Page turners - Our December book giveaway 📚

Hope, new rhythms, and a book giveaway    Every year in my ten Christmases as a pastor with children and families, our worship team struggled to find a unique way to engage children in the story of Jesus’ birth. One year, my colleague Kimberlee Frost passed on words of wisdom: “The story is good. Just tell the story.”   Of course — just tell the story! God laying in a manger. Angels singing “gloria.” Shepherds trembling in the fields. These are the stories that bring us to church on Christmas Eve. Like the generations before us, we seek a word of hope.   I no longer have little ones who beg me for “just one more story!” Yet this Christmas, I still pulled out our picture books – Room for a Little One, Winter’s Gift, Mouse Tales: Things Hoped For, Santa Comes to Little House. As I page through them, I remember my children’s “aha” moments in which stories helped them grasp, in some small way, the power of God-with-us.   Last night I read to myself The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. It’s a gorgeous picture book that’s written for children (and their grown-ups) that offers hope — the promise that we are never left to handle our hard stuff alone. And it’s no accident that Mr. Toomey’s miracle comes at Christmastime — it’s a season where hearts are softened and minds are open to the idea that, just maybe, we will witness a miracle. We can always hope.   Here's hoping you have a blessed Advent, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Amy   P.S.: Our quote of the month comes from Hope: A User’s Manual, a book we reviewed last summer. I share it again because it’s a good read to close out 2022 and welcome in 2023 – chock full of sermon illustrations, inspiration and hope!  Happy reading, Amy Pagliarella Presbyterian Outlook's book review editor QUOTE OF THE MONTH “We’re accustomed to seeing hope as an antidote to despair … Can’t joy and mourning exist at the same time? ... Having seen depression up close, I’ve realized that the opposite of depression isn’t happiness. The opposite of depression is feeling: feeling whole. Feeling alive, which can include joy and sadness; love and, yes, hatred. You can be alive and angry, even rageful. But you feel something. You are moved to do something.” MaryAnn McKibben Dana,  Hope: A User’s Manual Book Giveaway!  Thanks to our friends at Eerdmans Publishing, one lucky reader of Page Turners will receive a free copy of MaryAnn McKibben Dana's Hope: A User’s Manual. If you're reading this note, then you're all set! Know someone else who should be reading Page Turners? Send them this link and they'll get entered for a chance to win, too. The contest closes on January 17. Congrats to Outlook reader Mary Mason, on winning last month's giveaway — Scott Black Johnston’s Elusive Grace, kindly donated by Westminster John Knox Press.   BOOK OF THE MONTH How many of us long for sabbath time but dismiss it as impractical? I recall sitting around a table of fellow seminarians discussing self-care and other practices of spiritual and physical well-being, when a classmate said, “those are the kinds of things we can do once we start working. We don’t have time for sabbath in seminary!”   Ruth Haley Barton shares how it took an accident to force her to find to new rhythms of rest. The experience became an invitation to try on a new way of life in which she “tithes” one-seventh of her life back to God and finds “joy and relief” in her offering.   In Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest, Barton articulates the theological rationale for sabbath. Then she gently reminds us that the church can be a barrier to sabbath, turning Sunday into a day of committees rather than resting in God. Rather than seeing worship as the start of sabbath time, she made me wonder if we need to first experience sabbath to slow down, breathe deeply, and prepare for the richness of communal worship.   Barton includes practical suggestions as well – setting aside favorite activities to look forward to on the sabbath, unplugging devices and establishing communities of sabbath-keepers. She includes stories and suggestions for pastors looking to build sustainable churches that model sabbath-keeping rather than burning out volunteers (and themselves).   It’s clear that Barton delights in her sabbath time! And reading Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest made me want to experience that delight for myself. During end-of-the-year quiet time, can we envision a new rhythm of work and rest for 2023? THE LATEST REVIEWS Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, reviewed by Amy Pagliarella You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic, reviewed by Rachel Young Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey, reviewed by Amy Pagliarella

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