Although I’d rather muse on Epiphany, I suppose it’s okay to exclaim Happy New Year! And, as you will see, I’m hoping to make good on this new year window of opportunity by suggesting a few great daily (or weekly) devotionals. New Year resoluter or not, who doesn’t want a fresh start, taking on spiritual practices that can create habits that are life-giving and transformative?

You too, by the way, might help in this bookish ministry by buying something for someone else. You know as well as we do that there are some folks who aren’t big readers and who don’t have the capacity or interest to read a long-form study of Christian theology, let alone a mature perspectival exploration of their work or public lives. So a devotional is the best they can do for Christian formational reading and we should help them now while the time is ripe.

I’ll list a few I’m excited about — you shouldn’t have to waste time fretting about what to read, and with this list you won’t have to.

(Although, truth be told, we have hundreds of others — old ones and new ones, cute ones and dry ones, short, simply ones, and others that have more intellectual heft. There are fancy leather ones and cheap paperbacks, some written with whimsy, others with deeply Biblical intensity; some are for 30 days, some are a year long. We’ve got daily, prayerful volumes of old medieval saints or collections of excerpts of great writers like Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, MLK, Richard Foster, Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, N.T. Wright, Richard Rohr, or Tim Keller.  Let us know if you need further help.)

And, as I’d hope you’d expect from Hearts & Minds, we do have a few that are good for people in their various work-worlds or unique situations. For instance, our dynamic friend Megan Foltz, RN, has a fabulous little devotional for nurses called Anatomy of Holiness. Educators will appreciate This Year, Lord: Teachers’s Prayers of Blessing, Liturgy, and Lament by Sheila Quinn Delony. History buffs will love Faith and History: A Devotional edited by historians at Baylor, Christopher Gehrz and Beth Allison Barr. I suppose it is more of a study, but scientists (or science majors in college) should have Jesus, Beginnings, and Science: A Guide by David & Kate Vosburg. I’ve appreciated the recent 100 Prayers for Writers: Creative Fuel for Inspired Work by Bob Hostetler. Scholars and profs should know Growing in Understanding: Devotions for Christian Academics by Dirk Jongkin which we get from the UK. Finding God in the Garden: Devotions for Every Season would appeal to anyone with a green thumb. And we’ve often celebrated Heaven and Nature Sing 365 Daily Devotionals for Outdoor & Nature Lovers edited by Sharon Brodin for hikers, rock climbers, paddlers, and others who play in God’s great outdoors. Married couples might consider the tender collection of stories and lessons in Devotions for a Sacred Marriage: A Year of Weekly Devotions for Couples by Gary Thomas or the serious, daily devo by Tim & Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple’s Devotional.  Send us a note if you have specific needs. We’re here to help.

FIFTEEN GREAT DAILY DEVOTIONALS

A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance Diana Butler Bass (St. Martin’s Essentials) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

I have highlighted this before and have shared that introducing Diana at a Lancaster (PA) presentation helping launch this book a month or more ago was one of the highlights of our year. Her lovely, thoughtful, provocative lecture explained why she wrote this book and how attention to the seasons of the church calendar might be just what we need to enhance our radical loyalty to Christ’s reign, even as we are faced with nearly insurmountable social and political problems. The book is beautiful, the spirit is lovely, the chapters solidly Biblical. I mean, they are really Biblical, and very interesting, packed with fresh insight.  It starts in Advent and has plenty of food for thought for the whole year.

Bill McKibben notes that many can hardly “summon the energy or the hope required” for being a Christina now, but, in this moment, Diana goes deep.  Brian McLaren says this book will be celebrated as one of her best. Anne Lamott is right to call her “a brilliant scholar and a wonderful storyteller.”

Rhythms of Faith A Devotional Pilgrimage Through the Church Year Claude Atcho (Waterbrook) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I’ve announced this before, too, but I want to suggest again that it is so very good I’m sure you’ll be blessed spending time with it each day. If Diana’s book, above, has a set of weekly meditations, this is a daily reader, so the devotions are a bit more brief, more succinct, perhaps, but they are loaded with stories and examples and insights. Like many BookNotes readers, Atcho is a fairly recent convert to honoring the flow and rhythms of the liturgical year — he was raised in a more non-liturgical setting and is now (besides being a community college professor) an Anglican priest. He tells about how this church calendar thing has shaped him, and it is nothing short of wonderful. Supplement A Beautiful Year with Rhythms of Faith. You won’t regret it

Every Day for Everyone: 365 Devotions from Genesis to Revelation N. T. Wright & John Goldingay (WJK) $27.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

I’ve explained this before in a fairly simple way: you may know that N.T Wright did a set of short, succinct Bible commentaries called the New Testament for Everyone. It includes his own translation of the text and there is one (or sometimes two) volumes on each book of the New Testament. Part-way through that popular series the good folks at WJK (a Presbyterian publishing house)  realized they could use an “Old Testament for Everyone” commentary series that would offer similarly succinct but wise insight. And it would have to have a fresh translation of the text and (I gather they said) it had to be done quickly. The brilliant and exceptionally reliable John Goldingay took up the task and started doing the “Old Testament for Everyone” book by book by book. He worked hard and just after Wright’s NT set was being completed, Goldingay’s OT set was done. Hooray.

And here, my friends, are excerpts of those two sets of commentaries, first, the “…for Everyone” ones on the OT by Goldingay and then, in the second part of the year, the NT entries by Wright.  Every Day for Everyone unfolds chronologically and is a great resource for dipping into at any point, and exceptional for a daily guide to reading the Bible thoughtfully.

Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year Christine Valters Paintner (Broadleaf) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

We have long been a fan of Christina Paintner, the online abbess at Abbey of the Arts, a virtual global monastery offering retreats, prayer services, books, and resources to nurture contemplative practices and creative expression. We’ve appreciated her quiet, gentle books on Celtic spirituality, on creativity, on communing with creation, books like her recent, quite handsome Broadleaf title, Breath Prayer.  This new one is not merely a faith-based version of a popular trend, but is nearly a mystical call. “Your word is waiting,” she says, “hovering just beneath the surface. All you need is the quiet courage to listen and receive it.” She’s an expert spiritual director and guides us here to listen and wait and “open yourself to deeper sources of wisdom in order to embrace a guiding word that will anchor your life for the coming year.” Whew.

Writer Jon Sweeney (who has a brand new book called Experiencing God: 36 Ways According to Saint Francis, by the way) says of it, interestingly, “This book helped me feel the difference between the din and the hum of the world. With its help, I’m learning to quiet the one and embrace the other.”

Daily Doctrine: A One Year Guide to Systematic Theology Kevin DeYoung (Crossway) $32.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

I just recommended this earlier today to a customer wanting to dig more deeply into Reformed theology, but who isn’t well-read in the genre. This handsome hardback seemed to be meaty enough for her tastes and yet, it being a daily reader in a devotional format seemed to help make it more accessible, do-able. DeYoung is an energetic PCA pastor and thinker and writer and here offers a set of readings, one a day for a week, each week or a different topic.

This is no-nonsense but warm, rich and full and majestic, pointing us to God and God’s attributes and how God has worked in the world. If you want to get into the glories of historic/classic Protestant views of justification and sanctification, union with Christ and Kingdom service in the world, thinking through the core tenets of the faith from the Triune God to the dignity of the human person to the seriousness of sin to the work of Christ to the nature of the church to the hope of new creation, this book of “daily doctrine” could be just what you’re looking for.

Enough for Today: 40 Reflections for Surviving the Wilderness Donna Barber (IVP) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I love these rather small, compact-sized volumes that carry plenty of insight but are not as daunting as a major, year-long read. And this brand new one — oh my, I so respect this author. She is a black woman activist leader and a bit of a contemplative. She was cofounder of The Voices Projects which (as they say at their website) “gathers leaders of color – who work in the arts, business, church, media, politics and education – for important conversations about the current challenges and triumphs within our communities and our role, as cultural influencers, to bring about change.”

Anyway, we loved Donna Barber’s Bread for the Resistance: Forty Devotions for Justice People and have long awaited a new one from her candid and inspiring pen. This is for anyone who has been in lament — from illness or anger, experiencing violence or other sorts of trauma — and she offers good words to hold on to in the midst of the wilderness. As she says, “Don’t walk away. Rediscover the God of your first love and find a way forward with renewed hope and faith.”  You can face your fears, rediscover your identity, and — yes!  — find manna, “enough for today.”

We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor edited by Liz Theoharis and Charon Hribar (Broadleaf) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I hope you know of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, founded by the dynamic Black pastor, Rev. Dr. William Barber. Both Theoharis and Hribar work for the Poor People’s Campaign (Rev. Dr. Liz is co-chair with Barber and Dr. Charon Hribar is a co-director of theo-musicology and movement arts for the Campaign. In other words, she is, artfully, the movement song leader — what a bit of brilliance!

So of course, the singers known as Sweet Honey in the Rock have a blurb on the back of this, saying We Pray Freedom “offers a powerful blueprint for individuals, churches, unions, and organizations to work together toward liberation, justice and equality for all.” Nice, huh?

With other raves from the likes of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Richard Rohr, this book of prayers and rituals and liturgies is a vivid companion to one that came out just a few years ago, We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign. To be clear, there are a real variety of prayers and services but there are also reflections about them, studies on them, even discussion questions to help mobilize folks to “pray with their feet.” If you are involved in organizing around poverty or food banks or anti-racism work, this collection will be useful for you.

For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional Hanna Reichel (Eerdmans) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Resources like this are rare and important, at least for many of us. It is a solid, Biblically-based, theologically-sophisticated little guide for “ordinary Christians seeking to live faithfully in extraordinary times.

Look closely at the cover and you’ll notice the classic SOS symbols, hinting that this is for those of us who know our society is in trouble. The MAGA movement is pressing against democratic rules and many fundamentalist churches have made right wing extremism a shibboleth, a central part of their false gospel. And so many folks are falling for it, with right-wing violence at an all time high. (And violence from the extreme left wing isn’t very pretty, either.)  Sure most of us are frustrated that Trump names stuff after himself — from buildings to bills to bombers — almost all the time; sure we hate his stupid midnight tweets that sometimes are vulgar and repulsive, filled with vitriol and name calling. His cozying up to neo-Nazis and his disdain for the poor simply must be resisted. This little devotional is for those who know about our perilous times and want inspiration to keep on keeping on.

Kristen Kobes Du Mez — a reliable and sane and pleasant voice amidst the hubbub — says the book contains “remarkable historical and theological depth” and exclaims that “this is the book I have been waiting for.” Jemar Tisby says “each entry is immediately relevant to our current context yet also echoes with ancient wisdom.” Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, in discussing the hard work of care and discernment (“of interpreting the past for the present”) writes that “For Such a Time as This reveals Hanna Reichel to be a master of the craft.”

Reichel is a professor of theology at Princeton and an elder in her PC(USA) church.

The Art of Living in Season: A Year of Reflections for Everyday Saints Sylvie Vanhoozer (IVP) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

This was a big seller last year and we explained that it was wonderfully, wonderfully written, creatively developed around famous creche sets popular in the author’s native France, and that it followed the liturgical year, and the seasons of creation, inviting us into the story of God in the realities of ordinary life. Those that got it loved it, or so we’ve heard. This past Advent we promoted her new small one, The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting, which was a big hit. She’s such a fine writer and brings this unique, artful flavor. Highly recommended.

My spiritual life has long been shaped by the liturgical calendar, but this book opened a cornucopia of new insights (and delights) for me. I was utterly charmed, a smile dancing on my face as I read each chapter. The adventure starts in Vanhoozer’s native Provence with its distinctive Advent traditions, and from there she artfully shows us by her felicitous language and personal example how to incorporate the wisdom of her tradition where we each live and work. Along the way she helps us taste a culinary spirituality, inhabit an earthy theology, and practice a neighborly hospitality, all the while anticipating our eternal home with God. — Bobby Gross, author of Living the Christian Year: How to Inhabit the Story of God

Means of Grace: A Year of Weekly Devotions Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

One of the great theologically-inclined preachers of our time, we have long promoted Rev. Rutledge’s fine works. I trust you know her major works and her collections of sermons (and her most recent little gem, Epiphany: The Season of Light.) This fabulous hardback collection of 52 sermons offers an excellent resource for the formation of your own life and discipleship and a good way to come to better familiarity with the preaching style and doctrinal content of Fleming’s good words. Cornelius Plantinga, a wordsmith and preacher we trust, says she writes with “clarity, deftness, wit, and grace.” We very highly recommend this to accompany you this or any year. As Plantinga promises, her masterly command of Scripture “becomes a powerful magnet for our attention.” Don’t you long for that?

Read these impressive endorsements, please:

This brilliant collection from Rutledge’s sermons leads us into the beauty of the church calendar, in which time itself forms us in the truth of the gospel. That the themes of Rutledge’s sermons naturally lend themselves to the pattern of the liturgical year is a testimony to the depth and range of her theological insight and her profound care for the church. Rutledge is not only a gifted theologian and homilist, but a profoundly gifted wordsmith as well, and her luminous prose gives insight on each page. I will be using this book for my own devotions, and I commend Rutledge’s wisdom to the whole church. — Tish Harrison Warren author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night

A church year’s worth of biblical meditations by the great Fleming Rutledge? Yes, please! Rutledge is one of the best preachers of our time because of her relentless focus on the boundless grace made available to us in Jesus Christ. With a preacher’s heart, an incisive mind, and a lively theological imagination, she opens the gospel to us week by week. What a gift. — Alan Jacobs author of How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

I cannot think of a more reliable guide to escort us through the church calendar with weekly devotions than Fleming Rutledge. Her love of holy Scripture and the sacred calendar combined with her half century of preaching expertise make Means of Grace a precious gift. From Advent through Ordinary Time, the words of Fleming Rutledge are indeed a means of grace to help us behold the glory of Christ. — Brian Zahnd author of The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross and When Everything’s On Fire: Faith Forged From the Ashes

We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation Brian McLaren (Jericho) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I really like Brian McLaren, as a person and as a writer. I think among some more traditionalist evangelicals he is viewed with some suspicion but I think that is mostly unfair. Sure, he shifted from his independent, Bible church decades ago, engaging questions of postmodernity and helped a generation of younger emerging evangelicals evolve into a more ecumenical, standard sort of mainline Protestant vision, always with a missional vision of God’s call (in the Bible!) to love and serve others, pointing the way to God’s grace which leads to reconciliation and the common good.  Yes, he is known for some innovative (but don’t we usually appreciate that?)

Brian has written good books of spirituality (I even have a blurb on Naked Spirituality) and he has done some remarkable work on the interconnectedness of global issues, from ecological degradation to world hunger. He has done older books on church renewal and ecumenical thinking and he has done Biblical studies resources, including a few on the teachings of Jesus. I enjoy him, respect him, and even when there are lines in some books that I wished might have been differently rendered, all in all, he is a fruitful thinker, a good writer, and an example of the sort of creative leader that we encourage folks to read and discuss.

His year-long devotional, We Make the Road By Walking, is a generative book, useful, full of hope and joy and faith and action. I very highly recommend it — if you are a fan, you really should have it. If you are not, I’d invite you to check it out. His lovely themes here of spiritual formation and the re-orientation we get as we truly hear and do the Biblical story — what the Bible calls repentance — and then the possibility of responses of fidelity, gestures of obedience and action, are all superlative.

Starting with famous meditations on being human and our longing for awe and wonder and the need to discover meaning, ending with Christ’s death, resurrection, and the Holy-Spirited action of the church, We Make the Road is a guide to being fully alive, in faith and hope. Yes!

God Didn’t Make Us To Hate Us: 40 Devotions to Liberate Your Faith from Fear and Reconnect with Joy Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail (Tarcher) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

Here is how “Father Lizzie” is described at her Epsiopalian Church plant in Austin, Texas: “Named one of Sojourner Magazine’s “12 Women Shaping the Church” in 2025, Rev. Lizzie is known for her passionate, fierce, and colorful reclamation of Christianity as a writer, priest, online creative, and proud mom of two. Lizzie has lived all over the world, with her boots now rooted in Austin, Texas. She’s living her dream as the founding planter of Jubilee Episcopal Church! She is passionate about evangelism for a God who makes each of us for joy, which is why you might see her doing silly dances and talking about church history on Instagram & TikTok with her combined 100k followers, or on her podcast with fellow Episcopal priest Rev. Laura called And Also With You.

As you might guess, this devotional is upbeat and chatty, fun and funny, vibrant and very well written. It is ideal for those who have reason to think that Christianity is not for them or for those who have been excluded or hurt by judgmental types and traditionalist churches. Her parish is, as you might surmise, inclusive of LGBTQ folks hints at working out an embodied sort of queer theology. Progressive as it may be, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us is — as I see it — evangelical and full of good, gospel-news. The title says it all, and this is a healthy invitation for those who have deconstructed their faith to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say, That is, it is an invitation to faith in God’s goodness and love and grace a call to find wholeness among God’s people.

Two more quick notes: in each major section she starts with a brief essay, exploring a myth (or fairly standard teaching that is questionable) countering it with a mystery. There are beautiful, playful, upside-down insights that show what she’s doing in this upbeat book.  And then, secondly, there are some poignant and tragic bits in the book, too, as Lizzie shares family loss and how she coped with trauma on her way to some sort of healing. She’s a good pastor, inviting us to this audacious goodness without failing to name how broken things really are.

Everything Could Be a Prayer: 100 Portraits of Saints and Mystics Kreg Yingst (Broadleaf) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is a remarkable, artful set of modernistic icons, block print designs of 100 saints and mystics. Many you’ve heard of but I suspect there are some you may not recognize. Some are stylized in incredibly creative ways and almost all of them work stunningly. I’ve got my favorites — Thomas Merton is splendid, Harriet Tubman is spot on, and Corrie Ten Boom, with shaved head and concentration camp attire, took my breath away. John Perkins was maybe my favorite, rendered so well. The Nigerian Catholic eco-warrior Wangari Maathai is fabulous, Tutu is cool in dark shades, Frederick Buechner was nice to see. The black African Saint Augustine is brilliant as was Benedict of Nursia. A few struck me as odd — I didn’t love the Dorothy Day, or John Wesley, or Mother Teresa, although he writes about them well. I’m not sure why I didn’t love the picture of Brother Lawrence, although the spoons hanging in the background were a nice touch. Not sure how dear Clare of Assisi might have been rendered differently. I didn’t like the C.S. Lewis one at all.

But these are small, picky matters. Okay, so I don’t like how Yingst did Luther’s nose. The overwhelming artfulness of this, though, is vivid and provocative and amazing. I’ve been dipping into this for a year now, and am still enchanted. The writing is solid, descriptive and reflective, with a good lesson drawn from each portrait. The quotes and the Scripture is helpful.

The overall design of each piece is sometimes really captivating too —the weirdness of Columba, the way Abba Antony’s hands stretched out in prayer frame his anguished supplication, the pencil in the picture of Bonhoeffer, that peanut in the one about George Washington Carver, the dove of peace hovering largely over nonviolent activist Eileen Egan, the ladder in the print of John Climacus and his “divine ascent.” I was deeply moved by the mushroom cloud in the background of Akashi Nagai (whose wife was burned at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.) This book has so, so much. Use it prayerfully, read it devotionally, follow the Advent or Lenten guides in the back. Kudos to artist and writer Kreg Yingst.  Wow.

Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place D. J. Marotta, illustrated and details by Ben Lansing (IVP) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

If the above-mentioned Everything Could Be a Prayer offered provocative woodcuts with bold graphics and somewhat progressive tendencies — including Black Elk and Oscar Romero and Sojourner Truth and Albrecht Durer — this one has a just somewhat more classical feel. The devotional pieces are a bit longer (well written by the Anglican pastor D.J. Marotta) and the art more of a graphic novel sort of illustration. It is masterful and I so, so appreciate it. Several customers have ordered and reordered it.

It is hard to compare the two as, on one hand, they are very similar (and both came out last year.) But yet, Our Church Speaks, rather than written by a rather renegade bohemian artist, it is by a team of Anglican Church planters, sharing how their church stands in the global tradition of worldwide saints. In fact, these are mostly characters with Feast Days in the classic tradition of the church calendar. If Yingst happily does Henri Nouwen or Christina Rossetti, Our Church Speaks offers wonderful illustrations and graphic designs of (with a few additions) those whose lives are celebrated within the church calendar. The opening essay — “Saints Over Celebrities” — is nearly worth the price of this big, handsome book.

There are 52 entries here, from Benedict & Scholastica to Johann Sebastian Bach, from Teresa of Ávila to Catherine of Sienna. The first picture is Gregory of Nazianzus while the second is Mary Slessor and the third is Thomas Aquinas. Their description (and rendition) of Absalom Jones is fantastic and they’ve got some other historic black Christian leaders, like Harriet Tubman and MLK.  Other ethnicities are shown and saints from nearly every continent are richly portrayed. They are uniformly interesting, very informative, and beautifully rendered. I’m a big, big fan, and I am sure this fabulous book will guide many into a deeper sense of our worldwide faith.  The appendices are amazing, too, by the way — one shows the chronological listing of saints by century, the other listing the saints by geography and there is a concise guide to (globally-aware) church history. This is solid, interesting, faithful stuff. Very highly recommended.

Sacred Seasons: A Family Guide to Center Your Year Around Jesus Danielle Hitchen, illustrations by Stephen Crotts (Harvest House) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I cannot say enough about this just slightly oversized hardback that includes rich woodcuts, full color photography, activities, poems, prayers, and liturgies for families wanting to live into the riches of the church calendar. The author is not a high-brow Anglo-Catholic or anything that liturgically sophisticated, just an ordinary Christian mom trying to see how their family, and yours, might have fun following the church year. As with the best books about or devotionals for the church seasons, it is focused on the person of Christ, God’s work in the world and the major holidays. As poet Malcolm Guite puts it, Sacred Seasons is “a warm, winning, and above all practical introduction to the traditional church year.”

More than an intro to the notion of following a Christian calendar, it is a guide to how to “make Jesus the center of your family’s year” and a classy handbook chock-full of ideas on how to follow these time-honored traditions. There are opportunities to remember, yes, and fun ideas and even recipes to help you observe the liturgical seasons. It is tangible, useful, rooted in the grandest vision — a Christ-centered view of time.

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