Here is an eclectic gathering we want to share with you of events that you might be interested in on engaging culture, with faith through vocation in one way or another. We also include here some good books, articles, and websites--resources to help all of us align with the faith-vocation-culture connection we believe is part of the missio dei: God's purpose and work, on earth as it is in heaven.
The Fabric of Faithfulness and The Washington Institute:
NEW -- The Washington Institute is founded on the principles of Director Steve Garber's seminal work, The Fabric of Faithfulness. Steve describes here how the book came to be, and how The Washington Institute evolved from it. Read on for Steve's explanation and then follow the links below to read about why Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Bookstore chose The Fabric of Faithfulness as "book of the decade."
Looking Behind The Fabric
Years ago now, I began to wonder why it was some students I had loved kept at the vocation of their faith, and others did not. Never a theoretical idea, these were people that had become part of my heart. We had walked together, read together, prayed together, laughed together.
And then, inch by slow inch, they began to walk away, disconnecting what they said mattered most from the way they made decisions about both the present and the future-and over time they became different people.
More...
Go to Hearts & Minds Bookstore on the web to purchase the book. You can find Byron’s review here:
www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/booknotes/book_of_the_decade_announced_i/.
Byron’s store is wonderfully low-tech – no shopping carts or big-box feel. You simply call or fill out a form to inquire about the book you want. And The Fabric of Faithfulness will ship right out to you. Personal customer service at its best. Those who tell Hearts & Minds that The Washington Institute sent you will receive a 20% discount on the book. This link will get you started: www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/order/.
Websites:
One of the best websites and organizations we know of is Ransom Fellowship . It is the ministry of Denis and Margie Haack, good friends, and creative people who wisely and eclectically engage our culture with faith. They publish Critique and Notes from Toad Hall, where they explore music, books, art, great ideas, and the ordinary life as expressions of God's presence in the midst of it all.
Hearts and Minds Bookstore http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/ is our favorite independent bookseller: anywhere. You will find a vast array of books on any subject about which we write or comment and the most useful blog on current and old books imaginable. Byron Borger's insights are simply a living natural treasure. Here is how they describe themselves:
What distinguishes us most is our enthusiasm for the development of a uniquely Christian worldview where Christ’s Lordship is honored and lived out in relevant ways in the midst of our highly secularized, post-modern culture. We offer quality books for the sake of faithful Christian living. We serve business folk, scientists, artists, college students, moms, dads (and kids!), pastors, poets and politicos. We believe Biblical faith leads to "thinking Christianly" about every area of life.
Books:
The world is full of wonderful books, old and new, with the always daunting challenge to us to read widely and wisely in a world where we will never come to the end before our end (and that's a good thing to know there is always another great book ahead, isn't it?) So with that in mind, we will keep a short list of our favorites, but please feel free to recommend your own.
Knowing God by J.I. Packer. There is simply nothing outside of the Bible that helps us to know the God who knows us--the more important thing in Packer's understanding: he knows all about us and loves us until the end.
That Distant Land by Wendell Berry. This is a collection of short stories of the “Port William membership,” as he calls the community over time that his readers have come to know in his novels and short stories. He is a story-teller, wonderfully so. While he has been called “the most serious essayist in America today,” and “the most prophetic voice in American literature,” it is in his work as a teller of tales that many have come to love him. The community of Port William is imaginatively set along the banks of the Kentucky River, and his stories take place over the course of a hundred years, basically the 20th-century. If there a theme throughout, it is this: we do not know ourselves apart from the relationships and responsibilities of our lives.
For more by Wendell Berry, we suggest these, representing the three genres of his writing:
Hannah Coulter, a novel
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, poetry
Sex, Economy, Freedom, Community, essays.
