Since it is Thursday, it must be time for a book review! Today’s review is a 4-for-1 special. Dawn Young (Director of Christian Education for the Louisiana Conference) has reviewed four fiction series for us. These series are all appropriate for book club reading, and Dawn offers suggestions for using each series for this purpose. If your church doesn’t currently have a book club, consider starting one. You can find information about starting a book club here. Although not church-specific, the process is easily adaptable to the church setting. One benefit of reading a series of books is that it spares you the process of choosing a new book every month!

Happy reading and discussing! ~Sally

ATTENTIVE TO GOD: THINKING THEOLOGICALLY IN MINISTRY. Charles M. Wood and Ellen Blue. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008, 138 pp

You are probably thinking, “Well, I can just skip over this one; certainly a book about thinking theologically isn’t for me.” Which is precisely who this book may have been designed for, those who don’t think theological thinking is for them. And there is much to frighten you away from this book. Begin with the theological pedigree of the two authors; both are professors at seminaries. The topic of theology is generally left to the purview of those that attend seminary, often because those that don’t attend seminary have enough sense to avoid it whenever and wherever possible. Admittedly, the authors intend this work to be for those learning to become theologians and to “empower the people to be in ministry themselves.”

Living the Questions (LTQ)  resources are fairly unique in the world of Christian curriculum. Almost no other publishers have produced resources for the progressive church as ambitiously as has LTQ. Their resources typically are filled with excellent content delivered by some of the top progressive theologians of our time, though until the publication of Dream, far less attention has been paid to presentation. Now, LTQ is trying to find a way to communicate the basics of progressive Christianity to a young adult audience.

Their first young adult resource is call DreamThinkBeDo, and it's actually made up of 4 separate DVDs. The first volume, Dream, is available now; the other three studies are due in late August. Each DVD contains 5 video segments, each 15-20 minutes in length, for use in a small group setting of roughly 45-60 minutes. A 2-page study guide for each session is available to those who register and download the materials (PDF format). 

If you're familiar with the content of other LTQ resources, you're also very familiar with the content in Dream. In fact, you've mostly seen it before, as the video from other LTQ resources has been chopped up, edited, and combined with cool graphics, images, and music to make it more like something a young adult would see on TV. The content from these presenters is always illuminating and interesting, and the imagery is FAR more engaging and interesting to watch than was the case in previous LTQ releases. However, unfortunately the study as a whole is like an arrow that hits one of the outer circles on an archery target—close, but not spot on.

I am not a fan of so-called "life application" Bibles or any curriculum with questions that dive too quickly into a "so what does this text tell us to do/think/believe" mode. The tendency of resources like these is to move the reader toward the right answer, the best application, the One Truth. In contrast, a good curriculum should provide a lot of room for learners to bring their experience to the text, to allow the biblical text to speak on its own terms, and to encourage deep questions to arise and linger.

One curriculum that does this incredibly well is a lectionary-based resource for adults called The Bible Workbench, published by The Educational Center. Although this resource has been around for 16 years, most Christian educators are unfamiliar with it; yet it's one of the best resources available for theologically-progressive congregations.

Suppose you were to sit down and write a lengthy summary of all that you have learned about the Bible, church history, the historical Jesus, and other topics of faith that interest you, but without using any footnotes or citations. Perhaps you would organize your material chronologically, creating chapters for the beliefs you held or developed at times in your life. Or, perhaps you would take a more systematic approach, starting with your understanding of scripture or your theology of God and using that as the jumping off point for all other topics. Whatever approach you would take, it's an interesting intellectual exercise to consider, and an even better one to carry out some day.

Dr. Carl Krieg is one individual who took the time to do this exercise, and the result is the book The Void and the Vision: A Thought-provoking Interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus that Challenges Traditional Belief. Dr. Krieg has taught religious studies at Thiel College, served as a pastor in both the Lutheran Church in America and in the United Church of Christ, and has another book published by Fortress Press. He approached this exercise by putting together a list of commonly asked questions, such as, "Why didn’t everyone who met Jesus believe in him?" and "Do we need one another, or can we go it alone?" Then, he set about answering these questions in a way that is clear and concise yet honest, gentle, personal, and borne out of the fruit of years of scholarly study and reflection.

I can honestly say that I have never heard a song written about the two women fighting over the same baby and King Solomon’s decision to cut the baby in half. (1 Kings 3:16-28) Before I heard the song, “Real Love and the Whole Truth,” I might not have believed that a children’s song could be written about this rather odd story. And yet, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan has managed to write a song that is fun, interesting, appropriate for children and conveys the importance of telling the truth.

It's a great time to be a liberal Christian! Books by progressive authors have been hitting the shelves with some frequency. Curriculum companies have sprung up with materials that are helping church members to embrace a new kind of Christianity. Podcasts from members of the Emergent Church movement are saying things that many churches on the left have been declaring for years. These are just a few of the reasons I am not completely filled with despair when I look at the state of Christianity today.

Over the past few months I have reviewed several books and resources I think every progressive congregation should have and use (see links below), and in coming weeks I'll share 2 more that I have been enjoying. But of all of the introductions to progressive Christianity I've read, I think I would most enjoy using Jesus Was a Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All by Rev. Scotty McLennan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 260 pp.) with a book group that was held in a neutral, secular setting.

Although I have written one devotional book and contributed to another, I have to admit that daily devotional resources have never truly been my thing. I could give you many excuses, of course—I can't find a devotional book I like, I have other books to read that are more "important," blah...blah...blah—but the bottom line is that I just never formed and committed myself to the habit. My sense is that many progressive Christians share a similar experience.

A series of devotional books from Augsburg Books could finally change that for me. The 40-Day Journey series features several of my favorite authors, as well as a few who I've intended to read at some point. Eight books have been released so far, with two more scheduled to come out late this year. First up for me: 40-Day Journey with Parker Palmer, as Palmer's book To Know as We are Known was my favorite Christian education text in seminary. After that, I'll pick up the one that features Joan Chittister , a Benedictine nun who writes powerfully about peace, justice, the church, and many other topics.

Over the past six weeks or so, I have been working on my latest book, a 6-week study for youth on creation care, which will be published later this year. The project gave me a chance to explore some of the latest resources for congregational environmental ministry, and I thought I'd share 3 of them with you today.

The Green Bible. HarperOne, 2008.

Every time I walk past the Bibles in a Christian book store, I'm pretty sure I let out an audible groan. Did the world really need, after all, the "wedding edition" of the Lighting the Way Home Family Bible by painter Thomas Kinkade, to name but one of the books that seem to me to be a desperate attempt to reach every niche audience out there? No doubt there are many people in the world who will feel similarly dismayed about The Green Bible, but this is one of the few Bibles I wholeheartedly recommend.

Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based ink and a unique cotton/linen cover, The Green Bible is the most ecologically-responsible Bible available. A highly unique feature of the Bible is that verses with a connection to God's creation are printed in green, making it easy to see just how many things the Bible actually does have to say about creation. The Bible uses the NRSV translation and includes 100 pages of exceptional introductory articles, written by a diverse and interfaith audience including such well-known authors as Brian McClaren, Bill McKibben, and Barbara Brown Taylor. These provide tremendous insight into reading the Bible with green eyes.

Today let’s talk about stewardship! And to make things more interesting, let’s talk about teaching stewardship to children! In the minds of many adults, the word stewardship has become linked to “asking for money”. Many churches discuss stewardship once a year, when asking people to make a pledge to support the church’s financial needs. Not many children have financial resources of their own, and therefore, with this narrow definition of stewardship, children are often not involved in stewardship programs.

Let the Children Give: Time, Talents, Love, and Money by Delia Halverson reminds us that stewardship is a broader concept than simply raising money to meet a budget. A steward is one who manages the affairs of others. As Christians, we are all (regardless of age) called to be caretakers of God’s creation by using the talents God has given each one of us.