AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE

A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God

Written by: Eugene H Peterson

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Price: £9.99

Best known as the translator of The Message bible (an accessible paraphrase of the Bible which has become a best-seller) the founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, is a familiar name in the world of global theology, biblical translation and religious literature.

This paperback work, however, is drawn from his rich experience of 29 years of service as a pastor to the Maryland congregation. It brings together, for the first time, a collection of some of his teaching and work with the congregation over that time to share with a wider audience. The life of a pastor, he explains, is not just a life of preaching, but a life made up of conversations and detail, specific to people, time and place, including prayers at a hospital bed, conversations with the elderly and small talk on a street corner.

The sermons were drawn, he writes, from his sermons, but are not what he considers to be the ‘best’, but rather representing examples of working in partnership with his congregation.

Peterson says he has grouped the sermons into seven groupings, each with a distinctive approach under the names of Moses, David, Isaiah, Solomon, Peter, Paul and John of Patmos.

The book he said was an attempt to ‘develop a coherent and connected biblical imagination with my congregation, not live out of a suitcase full of cast-off items from various yard sales and second hand stores.’

GOD IS STRANGER

What Happens When God Turns Up?

Written by Krish Kandiah

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Price: £13.99

The roots of this book lie in the refugee crisis – and a visit to Lebanon where the author, a Vice-president of Tearfund and founder and director of the adoption and fostering charity Home for Good – encountered a family of refugees who had fled their home in Syria. Living in a makeshift tent with winter approaching and deeply in debt because of medical bills for their young son, another child was on the way and the author found himself struggling to find the right words from the bible to give them hope.

The encounter inspired him to dig more deeply into the Bible and ask searching questions about the nature of God and to consider whether God’s appearance heralded the arrival of the popular image of a benign friend, or whether his appearance and behaviour is both challenging and unexpected.

Drawing on personal experience, Kandiah asks searching questions about the appearance of God in lives: not always in the hoped-for way, but ultimately for the good and better of those concerned.

The book is warmly endorsed in a foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and has attracted praise from a number of prominent UK Christians.

Lynne McNeil