Book of the Month

Designing Worship Together: Models and Strategies for Worship Planning. Norma  de Waal Malefyt & Howard Vanderwell. 191pp. Alban Institute, US (2005). $35.00

“Pastor Vanderwell and musician de Waal Malefyt present a convincing case for a collaborative approach to worship planning: pastor, musicians, and congregation members working together to structure worship. Drawing upon their joint experiences of collaborative worship planning and evaluation, they present a variety of models for this process and specific suggestions for implementation. This theologically sound and practically grounded book is a rich resource for those already working together to plan worship. It will be an eye opener for those yet to implement a collaborative approach to the art of worship planning.” John Ferguson, St. Olaf College Northfield, Minnesota

Other featured titles

Just One Year. Timothy Radcliffe, ed. 288pp Darton Longman Todd, UK. $52.99

Radcliffe introduces each season of the Church’s year, and provides a selection of reflections and prayers for use by individuals or groups, including new and specially written material by some of the world’s greatest spiritual writers. Flexible and easy to use, with practical advice to help plan services – large or small – that people will remember. 

Also by Radcliffe: What is the Point of Being a Christian? Continuum. $39.99

Advent Services (Just in Time series) 76pp Abingdon, US. $19.00

Ready-to-use worship and preaching resources for the four Sundays in Advent, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Includes biblically-based sermon briefs, suggested Scriptures, hymns, prayers, and litanies for lighting the Advent Wreath.

Also available in the Just in Time series:

·         Pastoral Prayers in Public Places $16.99

·         Baptism Services Sermons and Prayers $19.99

·         Communion Services $16.99

·         Palm Sunday And Holy Week Services $18.99

·         Pastoral Prayers for the Hospital Visit $18.99

·         Funeral Services $19.00

·         Stewardship Services $19.00

·         Healing Services (Available Nov. 2007) $19.99

·         Easter Services Sermons and Prayers $19.99

Work of the People: What We Do in Worship and Why. Marlea Gilbert et al. 127pp Alban Institute, US. $35.00

Built around a basic service—gathering, service of the Word, Eucharist, and sending—this book is both theological and practical. It encourages all worshipers to actively participate in Spirit-led worship. It will help worship leaders make the best use of their congregation’s resources and clarify their choices about how they will worship together.

What Do I Say?: Talking With Patients About Spirituality. Taylor Elizabeth Johnston. 151pp Templeton Foundation, US. $31.99

Clergy, chaplains, social workers and others who counsel people in medical crisis are often asked deeply painful questions: Why is this happening to me? Am I dying? Why should I live? This workbook suggests healing verbal responses to such expressions of spiritual pain. Lessons and exercises teach how to listen effectively. Also available in book & DVD edition. $53.00

Prayer Participant’s Guide: Six Sessions on Our Relationship with God. Philip Yancey. Zondervan, US. $19.99  

In this small group study based on his best-selling Prayer: Does it Make a Difference, Yancey probes the very heartbeat of our relationship with God: prayer. What is prayer? How does it work? And more importantly, does it work?  Yancey explores such questions as: •Is God listening? •Why does God seem sometimes close and sometimes far away? •How can I make prayer more satisfying?

Also available:

·         Leader’s Guide DVD. $45.00. 

·         Special offer: Buy 1 Leader’s Guide DVD and 5 Participant’s Guides for $130 - saving you $14.95.

Prayer: Does it Make any Difference. Philip Yancey 344pp. Hodder, UK. $34.99

Yancey’s quest to unravel the mysteries of prayer reads as a journal of a fellow traveller: questioning, challenging, lamenting the unexplainable and rejoicing in the discovery of awesome insights. Illustrated with moving true stories.

Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings. Cindy Crosby, ed. 294pp. IVP, US. $29.99

This Year A guide to prayer and reflection combines excerpts from the writings of the church fathers with a simple structure for daily or weekly reading and prayer. Suitable both for individual devotions and as a worship resource. Tap into the timeless wisdom of the ancients who laid the foundations of our faith.

Future of the Christian Tradition. The Jesus Seminar. Robert J Miller, ed. 264pp Polebridge, US. $37.99

What is the future of the Christian tradition as it confronts the challenges and opportunities of the global age? That leads in turn to more questions: What elements of a traditional Christian faith can be carried forward in an authentic contemporary faith: The Bible as Sacred Scripture?  Life after death?  Sin and guilt?  Reward and punishment? And many more. Contributors include: John Shelby Spong, Robert Funk, Richard Holloway, Lloyd Geering.

Bible Stories For All Ages (Year A): With Activities For The Very Young. Margaret Kyle. 256pp large format. Woodlake, Can. $67.00

A lectionary year’s worth of Bible stories for children aged three and up that can also be used in inter-generational worship. Many of the stories are interactive and get children involved in the telling. 

Reproducible activity sheets and suggestions for experiential learning accompany the stories.

User’s Guide to the Bible. Stephen Miller. 126pp colour photos. Lion, UK. $19.99

This book answers the key questions people ask about the Bible.

Sections include:

·         Bible Timeline and Bible in one page

·         How the Bible came to be

·         Why it takes faith to believe the Bible

·         Who’s who in the Bible and Where’s where in the Bible

·         How to read the Bible.

Includes a handy synopsis of each of the 66 books in the Bible, highlighting the key points, main characters, biggest scenes and most famous passages in each one.

Exploring Prayer. Sue Mayfield. 126pp colour photos. Lion, UK. $19.99

A gentle, practical introduction to prayer for those on the edges of faith and for new Christians. The book is divided into two parts: What is prayer? and How to pray? The first section includes: encounter, celebration, petition, listening, penitence and intercession. The second section includes: personal prayer, corporate prayer, using pictures, using objects, using imagination, using music and using movement.

Christe Lux Mundi – Music CD. Taizé. GIA, US. $35.00

16 new songs in a variety of languages. “A great simplicity of heart underlies and sustains a contemplative prayer, that allows us to surrender ourselves to God, letting ourselves be borne toward him. This process of self-surrender may be sustained by simple songs, repeated over and over. While we are working and while we are resting, such songs continue within our hearts.” Brother Roger of Taizé

Iona 2008. Wall calendar. 148 x 210mm Island Blue, UK. $14.99.

12 stunning colour photos of scenes from Iona, Scotland. Convenient size for posting overseas as a Christmas present.

Year A / 2008 Annuals and resources

Order your copies now. Please allow 4-8 weeks for delivery. 

Daily Devotional and Study

• Light for our Path 2008, IBRA, $26.00
• Words for Today 2008, IBRA, $26.00
• Upper Room Disciplines 2008, Upper Room, $24.00, ,
• Upper Room Disciplines: Discussion Guide 2008. For study groups. New Listing, Upper Room, $15.00
• Upper Room Disciplines – Enlarged Print 2008, Upper Room, $29.00
• Journeying Through the Days 2008: Calendar & Journal. Companion to Upper Room Disciplines., Upper Room, $30.00
• Keeping Holy Time: Studying the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A (2001), Abingdon, $34.99.

Children and Youth resources

• Living Stones: Year A Pebbles. Pre-school  Based on Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), Kevin Mayhew, $49.99
• Living Stones: Year A Rocks. 6-10 years (RCL), Kevin Mayhew, $49.99
• Living Stones: Year A Boulders. 11-14 years (RCL), Kevin Mayhew, $49.99
• Living Stones: Year A Complete all-age resource (RCL), Kevin Mayhew, $67.99
• Café Logos: Year A. Resource for 11-16 year olds (CWL), Kevin Mayhew, $49.99
• Lectionary  Story Bible: Year  A – Ralph Milton. New listing 1 or 2 stories for each Sunday. Colour drawings. Hbk. (RCL), Wood Lake, $55.99.
• Bible Stories for All Ages: Year A. New listing 1 Use for worship and Sunday school. Includes copiable activity sheets. Wood Lake, $67.00
• Saving the Ants: 58 Kids Sermons from Matthew. Incl. CD Rom (2001) New listing Augsburg Fortress, $26.99

Old Testament and Gospel Commentaries

• Encountering the Book of Genesis. Bill T Arnold (2003) New listing Baker, $49.99
• Encountering the Book of Isaiah: Historical and Theological Survey. Bryan E Beyer. New listing 1 (Oct 2007), Baker, $49.99
• Gospel of Matthew. RT France. 1233pp Hbk. (2007) New listing (New International Commentary on the New Testament), Eerdmans, $119.99
• Matthew: (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary.) Clinton Arnold. Ed. (2007) New listing Verse by Verse. Colour photos and graphics. Zondervan, $32.99
• Matthew. (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.) New listing Stanley Hauerwas. (2006), Baker, $59.99
• Matthew  for Everyone: Part 1 (Chaps 1-15) Tom Wright (2002), Westminster John Knox / SPCK, $32.99
• Matthew  for Everyone: Part 2 (Chaps 16-28) Tom Wright (2002), Westminster John Knox /  SPCK, $32.99
• Provoking the Gospel of Matthew: A Storyteller's Commentary, Year A (incl. US format DVD) (2007) New listing Pilgrim, $64.00

Lectionaries

• Lectionary & Calendar 2007-2008. Year A Matthew, Methodist-Presbyterian NZ, $3.00
• Lectionary 2008: Te Maramataka. Year A, Anglican NZ, $7.00

Preaching & Worship resources

• Abingdon Preaching Annual 2008 (incl. CD Rom with full text & extra sermon helps), Abindgon, $49.99
• Abingdon Worship Annual 2008: Contemporary and Traditional Resources for Worship Leaders, Abingdon, $ 39.99
• All Things Are Ready: Communion Prayers for the Church Year and Pastoral Occasions. Cycle A. Peter Andrew Smith. New listing CCS, US, $27.99
• Ancient Christian Devotional: Year of Weekly Readings. Year A. Cindy Crosby ed. (2007) New listing IVP, $29.99
• Clouds and Glory: Prayers for the Church Year. Year A. David Adam (2001), SPCK, $24.99
• Lectionary Worship Aids: Series VIII, Cycle A: Cradled in God’s Heart. New listing Thom M Shuman.  CCS, US, $39.99
• Living Stones: Year A Prayers of intercession (RCL), Kevin Mayhew, $39.99
• Minister's Manual: 2008. Now Pbk. With CD Rom, Wiley-Jossey-Bass, $37.00
• Prayers to Share, Year A: Responsive Prayers for Each Sunday. (2004) With CD Rom., Woodlake, $49.99
• Resources for Preaching and Worship: Year A: Quotations, Meditations, Poetry, and Prayers by Ward & Wild (2003), Westminster John Knox, $59.99
• Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew. Barbara Brown Taylor (2004), Westminster John Knox, $29.99 NEW listing,
• Texts for Preaching: Year A: Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV  (1994), Westminster John Knox, $69.99
• Twelve Months of Sundays: Year A. Reflections on Bible Readings by Tom Wright (2002), SPCK, $26.99
• Zondervan Pastor's Annual 2008:  Ideas & Resource Book, Zondervan, $39.99

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