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I recently came across this devotional and have been captivated. The daily readings, which stretch from November 24 to January 7, include some of the most profound reflections on the season that I have ever seen – in both concept and scope, classic and contemporary – all gathered together into a single volume.
First Presbyterian Church News
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This handsome hardback has brief readings from some of the world’s leading literary and spiritual writers, offering just enough meaty and aesthetically-rich writing to please and challenge anyone who wants to dip in to a more mature sourcebook.
Hearts and Minds Bookstore
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Lent is a season of restraint, but this compiled book is a Lenten (and paschal) smorgasbord, offering more than 70 excerpted readings for Lent and Easter. Inside you’ll find writings of spiritual leaders, theologians, literary favorites, mystics, and justice heroes, including Clarence Jordan, Kathleen Norris, Ernesto Cardenal, Simone Weil, Wendell Berry, Madeleine L’Engle, Philip Berrigan, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few.
Sojourners
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Don’t assume that the way the Holy Spirit worked yesterday is how it will work tomorrow, but also don’t assume that new things are of the Spirit just because they are unprecedented. Discerning the Spirit in tradition and in innovation has always been the challenge of the Christian life, and we can learn important lessons about threading this path from Christoph Blumhardt.
Amos Yong
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Still relevant for our time, Christoph Blumhardt is my spiritual father.
Jürgen Moltmann
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The Blumhardts not only saw what a faithful church might look like, they exemplified it in their wide-ranging writings and work.
Stanley Hauerwas
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Drawn from a series of 100-year-old letters to his missionary son-in-law serving in China, the wisdom of German pastor Christoph Blumhardt is timeless, not at all erudite but suffused with parental care and rooted in his unwavering devotion to Jesus Christ… This book is a challenging consideration for anyone faithfully attempting to incarnate God’s love in the world.
Liguorian Magazine
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It’s hard to go wrong with writers such as these. . . . Born of obvious passion and graced with superb writing, this collection is a welcome – even necessary – addition.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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This book is both informative and practical – written with a short chapter for each week of the year. Designed to spark conversation within a group devotion setting, readers can dive deep into community together.… This book delves into the nitty-gritty details of Christian community living and encourages readers to confront the dissatisfaction stirred up by its challenging pages. Though not a light text by any means, this book is ideal for those seeking to approach Christian community more intentionally and comprehensively.
Evangelical Church Library Association
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…Drawn from the full sweep of church history and an impressive range of ecumenical voices.
Mennonite Quarterly Review
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A 2016 Englewood Honor Book – one of the thirty best books of the year for the life and flourishing of the church.
Englewood Review for Books
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This is a stellar contribution to our understanding of the whys and wherefores of Christian community. The 52 selections seem perfect for a year of weekly group study and the detailed discussion guide in the appendix is particularly useful for this purpose. Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People is a thoughtfully compiled and well edited guide to the subject.
Nancy Roberts, Catholic Sentinel
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To listen to those who have lived community across the centuries is to drink at a deep well of wisdom. The call to community is challenging, and yet the recognition of the real challenges of community both tempers naive enthusiasm and offers wise counsel to those who pursue intentional communities out of faithfulness to Christ.
InterVarsity Emerging Scholars Network
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Called to Community is an extraordinary and welcome addition to personal reading lists, as well as church, seminary, community, and academic library Christian Studies collections
Midwest Book Review
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As with the Bible, this book is not to be read alone, or lived alone, but embodied in community. Will we take up and read – and live?
Paul Louis Metzger, Patheos
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This book functions as a guide to community: to understanding the true nature of community, to cultivating a spirit and heart that is prepared to live in community, to learning how to desire the right kind of community, in the first place.
Kyle Roberts, Patheos
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This is one meaty, yet very accessible, book for those who love the Church enough to give it some serious thought, knowing that serious thought can lead to serious action. Whether in small groups or individually, as we read Called to Community, we will be hearing voices from the road, people with trail dust on their faith. They know what they’re talking about. And this invitation to come alongside them is a great place to start finding some new roads in an old faith of our own.
David Swartz, Patheos
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Rather than focusing narrowly only on outward physical healing, the Blumhardts share a larger concern for inner spiritual healing as we deal with the uncertainty, doubt, fear, and suffering that may be part of a time of sickness. Much of what they say applies to other kinds of loss as well, for the God Who Heals meets us not only in sickness but in times of job loss, the death of a loved one, and other difficulties. Each of the sixty-one devotionals are just a few pages long, but I found them packed with encouragement.
April Yamasaki, author, Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal
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I can only hope that it will be widely read, because I am certain that contained in this book is the future of being Christian.
Stanley Hauerwas
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Whatever circumstance you are facing right now, this book of daily readings will help you focus on a closer relationship with Jesus, our one true spiritual healer. Soak in these words of hope by the Blumhardts and find healing strength for your soul.
Rick Warren
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This stunning collection of some of the best spiritual writers of all time came out in 2001 from the exceptionally thoughtful, high-quality publishing house founded by a simple-living community. What a delight to have seasonal readings from theological voices like Jürgen Moltmann, mystics like Bernard of Clairvaux, poets — from Sylvia Plath to T.S. Eliot to Jane Kenyon — contemplatives such as Henri Nouwen, and storytelling writers like the late Brennan Manning.
Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Books
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Has there ever been a more hard-hitting, beautifully written, theologically inclusive anthology of writings for Lent and Easter? It’s doubtful. Many readers may well find that this collection – a sequel to the highly successful 'Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas' – is the one book they return to year after year, forgoing their usual custom of buying a new Lenten devotional each spring.
Caveat lector: no one should have this much pleasure during Lent!
Publisher's Weekly starred review
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Blumhardt’s newly translated work is a fresh articulation of the gospel in line with a theology of the cross and a social vision that grounds the value of humanity in the message of God’s love for the world revealed in Jesus Christ. Helpful introductions add authority by placing this work within the remarkable Blumhardt story. Effectively arranged text invites a thoughtful read, sure to perplex and even offend – but also enlighten, edify, and astonish.
Peter D. Anders, Harvard University
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By introducing Christoph Blumhardt to the English-speaking world, Winn and Moore have given us a great gift. Blumhardt proclaims the good news of God’s social order with striking contemporary resonance; thus, his insights serve as an invaluable and unique contribution to both modern and postmodern theology. This book enlivens me and gives me courage to risk action in the world. I couldn’t put it down.
Jennifer M. McBride, Wartberg College
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This short book will be of interest not only to those in the Lutheran theological tradition, of which the author was a part, but to all interested in church renewal and its catalytic potential for impacting society. There is every likelihood that these pages will resonate with contemporary renewalists across the majority world, and that would be important not only for the ongoing reception of the Blumhardtian legacy but also for the renewal of Christian theology for the 21st century.
Amos Yong, Regent University
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The surprise of grace, the life-giving reality of Christ, and the demand that Christians live toward and into the Kingdom of God – these are the great themes of Christoph Blumhardt’s thought. Those looking for an introduction to Blumhardt are well advised to start with The Gospel of God’s Reign. Those already acquainted with Blumhardt’s life and witness will receive this volume with gratitude and, most likely, some measure of awe.
Paul Dafydd Jones, University of Virginia
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This is ultimately a book about hope, about transformation and about a revolutionary way to live out the gospel of Christ in our daily lives… It’s a book that encourages, challenges and provokes.
Gill Robbins, Christians in Education, Patheos
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Everyone Belongs to God is one of the best books on mission and the kingdom of God that I have read in years. It's simple and clear enough to be understood by anyone. It's also the kind of book that I could give to my friends who are unbelievers. I wish that more Christians (especially missionaries) would read these radical, prophetic books that put the emphasis on the kingdom (rather than the church) as the true goal and starting point of mission and that give a vision of following Christ in a way that isn’t “religious.”
Joshua T. Searle, Spurgeon’s College, London
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Our gospel has been too small. It is, indeed, too small a thing to think that the hope of the world rests in our ability to recruit others into our religion. Blumhardt calls us to embrace the revolutionary notion that everyone belongs to God. He is a prophet for our time.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author, Strangers at My Door
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Blumhardt's message is a most spontaneous and penetrating word of God, and it speaks right into the need of the world.
Karl Barth
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Blumhardt’s conviction that God is present and powerful in the world today breathes through every prayer. Striking, moving, and provocative…
John E. Phelan, Jr., The Covenant Companion
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This book of prayers is a treasure, a precious pearl. May others discover its riches, as I have.
Luci Shaw, author, Water My Soul
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A tonic many weary souls need.
Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School
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Blumhardt does something very few of us can do: represent God’s cause in the world yet not wage war on the world, love the world and yet be completely faithful to God.
Karl Barth
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The life and writings of Christoph Blumhardt are adrenaline for faltering and compromised followers of Jesus.
Eugene H. Peterson, author, Subversive Spirituality
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Who else, besides Barth, is so unrelenting in their attack on religion? Yet who else uses the language of faith so straightforwardly and without apology?
Stanley Hauerwas, co-author, Resident Aliens
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Pulse-quickening…Blumhardt reminds us that personal peace is merely the wrapping paper of a more magnificent gift: confidence in the coming of God’s kingdom.
Rodney Clapp
