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Reviews
Glory days Mastering Monday - experiencing God's kingdom in the workplace A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 - reflections Love work, live life! Releasing God’s purpose in work The Advent Calendar The Enduring Melody Benedict XVI New Journeys Now Begin - learning on the path of grief and loss Ten Boys Who Used Their Talents
Glory days - Living the whole of your life for Jesus By Julian Hardyman, IVP, £6.99.
You love to paint but Christian meetings fill up all your free time. You could cut it as a professional sportsperson but think missionary work might be a better use of your life. You’re interested in party politics but worry that it’s not much of a spiritual pastime.
Many believers subconsciously divide their lives into Christian activities (church, prayer, Bible study and evangelism) and everything else – the glory bits and the rest. Julian Hardyman shows that God is just as interested in our work and family, our hobbies and skills, our politics and sporting prowess, as the things we think of as spiritual.
Living the whole of our lives for Jesus doesn’t mean denying our God-given human interests. By rediscovering the liberating teaching of Genesis we can see how God intends every part of our personality to be lived for his glory. Glory Days will sharpen our senses, awaken our dormant creativity and help us reclaim vast areas of our life for Jesus. Ultimately it will show us that even the most ordinary days can be glory days.
Mastering Monday - experiencing God's kingdom in the workplace By John D. Beckett, IVP, £9.99.
Christians can keep their church and working lives in separate compartments. They may want and even try to live for Christ in the office, factory or school, but somehow what they learn on a Sunday seems not to bear on what they are doing on Monday. Is being a Christian at work any more than not swearing or stealing paper clips?
John Beckett thinks so, and his book is a bold call to transform the workplace into a place where the kingdom of God is experienced. He recounts some of the struggles he has encountered during his long career in business and management, and how they have enhanced his understanding of his faith and work. He introduces several biblical characters as role models for living out faith in the workplace, and focuses on five themes where biblical truths and business realities intersect.
The author weaves three principles into his workplace agenda: a warm personal relationship with the Lord, a closer alignment of faith and work, and the multi-faceted expression of God's kingdom. Throughout this challenging book, he grounds these ideas in Scripture and applies them in practical ways to the working lives of his readers.
A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 - reflections by W. Phillip Keller, Inspirio, £8.99
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." provides comfort and peace to all who read Psalm 23. The words of this beloved Psalm come alive with Scripture in this lovely gift book inspired by W. Phillip Keller’s classic bestseller The Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.
Love work, live life! Releasing God’s purpose in work By David Oliver, Authentic Lifestyle, £7.99
Are you in the right job or place of work? This book challenges what we believe, what we preach, and the language we use and they way we behave in an effort to change our thinking about how we view the world of work.
David Oliver helps the reader explore ways to bring passion and vibrant spirituality to our work whatever it is making a place which resonates with a sense of purpose and destiny.
The Advent Calendar By Steven Croft, Darton Longman & Todd, £9.95
Packed with codes, secrets, biblical parallels, and reminding us of the real meaning of Christmas, this enthralling and touching tale can be read on many levels, and will be loved by adults and children alike.
When Alice’s Uncle Sam brings home a mysterious calendar that’s short on chocolate but big on surprises, she is thrown into an Advent she never dreamed of. Codes arrive by text message and open the doors in the calendar, drawing Alice and Sam into fantastical new worlds. Accompanied by famous figures from the Bible, they explore the great themes of Advent and Christianity and find themselves maturing, changing and questioning.
Life in their own world will never be quite the same again.
Help Sam and Alice crack more Advent codes, send Advent e-cards, solve new puzzles and lots more on our Advent Calendar website - coming this November!
The Enduring Melody By Michael Mayne, Darton Longman & Todd, £10.95.
A moving and tender meditation on loving, living and dying by one of the greatest Anglican spiritual writers. Michael Mayne, author of three of the best-selling spirituality titles of recent years, ‘Learning to Dance, Pray, Love, Remember’, and ‘A Year Lost And Found’, set out to complete a final book that would tackle the linked questions of what is the solid ground of a belief which for him has proved authentic and survived into old age, and how ageing may affect us physically, mentally and spiritually.
On completing it, he discovered that he was suffering from cancer of the jaw, and in a nine-month journal he reflects (among much else) on whether his faith stands firm, and where God may be found in the challenging country of cancer.
‘The Enduring Melody’ is a moving and tender meditation on loving, living and dying by one of the greatest living Anglican spiritual writers. Michael Mayne is the former head of religious programmes at the BBC and Dean Emeritus of Westminster.
Benedict XVI By Rupert Shortt, Hodders, £8.99
For decades before his election, Pope Benedict XVI was known across the world as an unwavering upholder of Catholic orthodoxy. Critics charged him with high-handedness, and even likened the Vatican department he ran to the KGB. His backers hailed him as a courteous, deeply intelligent figure whose concern to rein in relativism and other forms of dissent appeared timely. Both sides agreed that he was the single most important enforcer of John Paul II´s policies, and that intellectually, he towers over most of his recent predecessors.
What kind of a man is Benedict XVI behind the slogans? What were the influences that shaped him, and how might the Catholic Church evolve under his leadership?
Written for the general reader, this book aims to answer these and other questions, including the puzzle over the then Joseph Ratzinger’s disavowal of his youthful liberalism from the late 1960s onwards. Following the approach adopted in his study of Archbishop Rowan Williams, Rupert Shortt summarises the Pope’s thought in the course of a biographical narrative. The assessment he provides will help dispel the stereotypes and misunderstandings that often mark discussion of church affairs generally.
New Journeys Now Begin - learning on the path of grief and loss By Tom Gordon, Wild Goose Publications, £10.99
Bereavement is a journey to be travelled, not an illness to be treated or a problem to be solved. When grief continues, bereaved people often feel they have failed, have been abandoned by others, or let down by God. As a result, their journey into the future is a hard one.
Author of ‘A Need for Living’ Tom Gordon writes with sensitivity and clarity about real people as they begin to understand their journeys of bereavement. He draws on his experience as a parish minister and hospice chaplain and his extensive involvement with bereavement support, as well as offering honest insights from his own journey of discovery.
The book helps us understand the unplanned and often frightening twists and turns grief forces the bereaved to face. In recognising the new and overwhelming feelings of anger and distress as normal, it gives carers important insights into the processes of loss.
Through prayers and poetry it gives a voice to both anguish and hope. Above all, it offers companionship on the journey of bereavement to those who thought no one could ever understand their loss and grief.
Tom Gordon is Chaplain at the Marie Curie Centre, Edinburgh
Ten Boys Who Used Their Talents By Irene Howat, Christian Focus Publications, £4.99
This book for older children looks at the lives of J S Bach; Paul Brand; John Bunyan; James Clerk Maxwell; Wilfred Grenfell; C.S. Lewis; Samuel Morse; Ghillean Prance; C.T. Studd; George Washington. These ten boys grew up to become successful men.
The two things they have in common is that they all put to good use the talents and gifts they had, and they all believed that God had given them to be used.
Paul Brand took medicine into new lands to bring hope to the sick. Ghillean Prance's love of the world around him led to Kew Gardens, still a centre of excellence in studying God’s creation. C S Lewis opened the door into Narnia and opened the hearts of many to new faith. C T Studd excelled on the cricket and the mission field. Wilfred Grenfell was an energetic explorer of the Arctic. J S Bach's music still inspires millions, as Christ inspired him. James Clerk Maxwell’s faith in God’s ordering of the universe led to key discoveries in science. Samuel Morse patented many inventions, one of which has saved many lives. George Washington governed a country as he followed the Lord. John Bunyan was imprisoned to shut him up yet wrote a classic that still speaks today.
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