M&Ms Book Club

2008 Book Selections:

January/February:  Same Kind of Different as Me: a modern-day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them together, By Ron Hall and Denver Moore.  In alternating chapters, Ron Hall (the international art dealer) and Denver Moore (the modern-day slave) tell how the Lord brought them into a relationship and ultimately changed their lives. Their story takes us inside the world of the homeless and raises issues about race relations in our time. 

March/April:  Daughters of Hope:  Stories of Witness and Courage in the Face of Persecution by Kay Marshall Strom and Michele Rickett.  Persecution of Christians is occurring in countries around the world, and this book shows how women are often the most vulnerable victims.  Daughters of Hope gives voice to Christian women from Africa to the Middle East to Asia persevering under the yoke of oppression.  Each section provides prayer requests and practical action steps.

May/June:  Not the Way it's Supposed to Be:  A Breviary of Sin by Cornelius Plantinga.  Our culture has made a joke of sin; Plantinga's breviary (which means summary) explores the nature and dynamics of sin and shows how it makes a “joke” of us. By teaching us to understand sin better, Plantinga sharpens our appetite for moral beauty and reminds us of how desperately we need grace. This book is the “heavy-weight” on this year’s reading list and best is absorbed in small chunks. You may want to order and start reading this one early.   
 
July/August:  Simon’s Night, by Jon Hassler. In this often-humorous novel, we enter into the life of the Irish Catholic, Simon Shea. We meet him on his 8th day in a home for the elderly where he has voluntarily moved after accidentally burning down his kitchen.  The book explores how Simon’s faith and his principles have shaped his life choices, including his decision to remain married for 36 years to a wife who, very soon after their marriage, abandoned him to live with another man.  Cautions:  This book does not portray a sanitized world. But if you are not offended by the stories of the Old Testament, you are not likely to be offended by how human frailty is depicted in this book. 

September/October: The Rise of Christianity:  How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, by Rodney Stark.  Described in 1996 by Newsweek magazine as, "A fresh, blunt and highly persuasive account of how the West was won for Jesus," Dr. Stark lays out the sociological facts and figures of how Christians persuasively embodied their faith in ancient culture.  Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

November/December: The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey. This book is the result of Yancey’s quest to break through the stale stereotypes of Jesus he had fallen into after a lifetime of Christian belief.  Awarded the Gold Medallion Christian Book of the Year award in 1996 by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, The Jesus I Never Knew has inspired many to a joyfully renewed commitment to following Jesus.

2007 Book Selections

January/February:  How To Be A Christian In A Brave New World, By Joni Eareckson Tada and Nigel M. De S. Cameron.  “As a quadriplegic who has spent three decades advocating for the disability community out of a wheelchair, Joni offers the insights of a woman intimately acquainted with suffering and struggle.  Dr. Cameron shares from his vast knowledge as one of today’s foremost bioethics experts.  Together, they offer deeply informed perspectives on such pressing issues as human cloning, designer babies, redefining human nature and human harvesting.”  [Quote from back cover.]

March/April: The Big Picture, by M.D. Ben Carson, with Mr. Gregg Lewis.  This book will give us an inside look at how faith in God shaped the life of a local hero, the Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson. 

May/June:  In The Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, by Alister McGrath.  The title says it all!  But why read about the King James Bible when most of us don’t even use that version anymore?  Here’s why:  the KJV story touches on vital aspects of our own faith history, such as the Reformation, and the historic battles over Bible translation. You’ll never again take for granted the fact that you have God’s Word in your own language!

July/August:  Digging to America, by Anne Tyler.  Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist, and long-time resident of Baltimore, MD, Anne Tyler, has written a novel that explores how an Iranian immigrant family and an American family learn about each other’s cultures and work through their misunderstandings.  The families first meet at BWI while awaiting the arrival of their adopted daughters from Korea. By turns painful and humorous, this is a story of people persevering with one another and ultimately becoming friends.

September/October:  Wicca’s Charm:  Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality, by Catherine Edwards Sanders.  Statistics indicate that Wicca is one of the fastest growing spiritualities today, especially among young women.  Why is that?  As a Christian and a journalist, Catherine Sanders undertook to understand what makes this movement so compelling and how we as Christians can speak the nourishing truth of the Gospel to Wiccans.

November/December:  Jesus and His World, by Peter Walker.  In this book, Peter Walker, lecturer in New Testament studies at Oxford, argues that if we don’t understand Jesus on His terms, which includes understanding the time and place during which He lived, then we will distort Jesus such that He fits our preferred expectations and agendas.  In a text beautifully supplemented with artwork and photos of the Holy Land, Walker helps us better understand the world Jesus inhabited. 

2006 Book Selections

January/February:  Lost Women of the Bible, By Carolyn Custis James.  Carolyn Custis James takes a fresh look at the women in the Bible, recovering dimensions of their lives that have been overlooked, in order that their stories may encourage us in our 21st Century walk of faith. Be sure to sign up for the all-EP churches women’s retreat where Carolyn Custis James will speak.

March/April:  Miracle of Miracles, by Mina Nevisa, with Jim Croft. Iranian-born, and Muslim-raised, Mina Nevisa was miraculously converted to Christianity in the 1980s.  This is her story of transformation and deliverance.  An addendum explains key concepts of Islam. 

May/June:  How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, By Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart.  This book, widely used in Christian colleges and seminaries, teaches basic principles of biblical interpretation.  Written in an easy-to-understand style, the authors provide us ordinary Christians, not just the scholars, with tools that help us read, believe, and obey the Bible. 

July/August:  At Home in Mitford, By Jan Karon.  Spend some time in the gentle fictional world of Jan Karon’s Mitford, where the Gospel is lived out in the day-to-day lives of a small southern community. This wildly successful series has touched the hearts of millions, including author Lauren Winner, who attributes the Mitford series with being part of how God brought her from Orthodox Judaism to Christian faith.

September/October:  Lest Innocent Blood be Shed, by Philip Hallie. This is the true story of how the villagers of Le Chambon, an isolated Huguenot village in southern France, managed under the teaching and leadership of their Protestant pastors, to rescue thousands of Jews escaping from Hitler’s persecutions. 

November/December:  Prayer:  A Holy Occupation, by Oswald Chambers.  Most readers are familiar with Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, but in this volume, all of his reflections on prayer have been collected for our edification.  In the introduction Chambers writes, “We use prayer as a last resort; Jesus wants it to be our first line of defense.”  This book will challenge all of us who wish to learn how to make prayer our “first line of defense.”  

2005 Book Selections

January/February:  Islam at the Crossroads:  Understanding Its Beliefs, History and Conflicts, by Paul Marshall, Roberta Green and Lela Gilbert. Baker Book House, 2002.  In just 120 pages, this small book explains how Islam was founded and formed and some of the forces that are influencing it today.  A good primer for anyone looking for basic insights to better understand the world taking shape around us.     

March/April:  A Grace Disguised:  How the Soul Grows Through Loss, by Gerald Sittser. ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1996. Driving home one night with his family, Gerald Sittser's van was hit by a drunk driver. The accident claimed the lives of his wife, his mother and his four-year-old daughter.  In this book Sittser walks us through his experience of catastrophic loss and shows how God’s grace met and transformed his life.    

May/June:  girl meets GOD:  A Memoir, by Lauren F. Winner. Random House, 2002.  This engaging memoir takes us through the twists and turns of how a young woman, born of a Jewish father and lapsed Southern Baptist mother, journeys through orthodox Judaism only to find herself falling in love with Jesus and ultimately coming to faith in Christ.   

July/August:  Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger. 

September/October:  Good News about Injustice:  A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World, by Gary A. Haugen. IVP, 1999. In his foreword, John Stott says, “Gary Haugen’s book is a powerful combination of narrative and Scripture, of dramatic storytelling and biblical reflection, of human injustice and the justice of God.” Haugen, a major Christian human rights advocate, shares his first-hand knowledge of the realities of our fallen world but always in the powerful and hopeful light of our just and compassionate God.

November/December:  Our Heavenly Father:  Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, by Helmut Thielicke, translated by John W. Doberstein. German evangelical theologian, Helmut Thielicke, preached these sermons to his anguished and suffering congregation in Stuttgart during the last days of World War II, offering them—and now us—a  strong word of hope.  This out-of-print treasure will take some work to find (check the used book sites on the internet).

2004 Book Selections

January/February:  When Life and Beliefs Collide, By Carolyn Custis James.   

March/April:  Five Women of the English Reformation By Paul F. M. Zahl

May/June:  Ordering Your Private World By Gordon Macdonald. 

July/August:  The Color of Water, By James McBride. 

September/October:  Knowing God, by J. I. Packer.

November/December: The Man Born to be King, by Dorothy Sayers.