Around the Horn: Friends w/ Books!

This weeks "Around the Horn" is geared towards friends who wrote books that are coming out soon.

Public Jesus: Exposing the Nature of God in Your Community by Tim Suttle. Check out one of the accompanying videos. Here's the description:

Religion is personal and private. 

Many people are raised to believe religion is personal and private and should be left out of public life. But even if we wanted to follow the dictum “religion is personal and private,” doing so would be impossible. God is out and about in cultures and societies, working in every corner of creation to bring about God’s good purposes. God belongs in the public square because the public square belongs to God.

Yet, what it means to say that God belongs in public life is far from clear. Is it the street preacher shouting on the corner about the coming judgment? Is it backing Christian candidates for public office? Is it relief efforts, fundraising, Christian music, books, and concerts? What if the answer is as varied as the number of humans on the planet? What if the way God is present in public life is through you and me?

Answering these questions will require great imagination and ingenuity. It will require much more from all of us than we will be comfortable giving. It will require that we embrace Jesus’s call to take up our cross and follow him. Ranging from vocation to politics, Public Jesus invites us to wrestle with all kinds of questions about what it means for us to live our faith in public and what role we play in embodying the coming kingdom.

A Seat at the Table: A Generation Reimaginng Its Place in the Church by Shawna Songer Gaines and Timothy R. Gaines. Here's the description:

Why are so many 20- and 30-something Christians disappearing from the church? 

They are told how much the church wants young people, yet there is growing suspicion among young believers about who is in and who is out of the scope of Christian orthodoxy. Through this suspicion, a rift between the generations has emerged. In the face of frustration, of being cut out because they don t seem to fit, young believers often take their gifts and leave the church.

This book helps those who feel displaced by this generational collision to find a sense of place and welcome with a church that is still becoming all that God wants it to be.

If you are a young person who wonders if there is a place in the church for someone like you, or if you want to know if your own church can be the kind of body in which young people are welcome, A Seat at the Table will give you a new personal and kingdom perspective. Embrace the challenge to re-imagine your relationship with the church in light of this generational collision, not seeing it as an unredeemable rift, but as an opportunity to give and receive hospitality.

Whirlybirds and Ordinary Times: Reflections on Faith and the Changing of Seasons by Katie Savage. Okay, so as my wife she's more than a "friend" to me, but we're still friendly with each other :)  There's no official description for this one yet, but it's a collection of essays loosely based on a seasons of the church year.

If there are others of you, my friends, who have a book coming out soon and you are not here, you should be. It's either because I forgot, or don't know about it. So, tell me (again)!