Grow Christians is sponsored by Forward Movement, an agency of the Episcopal Church which works to inspire disciples and empower evangelists. We’re excited to announce a new fall book giveaway through their generosity. Read on to learn how you can enter to receive free books to inspire your life and ministry!
After listening to all the hype about how electronic books are going to take over the world, I’ve decided that I like to read books I can hold in my hand, highlight, and write on with a real pen. That’s why I’m excited to present exactly that to you, and on some of the most important questions we face today:
- How does the Bible inspire work for social justice?
- How does God seek a relationship with us, even though we aren’t perfect, even when we go wrong?
- How do we pass on faith to children with story and art?
This giveaway covers all those bases. The more I think about it, the more I think these questions are at the heart of our challenges today. All these resources touch on one of those questions.
The Bible and Social Justice
The Social Justice Bible Challenge offers forty days of Bible readings, prayers, and questions on the theme of social justice. (Full disclosure: I’m one of the authors, providing a reflection on a reading from Genesis.) Contributing authors come from around the globe, many of them working directly on the issues they describe in the text. This book informs and inspires through the combination of Holy Scripture and the words of many directly engaged in work for social justice today.
Our Relationship with God
Ryan Casey Waller’s Broken offers powerful testimony about the nature of grace. He’s written for us often; you can read him here and here, and an excerpt from Broken is here. “Before Jesus broke the bread, he blessed it.” Waller writes. This book of essays explores the brokenness we all share—and reminds us that through Jesus, our brokenness is blessed and our wounds healed.
Ruth Scott’s The Power of Imperfection has a similar theme. This book helps us find ways to own, work with, and heal our brokenness. The author draws from Scripture, the news, and her own life to give us eyes to see the gifts that our imperfections bring. We shared an excerpt from this book when it was published; that excerpt is available here.
In our brokenness, God desires relationship and reconciliation with us. Joy in Confession, a lovely and practical book on the sacrament of reconciliation, is the final resource in this category. Hillary Raining writes from personal experience both as a penitent and a priest. This is an accessible, user-friendly workbook that combines art therapy, scholarship, theology, and worship to create a powerful experience for learning about confession in the Episcopal Church. Here’s an excerpt we shared earlier.
Passing on Faith
One easy way to talk about faith is through coloring images from Scripture. That’s just what Pathways of Faith: An All-Ages Coloring Book provides. This beautiful book of images to color is a companion to The Path: A Journey Through the Bible, a book and free curriculum from Forward Movement. That series also includes The Path: Family Storybook, a children’s Bible which is included in this giveaway!
These two books provide a storybook to read with young ones plus pictures to color together. Sharing stories and art helps your family pass on faith.
How to Enter
Want to enter our giveaway and maybe get them all? Just do two things:
- Like the Grow Christians Facebook page.
- Then, comment on the Facebook post announcing this giveaway and let us know why you are entering. Is there a particular book that caught your eye? Are you planning to give any away?
Anyone over 13 living within the United States is eligible to enter this giveaway. A winner will be selected at random on October 2, 2017 and be notified by Facebook Messenger to provide a USPS address. The winner must provide an address within 48 hours or a new winner will be chosen; this will occur until a final winner is announced. So if you enter to win, watch your Facebook Messenger on Monday, October 2nd!
Are there other giveaways you would like to see us offer? Please comment below with ideas!
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Is there another way to be included in the book giveaway?
I don’t do Facebook.
I’m always looking for new, meaningful Christian life reading info.
I am particularly interested in “Broken” & “Joy in Confession”.
After reading, I may give them to our church library.
Sorry, this giveaway is through Facebook as it enables us to select a winner at random from all those who have commented. We will keep your request in mind for future giveaways. Thank you for commenting!
Jan, I ditto your request.
This is a lovely giveaway, but I’m not on Facebook.
Great selection. I know a seminarian who would appreciate these.
The information needed to answer all these questions is necessary in order to grow in tolearning about our Faith and being able to share and teach it to our children, and our community. This seems like a great program to have. Wish my husband and I had had such a program laid out for us when we were active in the children/s ministry. We are in an adult setting, mostly, now ; so we are very interested in new materials. Thank you; Janis Monk