Book Club

Monday, October 26th at 6:00pm

The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism by Brad Edwards

The evangelical church is hemorrhaging. Over 40 million Americans have dechurched in the last 25 years alone, and multiple generations have been raised to believe the most spiritual thing they can do is follow God by following their heart - right out of the church. Yet, this shift is happening right as society is hitting record levels of loneliness, stress, and anxiety. In The Reason for Church, Pastor Brad Edwards connects the dots of our current church crisis and provides compelling reasons to come back.

Monday, November 23rd at 6:00pm

On the Apostolic Preaching by Irenaeus of Lyons

In On the Apostolic Preaching, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons provides a clear and compelling summary of the Christian faith, emphasizing the unity of God revealed through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Written in the second century—a time marked by competing religions and philosophies—this foundational work calls believers to remain faithful to Scripture, which recounts God’s saving actions and the covenant that draws humanity into communion with Him.

Monday, December 28th at 6:00pm

The Coming of Arthur (Merlin's Isle: An Arthuriad, 2) by Malcolm Guite

In this second book of Malcolm Guite's acclaimed Merlin's Isle: An Arthuriad, travel back to craggy Tintagel to discover how it all began. Raised by Sir Ector and tutored by the wizard Merlin, young Arthur must grow into his destiny as the foretold king. He will need the aid of the perilous elves, wisdom beyond his years, and a host of virtuous knights to weather the storms to come.

Monday, January 25th at 6:00pm

The Throne, the Lamb, and the Dragon: A Reader's Guide to the Book of Revelation by Dr. Paul Spilsbury

The book of Revelation has long intrigued, puzzled and even frightened its readers. Surely it is the most misunderstood book in the Bible. And some faulty interpretations of Revelation are so entrenched in the consciousness of Christians that they are regarded as "gospel truth" and provide riveting plot lines for end-time fiction. But behind the ancient multimedia show that is Revelation lies a message both simple and profound.

It is told in a language and grammar of faith that was clearly understood by its first Christian audience. Much as a music video would scarcely have been understood by first-century citizens, though it is immediately understood by youthful audiences today, so we are puzzled by and misread Revelation. Paul Spilsbury has studied Revelation in the company of its best interpreters, those who have taken the time to enter the minds of the first-century Christians for whom it was originally written.

Monday, February 22nd at 6:00pm

What Hath Justice to Do with Righteousness? Reclaiming the Intersection of Protest and Prayer by Charlie E. Dates

Reclaim what was always meant to be whole. Justice and righteousness are not opposing forces but inseparable pillars of God’s design. But often our minds divide them, even set them in opposition to one another.

In What Hath Justice to Do with Righteousness?, Rev. Dr. Charlie E. Dates provides a biblical and historical overview of the bond between these two pillars of the Christian faith that challenges our assumptions, renews our understanding, and invites us into a new movement of protest and prayer.

Monday, March 22nd at 6:00pm

Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis

This twist on an old story, is an exploration of love—between sisters, between friends, between teacher and pupil, between men and women. Till We Have Faces is retold through the eyes of Psyche’s oldest sister, Orual.

Lewis’s novel is a brilliant examination of envy, loss, betrayal, blame, grief, guilt, and conversion. Why must holy places be dark places? Lewis reminds us of our own fallibility and the role of a higher power in our lives. “Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.”

Monday, April 26th at 6:00pm

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle.

Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.