set.  If you love using one of these, let us know if you want one of the others.  All three are unique and truly valuable.

A World Unbroken: Hope and Healing for a Shattered World  (Barefoot Ministries) $14.99 I love the create way this book explains the coherent unfolding drama of basic plot of the Bible; each chapter colorfully describes episodes of creation, brokenness, promise, presence, satisfaction, mission and hoped for restoration.  Authors include Scot McKnight, Ian Cron, Kara Powell, Chris Folmsbee, Mark Oestreicher and other creative women and men.  What a great book, with a very contemporary design and hip feel.

A World Unbroken Creative Devotional Experience (Barefoot Ministries) $10.99  This very creative, edgy youth journal goes along with the Bible overview, helping kids process this vision of a world being restored to goodness and beauty.  There are spaces to doodle, pages for art, lots of good opportunities to dream big dreams, imagining how the big Biblical story of restoration could help inspire us to be agents of God’s mission.

DVD A World Unbroken: Creative Media Experience (Barefoot Ministries) $59.99  Here is how they describe this supplemental resource for the World Unbroken project: This comprehensive DVD has seven animated short films that visually depict the story of God through the Bible. Also included on this DVD is a seven week curriculum that uses the videos as a discussion starter to journey deeper into the story of God.  By the way, besides the 7 short films, the group discussion questions there are tons of extras—t-shirt designs, behind the scenes footage, other cool stuff on the disc.

Building a Youth Ministry That Builds Disciples: A Small Book About a Big Idea Duffy Robbins (YS/Zondervan) $16.99  There is little doubt that Duffy, of Eastern University, has been one of the more influential and helpful youth ministry educators in our generation.  This new book brings to mind (again) the “sticky faith” idea: will our youth programs and relationships instill in youth not just a flash in the pan of enthusiasm for God or church, but a steady, serious, life-long devotion “that lasts beyond their years in the youth room.”

DVD What Did I Sign Up For? Things Every Youth Ministry Volunteer Should Know Chris Folmsbee (YS/Zondervan) $31.99  If I were in charge of a youth ministry program, I’d buy this thing and pass it around so that everyone who helps out watches it. (Or, have a party and view the stuff together–even better!)  This training course includes four major sections of the classic stuff folks really do need to know, presented in a fairly no-nonsense sort of way.  It is nicely done, nothing outrageous, just tons of good info and some nice enouragement.  Here are the main units: Understanding Youth Work and Youth Ministry, Relationships and Partnerships, Developing Programs and Environments, and Administration and Logistics.

The Adolescent Journey: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Practical Youth Ministry  Amy Jacober (IVP)  $18.00  Okay, I’m going to admit–this may be designed to be used as a text book at some Christian college that teaches youth ministry, or maybe for a youth min class at seminary, if seminary teaches such things.  But I think we volunteers most need this stuff — we who aren’t specialists and need a good, one-volume course on adolescent psychology, faith development, and applied theology for their lives.  This is meaty, I know. It’s why you should get it.  Kudos to IVP for giving such solid resources for those of us who want to learn as much as we can, to do our jobs well.  And for that great cover art.
 

Sacred Space: A Hands-On Guide to Creating Multisensory Worship Experiences for Youth Ministry  Dan Kimball  (Zondervan) $29.99  This is just what it sounds like, a handbook to how to create–with tons of models, plans, ideas, and examples—of creative liturgies, fun services, multi-sensory experiences that draw youth into worship.  This is a good resource to have on hand and to pull on on occasion, when planning a special event, to use during a retreat or lock in, or some other time when an extraordinary, experiential program is called for.  This includes a cool CD (but you’ll have to buy some supplies to pull it all off.)

 
99 Thoughts for Smaller Church Youth Workers: Doing More With Less  Stephanie Caro (Group) $4.99  We stock most of these nifty, pocket-sized 99 books, and most are chock-full of ideas. Most churches, we are aware, are smallish.  We have lots of books for small churches, and several specifically for those are volunteer in their small church youth ministry.  Here’s some encouragement and fun ideas…

BookNotes