Tag Archives: forward movement books

Forward Movement books win top honors in Christian book awards

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Four books recently released by Forward Movement have been recognized as among the best Christian books by the 2023 Illumination Book Awards.

The Creation Care Bible Challenge, the ninth book of the best-selling Bible Challenge series created and edited by Marek Zabriskie, has been awarded the 2023 gold medal for Bible Study.

 Three silver medal awards were bestowed upon other Forward Movement titles: Mark Bozzuti-Jones’ Face to the Rising Sun: Reflections on Spirituals and Justice in the Devotional category; Miguel Escobar’s The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty, and the Church Today for Theology; and Seek and You Will Find: Discovering a Practice of Prayer, by Rhonda Mawhood Lee, in the Spirituality category.

“We are excited to see these wonderful books receive recognition from the Illumination Awards,” said Richelle Thompson, managing editor of Forward Movement. “Each offers an invitation to deepen our relationship with Christ, ourselves, and each other. We’re proud to work with inspiring writers and contributors to bring these dynamic and engaging resources to life and help disciples on their journey.”

To celebrate these achievements, Forward Movement is offering an extra discount on each of these titles at forwardmovement.org, now through February 28, 2023.

To order these books or other resources, visit forwardmovement.org or call 1.800.543.1813. Our titles are available as eBooks on Kindle and Apple Books.

 

Forward Today: A year with Forward Movement

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Dear friends in Christ,

This time of year is about the season when congregations normally kick off their program year. New courses and ministries launch. Often, Sunday schools fill up. The pace of summer gives way to a busier time of the autumn.

Of course, this time is anything but normal. The pandemic has forced us all to look at all sorts of practices, and I suspect that in many congregations, everything is up for grabs.

Even though there may be no “normal” my sense is that many congregations are starting some kind of program year, even if it’s quite a bit different from usual. Maybe there are online book groups or Bible Studies. Christian formation for children might look different. The number of offerings might be smaller (or larger) than what is typical.

A collection of Forward Movement books

What is your church doing? There’s no right or wrong answer. Our task in the church is to make disciples, and there are as many ways to do that as there are Christians.

We at Forward Movement are working to support you and your church in this unusual time. We have books and courses suitable for in-person or online study. We offer resources for new members and long-time Episcopalians alike.

At a time when many leaders are struggling to figure out what to do this year, we wanted to make it just a bit easier. So we’ve put together some ideas for living through the whole program year. Please have a look at our website for resources for the fall, for Advent, for Christmas and Epiphany, for Lent, for Easter, and even for next summer.

As always, please contact the friendly folks here at Forward Movement if you have questions or you’re not sure what’s right for your church. We can respond to emails (orders@forwardmovement.org) or phone calls (800-543-1813).

We want to help you make disciples, whatever that looks like in your life and in your church.

Yours faithfully,

 

 

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

More from our ministry:

Online Course: Surviving Moral Injury with David Peters

Listen to our Morning Prayer podcast: A Morning at the Office

Reading suggestion: Walk in Love: Episcopal Beliefs & Practices

 

Forward Movement releases Walk in Love

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Forward Movement invites seekers and longtime members alike to explore together the Episcopal Church in its new book, Walk in Love: Episcopal Beliefs & Practices.

Early reviews praise the book for its accessible, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking discussion of the Christian life and the basic beliefs of our faith. The Rev. Adam Trambley, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sharon, Pennsylvania, calls the book “the most comprehensive, and comprehensible, guide to Episcopal faith and practice available.”

Co-authored by the Rev. Canon Scott Gunn and the Rev. Melody Wilson Shobe, Walk in Love offers a guide to understanding how prayer shapes our beliefs and our lives—and how our beliefs lead us into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

The book is accompanied by a free curriculum, Practicing Our Faith. This curriculum can be used for an inquirer’s class, confirmation class, or general adult education. A children’s curriculum is to be published soon.

By summer, Forward Movement will also publish Anden en amor: Creencias y prácticas de la Iglesia Episcopal, a translation of Walk in Love, as well as a Spanish translation of the curriculum. The curricula in English and Spanish were supported by a grant from the Constable Fund of the Episcopal Church. They join two other year-long curricula, Celebrating the Saints and Exploring the Bible.

Shobe says, “It was a joy to write this book, sharing our passion for encouraging rich spiritual practices and deep engagement with prayer book liturgy.” Shobe and Gunn served together as parish priests in Rhode Island. Gunn is now executive director at Forward Movement, while Shobe serves as associate for children and families at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Dallas, Texas.

“Walk in Love invites readers on a journey, with The Book of Common Prayer as a map,” says Richelle Thompson, editor for the book and deputy director and managing editor for Forward Movement. “After nearly twenty years as part of the Episcopal Church, I still learned a great deal from this book about how our Episcopal beliefs and practices support one another and lead us down paths of discovery and spiritual growth.”

Walk in Love is available in print from Forward Movement directly, from online sellers such as Amazon, and from local bookstores. The digital e-book is also available on Kindle, Nook and iTunes.

Forward Movement Partners with Bookmasters

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We’re pleased to announce a new sales and distribution partnership with Ashland, OH–based Bookmasters! This will mean bigger and better distribution for Forward Movement titles around the world, and we’re excited about how it will help us inspire more disciples and empower more evangelists. Here’s the announcement from Bookmasters.

Note that this is an additional channel geared especially toward booksellers outside of the Episcopal Church; of course, you can still find Forward Movement products on our website, and on Amazon or your regular bookstore. And if you haven’t checked out the site lately, we’ve got a lot of great new ones available (including The Power of Imperfection, which is 40% off today only!).

Summer Splash Sale: June 19th — June 23rd

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Next week only, we are offering a sale on our books that have made a splash this year (note: these are not waterproof!). Each day of the week—from Monday to Friday—a different book will be featured, with a 40% discount!

Monday—The Path  

Regular $22 | Sale $13.20

The Path is the story of the Bible, excerpted from the New Revised Standard Version so that it is clear and easy to read. The Path has received a bronze medal in the Bible Study category of The Illumination Awards.

“There is nothing quite like the actual words of the Bible that tease, subvert, offend, and empower. Here they are! These careful excerpts transpose the Bible from an externally regarded totem to an actual living, compelling script.”

-Walter Brueggemann (Old Testament scholar and renowned theologian)

Tuesday—Inwardly Digest

Regular $22 | Sale $13.20

Scholar Derek Olsen explores liturgical spirituality and how the prayer book serves as a repository of Christian wisdom and spiritual practice stretching back to the beginnings of the Christian movement. Focusing on three key elements—the Calendar, the Daily Office, and the Eucharist—he discusses the spiritual principles behind them and provides clear, practical, easy-to-follow explanations of the services.

 

Wednesday—Bible Challenge Day! 

This will feature:

The Bible Challenge 

Regular $18 | Sale $10.80

This year-long reading adventure includes meditations written by more than one hundred archbishops, bishops, deans, priests, and scholars. If you never thought you could read the whole Bible, The Bible Challenge is a wonderful way to embark on a holy pilgrimage joined by others from around the world!

 

A Journey with Matthew

Regular $15 | Sale $9.00

A Journey with Mark

Regular $15 | Sale $9.00

A Journey with Luke  

Regular $15 | Sale $9.00

A Journey with John

Regular $15 | Sale $9.00

Each Journey book includes fifty days of scripture readings, meditations, and prayers written by dynamic spiritual leaders from around the world. The series is an extension of The Bible Challenge, a global initiative to encourage daily engagement with the Word of God.

Thursday—The Power of Imperfection 

Regular $16 | Sale $9.60

Many of us go through life feeling as if we are failing to be the person we could be. But as this liberating book explores, there is power to be found in imperfection. Using stories from scripture and the news, personal experience, poems, and art, author Ruth Scott celebrates the messiness and creative potential of being human.

 

 

Friday—Bible Women

Regular $22 | Sale $13.20

In this groundbreaking book named best Bible study of 2015 by Illumination Book Awards, Episcopal priest Lindsay Hardin Freeman identifies every woman who speaks in the Bible, providing their words, context, and historical background. We learn which women speak the most (hint: it’s not Mary!) and which books of the Bible have the fewest words from women.

 

“The author weaves both heart and humor into her stories of the 93 women who speak in the Bible, and in her narration we discover ourselves. Like them we are broken. Like them, we find healing through God’s power. The author and her research partners….synthesized their research into a compelling analysis which the author shares of why the words these women spoke matters, even today. Especially today.”- Barbara Dundon

 

Meet ‘The Path: A Journey Through the Bible’

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Here at Forward Movement, we believe and rely on the power of the Gospel and the miraculous undertaking of a journey—whether we are making pilgrimages to holy places around the world or to one of our favorite lunchtime haunts around the corner. To that end, we’ve focused our second year of a three-year curriculum around the best story we know—the story of God’s extraordinary love for ordinary people as told in the Bible.

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The Path: A Journey Through the Bible is our latest offering. Passages from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are knit together with Scenic Views, Points of Interest, Trail Crossings, and YOU ARE HERE bits of narrative information. It is the Bible in an amazing 360-degree panorama. We’ve compressed the story in places, so you don’t find yourself tripping over long lists of “begets and begots” and you may notice that a couple of familiar stories aren’t included. The Path is a way to help you get into the Bible, to dig deeper, to discover what trails through God’s grace you want to spend more time on and get to know as your own special way to the heart of Love. You might even find yourself transformed by this journey with The Path, and like the saints, be compelled to see the world as your hungry brothers and sisters in need—and to offer them the best nourishment you know, the Bread of Heaven.

You may also be interested in our line of The Path companion resources. A free facilitator’s guide is available for download, making reading and working through the stories in The Path a stress-free and substantive choice for personal, small group, or congregational Bible studies and formation opportunities.  

We also have The Path: Family Storybook, which walks with you and your family all the way through the story of the Bible and augmented by beautiful original artwork. A free, downloadable facilitators’ guide accompanies this resource, so that it is immediately adaptable for Christian formation opportunities that occur in your home, carpool, or church classroom.

Walking along The Path isn’t all about work—it’s also about taking moments to breathe and integrate what we’re learning about God’s great love for us. So, you might consider picking up a copy of Pathways of Faith: An All-Ages Coloring Book. Taking the beautiful illustrations Roger Speer created for our Family Storybook and pairing them up with corresponding Bible passages, we’ve given ourselves a little space to be creative, to trace the footsteps and heartbeats of the stories and the saints who have gone before us, pointing us toward the author and perfecter of our faith.

To celebrate the launch of the Path resources, we’re holding a sale! Now through Sunday, take 20% off The Path, The Path: Family Storybook, and Pathways of Faith. (If the discount doesn’t appear for you automatically, just enter THEPATH promo code at checkout.) Enjoy!

 

The Tale of St. Barbara—Patron Saint of Warehouses

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Saint Barbara’s story sounds like the Brothers Grimm wrote it. Complete with a tall, lonely, locked tower, truly questionable parenting methods, a poorly-chosen set of suitors, and people being turned into stone or struck by lightning, Barbara’s story is not for the faint-hearted, or for folks who have a hard time using their imaginations. Due to her childhood spent being warehoused as a commodity for trade by her pagan-merchant father, Barbara (in addition to being one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and the patron of architects, firemen, mathematicians, miners, and Syria, among others) is the patron saint of warehouses and warehouse workers. Bet you didn’t know that…

Windberg_Klosterkirche_-_Chorumgang_3

By Wolfgang Sauber (Own work) [GFDL]

At Forward Movement, we believe that Jesus and his friends are important people to know. The books we publish, the resources we produce, the meetings we have, and our communication with our readers and customers are all shaped around our mission of inspiring disciples and empowering evangelists. That’s where the life of Saint Barbara and the life of Forward Movement meet and mingle, and the space we’re using to celebrate this dance is our warehouse—where we are currently having a sale!

Warehouse Sale Facebook Image

We’re moving warehouses, and we’d like to let you help us make that transition a little easier by buying some truly lovely books, booklets, and pamphlets. We’ve made it easy to help by marking down some of our best-loved and frequently-used seasonal offerings—including items from Lent Madness—as well as some of our more focused meditation books—like The Soul’s Journey: An Artist’s Approach to the Stations of the Cross. You can also pick up a copy of what we are sure is Saint Barbara’s favorite Forward Movement book, Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter.

Whether you take advantage of this great sale, or simply take away a new person to read about on your next trip down a Wikipedia wormhole, we hope that you know your friends at Forward Movement are always thinking about ways to help you know Jesus better, to inspire your discipleship and empower your evangelism. We look forward to talking to you soon.

Peace and Joy,

Your Friends at Forward Movement