Books @ Leadership Network

Deliberate Simplicity Receives Best Cover Award from ECPA

ECPA Announces Winners of Third Annual ECPA | dp Book Cover Award

CONTACT:  Mark Kuyper, ext. 210, mkuyper@ecpa.org

Phoenix, Arizona—The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) announces today the winners of the 2009 ECPA | dp Book Cover Award.  The competition, sponsored by ECPA and Dickinson Press, recognizes the industry’s most on-target book covers that intentionally and intelligently connect the cover’s design components to their intended consumer.  The program is based on RISC consumer research that identifies four primary consumer profile groups and their buying patterns and motivations.

The most common consumer profile targeted among this year’s entries was “Inclusives” – those who are open to change, community-oriented, and favor diversity, well-being and cultural experiences. “This consumer prefers bright colors, bold fonts, optimistic images and a sense of order,” says Rick Hamm, Director of RISC Research at Marshall Marketing and the award program’s judging manager. “Three of the four profiles are represented in the list of winners.  Each did an exemplary job in tailoring their design to their target audience and we are very pleased to award them the honor of an ECPA | dp Book Cover Award.”

The 2009 ECPA | dp Book Cover Award Winners in each category are:

BEST COVER:  BIBLES
HCSB Ultrathin Bible in Varsity Colors
Holman Bible Editorial Staff (B&H Publishing), Greg Pope, Art Director; Roy Roper, Designer

BEST COVER:  SMALL-SIZED PUBLISHER
Your Intercultural Marriage
Marla Alupoaicei (Moody Publishers), Smartt Guys, Designer

BEST COVER: MID-SIZED PUBLISHER
Taking a Stand for the Bible
John Ankerberg and Dillon Burroughs (Harvest House Publishers), Dugan Design Group, Designer

BEST COVER: LARGE PUBLISHER
Deliberate Simplicity
Dave Browning (Zondervan), Rob Monacelli, Designer

Fourteen ECPA member publishers submitted a record number of 94 covers for consideration in this year’s competition.  The winners were announced today at a PUBu online webinar where Hamm expounded on the RISC consumer research and how each winner was chosen.  A download of that webinar is available on the ECPA website.  Also available for download is the webinar, The Science Behind Great Book Cover Design: Connecting with your Consumer.

“The ECPA | dp Book Cover Award encourages, identifies and celebrates outstanding design in Christian publishing and we extend our congratulations to each of the winning publishers and their marketing, editorial and design teams for producing the most on-target covers of the year,” expressed ECPA President and CEO Mark Kuyper. 

In 2006, a study was commissioned by Dickinson Press and conducted by Marshall Marketing utilizing the RISC system to help Christian publishers develop and design more on-target products. Based on this research, ECPA and Dickinson Press developed the ECPA | dp Book Cover Award which is presented annually and recognizes the industry's finest book cover design integrity.   For more information about the program, visit www.ecpa.org/bookcoveraward.

Migration and Churches in Europe

When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 19:33-34, NIV)

I recently ran across a book that will be of interest to a select audience. It’s a 132-page paperback titled Mapping Migration: Mapping Churches’ Responses Europe Study by Darrell Jackson and Alessia Passarelli. It was put together by Nova Research Centre at the UK’s Redcliffe College. and published in 2008 by the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe of the World Council of Churches. The following might find it to be a goldmine:

• Pastors and church leaders in Europe who want to show the love of Christ to recent immigrants

• Church planters in Europe who want to find specific immigrant groups and follow their movement

• People who are curious about attitudes toward immigrants

• Those following church responses to U.S. public policy about immigration in this country, looking at European parallels.

The book provides immigration and emigration figures for 47 European countries. For each country it lists several facts, such as the top five places migrants came from. In Germany, for example, most immigrants come from Turkey, followed by Italy, FYR, Greece and Poland. In Ukraine, most come from the Russian Federation.

The book factors in faith issues wherever they can be found. It notes that an estimated 24 million migrants were in the European Union at the end of 2003. Among those 48% belonged to Christian churches, 31% were Muslims and the remaining 21% belonged to other religions. It also cites this 2001 “Attitudes Toward Neighbours” survey which was conducted in 35 countries, giving the response by each country:

Which of the following would you NOT like to have as neighbours?

- Somebody of a foreign ethnicity

- A Muslim

- An immigrant or foreign worker

- A Jew

- A Roma [from northern India]

How would you respond? How would your congregation respond? The most accepting of new neighbors was Iceland, followed by Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Latvia and Germany. The least accepting was Hungary.

Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 21 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.

The Worst Moment in Most Church Services

Quick: What’s the worst moment in a lot of church services? Too often it’s when God’s Word is read aloud.

That’s not the case when Max McLean (left) reads or quotes Scripture, which is why I bugged him for years to teach others how to do it. Then when I heard he had started a Scripture reader group at the church he attends, I knew that would make a great “thread” for a story-based book on how to read Scripture aloud.

The result just came off the press, a widely endorsed book with DVD titled:

Unleashing the Word: Rediscovering the Public Reading of Scripture, Max McLean and Warren Bird, Zondervan, 2009. 128 pages (book), 75 minutes (DVD, with most clips under 5 minutes). ISBN 978-0310292708.

Max McLean’s life's calling is to recapture the rich oral tradition of telling classic Christian literature with insight and appropriate dramatic expression. He does that with the Bible, having recorded three translations available on Bible Gateway and as speaker on the radio program, Listen to the Bible, which airs daily on nearly 700 radio affiliates worldwide. In the past year 45,000 people have experienced his live performances of C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters or Mark's Gospel, a one-man retelling of the entire gospel from memory. That production was recently awarded Chicago theatre’s coveted Jeff Award for Best Solo Performance in 2009.

See these two highly engaging examples from Mark: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyRpEUCs3NM&feature=youtube_gdata

(1:40, Mark 3, Man with Shriveled Hand)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUuyDonqUMo&feature=youtube_gdata

(2:28, Mark 10, Two Disciples Ask to Sit by Jesus in Heaven)

The purpose of the book is to inspire and instruct people -- both pastors and lay readers -- how to elevate the public reading of the Bible to a more honored and anticipated moment in our worship services.

As Max’s pastor, Tim Keller, at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, wrote in his endorsement of the book, “In most church services, the reading of the Word is poorly and hurriedly done. What a missed opportunity! Max’s book will help your church restore this neglected worship practice. There’s nothing else like it.”

In many ways this book is a compilation of a lifetime of work. It is story based, drawing from Max’s experiences with his reading team at church, where he has led the Scripture reading ministry since 2002.  The book is also informed from various other contexts where Max has coached other readers, or been coached himself.

My role was to tell Max’s story for him and to help Max translate his life experiences into practical guidelines and steps for how to prepare a reading, which we especially bring out in chapters 6 and 8, as you can see from the outline of the entire book:

My Story (Part 1)
    1. How I Got Started Reading Scripture Aloud
    2. Recruiting Others Who Love the Game
    3. No Longer the Worst Moment
    4. The 9 Percent Isolation Factor
Butterflies and Breathing  (Part 2)
    5. How to Sound Like You
    6. From the Page to the Stage
    7. Take a Breath—It Even Helps with Nervousness
    8. Quick-Start Guide to Reading the Bible Aloud
How to Teach Others  (Part 3)
    9. Train Your Pastor to Read the Bible Better—Really!
    10. Invite Youth and Children to Make Scripture Come Alive
    11. Scripture Reading at Home, at Weddings, and More
Next Steps  (Part 4)
    12. What to Do Next
    13. Q&A with Max McLean
Appendices
    A. Things You Might Say before or after Reading
    B. How I Prepare a Scripture Reading
    C. Suggested Texts for Practice
    D. Discussion Questions for Accompanying DVD
    E. Resources Available from Max McLean

Since so much of this type of instruction is “more caught than taught” we included a DVD that can be used for individual or class settings. It includes several compelling readings from members of my church’s Scripture reading team as well as a brief commentary in which Max describes what he finds to be particularly effective about each one. There's also a panel discussion about how to pick readers as a church develops a Scripture reading team. 

I believe that this unique book with DVD has the potential to help many churches experience God's Word during worship in fresh, compelling ways. Together Max and I believe that Scripture reading can be elevated from one of the more perfunctory, least-engaged moments, to one of the most meaningful and powerful moments in worship.

Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 21 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.

See other book blogs I’ve written including:

Excellent Resources for Church-Based Grants (Winning Grants and Starting a Non-Profit)

Do White Churches Hold Others in Cultural Captivity? (The Next Evangelicalism)

Available Today (Multi-Site Church Roadtrip)

Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace (Holy Mavericks)

Don’t Let This Book Cover Fool You (How to Multiply Your Church)

Reader’s Digest of Good Books for a Church Board (Eleven Innovations, Culture Shift, others)