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Last May we reviewed the first book in Andrew Klavan’s “Homelanders” suspense series for teens, The Last Thing I Remember.  Our main point was, if you have a teen who’s not that into reading, this might be your entree.

The second book in the series, The Long Way Home, has just been released and it doesn’t disappoint.  Charlie West is an 18-year-old fugitive with a one year gap in his memory during which time he is supposed to have murdered his ex-best friend, escaped from prison, then from a domestic terrorist organization, the Homelanders.  In this installment Charlie returns to his hometown to sleuth out what really happened.  He teams up with his old high-school buddies and the cute girl who claims they fell in love during the missing year.  Along the way he grapples with issues of right and wrong, human nature, and what is really real.

Andrew Klavan was an award-winning author of adult crime novels before converting to Christianity.  He brings to his young adult stories a high level of craft not usually seen in this genre.  That is why we are confident that your teenager will read - and enjoy - this series.

Don’t miss the New Show!

Opening reception Friday, Jan 22 from 7 to 10 pm. Click here for a preview.

Charlie Peacock may be one of the most famous people you’ve never heard of.  He’s best known to many as the guy who wrote dcTalk’s smash hit “In the Light”.  But he is much more than that.  As a writer and as a record producer he has worked with most of the top names in contemporary Christian music of the past 25 years (see partial list below).  But he is much more than that.  He is an expert on John Coltrane and a jazz musician and improvizational pianist par excellence who has recorded with luminaries of the jazz world.  But he is much more than that.  Charlie is a deep thinker about life, art, culture, and what it means to follow Jesus.  He has a seminary degree and is the author of two books.  But he is much more than that.  He is a promoter of the arts, both performing and visual, and was the founder of an institution in the Nashville area called Art House.  But he is . . . well, you get the idea.

We are honored that Charlie has taken a day out of his current tour with Sara Groves, Derek Webb, and Brandon Heath to be with us for an evening.

Come hear Charlie play, and talk with him about music, art, justice, and other things that matter.

Space is limited, so get your ticket soon.  Your $10 not only gets you in the door, but also gets you a CD. Call 785-830-8030 to reserve by phone.

Oh yeah, here are a few of the artists Charlie has worked with over the years:  Switchfoot, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Béla Fleck, Leigh Nash, Al Green, Warren Barfield, Amy Grant, Sixpence None The Richer, Sara Groves, Audio Adrenaline, David Crowder Band, Avalon, dcTalk, Margaret Becker, Twila Paris, CeCe Winans etc, etc, etc.

Rob Stennett is a very funny man. He has previously written and directed for stage and screen but now has turned his considerable talents to a most enjoyable first novel called The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher.

Ryan has decided to start a megachurch. He only has one small obstacle - he doesn’t quite believe in anything. He’s not really trying to scam anyone. You see, he started out in real estate and was looking for a new marketing angle. He stumbled on the fact that there are millions of Christians out there, all of whom were potential home buyers or sellers. He took out an ad in a Christian business directory and business started booming. But he kept getting into awkward moments involving Christian jargon and questions about what church he attends. So he decided he needed to start going to church. His wife is thrilled, and actually starts to develop a real Christian faith. But Ryan is more interested in figuring out the pastor and “how does he do that?”.

Once Ryan thinks he understands enough about the religious thing, the Fishers move to Bartlesville and open The Peoples Church featuring a karaoke cowboy worship leader, also with no discernible faith. After a miracle healing gone awry, throngs of people flock to the new church because Ryan is so “genuine”. The whole thing quickly snowballs and Ryan eventually ends up on Oprah.

Stennett writes with great wit and satire, but also great warmth. Ryan Fisher is a truly likeable guy in spite of, or perhaps because of his phoniness. All of the major characters are developed well, especially Katherine Fisher, and you end up really caring what happens to them in the inevitable meltdown. I hope New Life Church in Colorado Springs where he serves as creative director realizes what a gem they have in Rob Stennett and that they give him plenty of time to write. Hopefully we’ll be reading much more from him in the future.

Bishop N.T. Wright is one of the most prolific Christian writers of our day. As a New Testament scholar and former Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, Wright’s work has received a wide reading from a variety of Christians: mainline to fundamentalist, emergent to high-church Anglicans. Yet as wide as his readership is, even the quickest readers cannot seem to keep up with his pace of writing and publishing. As one pastor put it, “N.T. Wright writes faster than I can read!”

Nevertheless, Wright serves as one of the foremost defenders of orthodox Christianity today. We carry several of Wright’s most recent and most respected titles. Simply Christian has merited reviews from many prominent periodicals, and has been lauded as this generation’s Mere Christianity (the classic work by C.S. Lewis), serving to simply, yet faithfully present an introduction to the historic message of Christianity.

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For most modern Americans, the idea of rest or leisure sounds more like something to indulge in, or spoil themselves with, rather than a lifestyle. Take a look at the ads in any magazine or newspaper promoting various spa and health products, vacations, or other products meant for relaxation and you will find a reoccurring theme: “Take a break, you deserve it,” or “Indulge yourself with this special treat today, you’ve earned the break,” or “Escape with us on this cruise, leave the pager behind.” Rest and recreation is seen as an escape from reality—it is something we earn in two-weeks-a-year units. Our rest is defined by our work, not the other way around. Productivity is the highest goal, not leisure, not rest.

But as James Schall argues in his recent book, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, this modern approach to life is a grave departure from the Classical and Christian views of work, leisure, and rest. In Unseriousness, regarded as worthy successor to Josef Pieper’s classic work, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Schall describes leisure not as the escape from the dreary reality of our work demands, but as the natural extension of work which is the context for the highest duties of man. True leisure is the time for contemplating the highest things and participating in the grand activity of play in a way that expresses that which is truest about both our nature and God’s nature.

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Ted Dekker has just released another psycho-thriller called Saint. Carl Strople has been kidnapped and forced to murder someone to save his wife and son. Or has he? Does he even really have a wife and son? As with previous Dekker books, nothing is ever quite what it seems. That’s OK. It makes for a great read, plenty of action, good vs evil in the spiritual realm. All good stuff. But when he ressurects from previous novels the old magic blank books in which whatever is written becomes true, you want to holler “enough already”.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a huge Dekker fan and I enjoyed this one immensely. But seriously, Ted: get a new shtick.

Our friend and local pundit/author/lawyer/farmer(?) Caleb Stegall recently took on conservative columnist George Will over the issue of Wal-Mart hegemony. Writing in the Dallas Morning News, Caleb argues against both the liberal position that Wal-Mart is bad because it exploits the marginalized and Will’s conservative fight to keep our laws off of Wal-Mart in the name of “consumer sovereignty”. Caleb believes that a more faithful conservative view is wary of any power enclave (whether in Congress or the marketplace) that attempts to exert managerial force over society.

Views like this have earned Caleb and his cohort the title Crunchy Conservatives - i.e. conservatism for the granola and Birkenstock and faith-motivated crowds. Former National Review writer Rod Dreher has written about Caleb et al in a book we like a lot called Crunchy Cons.

Find out more about Caleb at the webzine he used to edit, the New Pantagruel.

John Piper, Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, is one of our favorite authors at Signs of Life. Many authors have solid theology. Many authors have a clear and engaging writing style. Many authors write on pertinent and timely topics. But few have the skill to combine all those elements into books that get us jumping-up-and-down excited about following Jesus.

Whether its his classic Desiring God, his book about the supremacy of God in missions Let the Nations Be Glad!, or biographical works on the puritans and their friends, the theme of Christian hedonism shines through all Piper’s writing. Christian hedonism? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Piper explains via a twist on the famous answer to the first question of the Westminster Confession: it is the Christian’s duty to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. This is the dangerous duty of delight, as Piper would phrase it. We are created for God’s pleasure and He is most pleased when we are delighting in him.
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The cover image shows a blond-haired, blue-eyed knight in shining armor and his white-robed damsel in distress. The series title is Legends of the Guardian King. You immediately dismiss it as trite, poorly-written, romatic fantasy. Not so fast.

In The Light of Eidon and its sequels, Karen Hancock has crafted an intelligent, fast-paced allegory with well-developed characters and excellent insight into the life of faith. Middle-aged male readers (like myself) love it. Teenage female readers (like my daughters) are enthralled. Any Christian will be thoroughly entertained while simultaneously encouraged to trust more fully in our sovereign God who holds all things under his control.