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.

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.

The greatest work of theology you read this year could be Plough Publishing’s The Gospel in George MacDonald… MacDonald never strove to be a great theologian. He wanted to be a good father and faithful servant of his Father. And that is why he must be read, for he calls us to the perfect image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ. He calls us not to know about Christ, but to know Him truly – to love the Real.

I’m delighted that Plough has produced this amazingly imaginative volume! Congratulations to Marianne Wright on her first-rate editorial vision and implementation.

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.

…Drawn from the full sweep of church history and an impressive range of ecumenical voices.

A 2016 Englewood Honor Book – one of the thirty best books of the year for the life and flourishing of the church.

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.

His Christian theology…was unadorned but profound. He discovered the work of God in the mundane events of every day, which he dubbed the “holy present,” and this ideology infuses his work.…This collection portrays a faith-filled, loving man who sincerely embraced his role as a child of God and shared the fruits of that journey with the world.

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.

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

In his power to project his inner life into images, events, beings, landscapes which are valid for all, he is one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century.

When he comes to be more carefully studied as a mystic, as I think he will be when people discover the possibility of collecting jewels scattered in a rather irregular setting, it will be found, I fancy, that he stands for a rather important turning point in the history of Christendom.

I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself. … Nowhere else outside the New Testament have I found terror and comfort so intertwined. I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!