by Jason Joyner | Jan 21, 2013 | Angel Eyes, Blog, CSFF, Shannon Dittemore, speculative fiction, young adult
What do you think you could see if you could see into the angelic realm?
Good for us that’s the job of speculative fiction authors, and that Shannon Dittemore took up the challenge.
The latest feature for the Christian Sci-fi and Fantasy Tour is the debut book by Ms. Dittemore, Angel Eyes. It is a YA novel and the first of a trilogy of books, with the next book Broken Wings coming out in February and the final book Dark Halo releasing in August.
Brielle is a young woman with a devastated heart and an inability to get warm. She returns to small Stratus, Oregon after a tragedy that causes her to give up on her elite performing school in Portland. Her heart is as frozen as the weather in the rural town, but when she catches the attention of the new, hot guy in town, she doesn’t know what to think.
Especially when she starts seeing the supernatural.
Brielle enters a strange new world that the new guy, Jake, seems to know a lot about. Her new sight opens up new horizons, and a new perspective on evil-an evil that wants to use her in their latest schemes.
Now Jake and Brielle may be all that stands between a loss of innocence and a horror beyond imagining, if they can survive the encounter themselves.
This book has gotten a lot of buzz, so it is exciting to be featuring it for our January tour. Check out my tourmates below for more information, and I’ll have a review and more discussion in the next two days.
Gillian Adams
Julie Bihn
Beckie Burnham
Theresa Dunlap
Nikole Hahn
Jeremy Harder
Carol Keen
Emileigh Latham
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Anna Mittower
Faye Oygard
Nathan Reimer
Chawna Schroeder
Jessica Thomas
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Dona Watson
Shane Werlinger
Phyllis Wheeler
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by Jason Joyner | Jan 9, 2013 | Blog, Downton Abbey, links, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
Welcome to Writing Wednesday.
Today I was going to write an inspired post. Then I saw this awesome article on Copyblogger by Matthew Gartland.
Then I said screw it.
Leave here and go read that article. It talks about what I wanted to in a much better way, and it tied it into the marvelous Downton Abbey. Seriously. Whether you’re a copy writer, a novelist, or some other content creator, that article is boss.
That reminds me, I still haven’t seen the Season 3 opening yet. No spoilers please!
Thanks to Rachelle Gardner for tweeting that article out.
by Jason Joyner | Jan 7, 2013 | Alan Hirsch, Blog, books, Christianity, Mission Monday, missional, organic church, The Forgotten Ways
In my last post, I shared my favorite fiction books from 2012. Fiction books can be very influential as well, but there was one non-fiction book that helped with a paradigm shift in how I thought about church and its mission.
The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating The Missional Church by Alan Hirsch was recommended to me over a year ago by my friend and former pastor Brian Harrison. I didn’t read it until this year when my friends and I started into our Outreach Saga. A group of us had left our former church and were looking into what God had for us.
As we started to meet together and tried to hear from the Lord each week, I was also reading this book. It truly opened my eyes to ideas that I hadn’t considered in a fleshed out manner before. Sure, through intuition and talking with other people I had touched on ideas from The Forgotten Ways but I wasn’t getting the full picture.
Hirsch discusses how the model of Christendom we operate in nowadays in modern evangelical culture (for the most part) is not necessarily how the early church (up to 300 AD) did things. From 300 AD to now the church developed hierarchy and structure that was adopted from Roman systems. They worked in a Christian culture context of Europe in the Dark and Middle Ages, even through the Renaissance and Reformation. However, now that our culture is post-Christian and pluralistic, it cannot meet the changing forces in the world in an adequate way.
The majority of the book describes his theory on how church should operate. Through the complex diagram to the right, he shows how the church needs to function. Stemming from the Lordship of Jesus are the five hubs that continue to expand out and encompass the life of a Christian and the community of believers.
Hirsch has worked in missional fields for a long time and has spent a lot of effort into this study. From the Biblical basis to historical activity and modern theory involving organic systems, he brings a thorough and convincing argument for the need to discover forgotten ways and to fully reactivate the life believers need to have today to fully reach the people out there.
In writing this post I am not doing the book justice in a short summation. Perhaps my testimony will help spell it out. As I read the book, I realized that as we tried to reach out to a needy sub-group in our community, we needed to be willing to risk and try new things in order to touch the people. Instead of being a controlled environment where one person (the pastor) speaks and runs the meeting, we’re developing a time of sharing with each other from the Word and our own testimonies. In this way everyone in the meeting has the potential to share something that another person may desperately need. I know I don’t have all the answers in life – that I don’t have the exclusive on God. In relying on the body of Christ to be the body, I’ve seen the strength it brings by allowing others the opportunity to step up when they have what is needed at the time.
I had a reawakening through reading this book and studying Scripture alongside it. I haven’t had a book challenge me like this in many years. It is an easy choice for me to recommend it to anyone who’s wondering if there are better ways of doing “church.” There are better ways, but we’ve just built human structures onto things that should be organic and not just formed into boxes. For an introduction into this, I can’t do better except to highly suggest reading The Forgotten Ways and seeing if it speaks of His truth and the reality of the world today. I think it does both.
So here’s to 2013. May there be many excellent books in your future, and may you dare to take a risk for Jesus in your life in the coming year.
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by Jason Joyner | Jan 2, 2013 | best of 2012, Blog, reviews, Writing Wednesday
Hello 2013.
I must confess, so far you look a lot like 2012 – except you’re a lot colder. Minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit when I got to work today? Ouch.
I wonder what books will come from you. It’s always cool to look back and see just what I’ve read and what tickled my fancy.
But it’s still 2012’s turn. For such a crazy year I’m impressed I can remember one book I’ve read. Thankfully, book blogging and using Goodreads is helping. So here are my favorite books* from last year.
5. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. The first book I blogged about in 2012 stuck with me throughout the year. From the eye-catching cover to the intriguing premise and suspenseful examination of medical ethics, it was a striking book to me. It’s listed as a teen book, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, even if the first few chapters took a little getting used to, as the author used an interesting layout and chapter structure in the early going.
4. The Spirit Well by Stephen Lawhead. The CSFF Blog Tour is always a highlight to me, and one of the benefits has been to read many of Stephen Lawhead’s recent books. His writing skill is remarkable, and he seems to be avoiding the consistency issue I felt he had in earlier series. The Bright Empires series is an ambitious project delving into the multiverse and the price of coffee in 1600’s Vienna (seriously). The Spirit Well is the third in the series and holds the storyline solid as the midway tentpole.
3. Dreamlander by K.M. Weiland. A friend put me in touch with Ms. Weiland, who was looking for some advanced readers of her latest fantasy. I’ve enjoyed her writing advice site through the year, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see if the rubber met the road. I was very pleased with the idea of a person living in a dream world while they slept. It’s been done before, but she did it with style and substance.
2. Proof by Jordyn Redwood. I really enjoyed the debut novel by Jordyn. A pediatric ER nurse by day, she has been offering her medical advice blog Redwood’s Medical Edge as a service to writers for a few years. She also proved her writing chops with a thrill ride of a medical mystery. I had the pleasure of meeting her at the ACFW Conference in Dallas, but I had already read her book and enjoyed the page-turner. Looking forward to number 2 in her Bloodlines trilogy coming out soon.
1. Rare Earth by Davis Bunn. I had read a book by Mr. Dunn a long time ago but lost track of him. He kept churning out books, and I picked up Rare Earth for another blog tour this summer. Finally it gave me a template in the CBA publishing realm for my project – an international suspense with heart. He wrote a thrilling book that opened up eyes to problems in the real world of displaced people, but did it with dignity and a very enjoyable read.
*My only caveat is that these are my favorite fiction books of 2012. Out of the non-fiction books that I read, there is one that made the biggest impact on me last year. But you’ll have to wait for Mission Monday for that one.
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How about you? What were your favorite books from 2012?
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by Jason Joyner | Dec 20, 2012 | authors, Blog, meme me, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
It’s time for a little fun. My friend Nicole Petrino-Salter tagged me for a blog meme. Whoo-hoo! It’s nice to be recognized and invited to play. So here it goes.
“The Next Big Thing”
1. What is the title of your next book/work?
My next book is my current book – Darkness Under The Moonlight. I’ve finished the first draft, but it’s under revision so it’s not quite done and still “next” in my mind. I did just have a cool idea for a sci-fi/medical thriller, but it is definitely in the gestational stage.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book/work?
My sick mind? I’m not sure what I was doing, but I had the picture of a body floating in the ocean, discovered by a fisherman hitting it with his boat. Who was the victim? Why did he die?
3. What genre does your book/work fall under?
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller. I guess there are differences – I’m trying to figure out where it fits exactly.
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| Camilla’s ready to go. |
4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Jenna Dawson – I need an athletic person for the role. Right now I’m thinking Camilla Luddington or Alex Schlereth.
Derek Stephens – I’m not sure on this one. Perhaps Armie Hammer, just a little less on the leading man looks.
5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A medical student travels to Thailand to discover the mystery behind the death of her missionary brother.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m going to shoot for an agency. If it gets good feedback but the market isn’t favorable, I would consider self-publishing.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
*cough*Seven years, next question*cough*
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’d love to be compared to Davis Bunn’s Rare Earth due to the exotic local and human element. If I could approach his level of writing skill, all the better.
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I had recently gotten back into the hobby of creative writing and I had the images that were the genesis of the story. I fiddled around with it until I hit on the theme of human trafficking. With that issue at the heart, even though I got discouraged at times, I knew it was something important to finish.
10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
I’m trying to blend international intrigue, medical suspense, and a heart-grabbing current issue into something readers will enjoy.
Now I’m tagging John Otte, Emileigh Latham, and Morgan Busse, to play. Okay?
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by Jason Joyner | Dec 17, 2012 | Blog, Jesus, links, Mission Monday, missional, organic church, resources
Hey all. Mission Monday has taken a hit the last few weeks due to schedule issues. I’ve got some resources for people today.
This year has thrown a group of us into a wild adventure with God. A small group of us separated from our previous church and came together to see what the Lord had for us. Through this we started meeting at a local park to reach out to a nearby apartment complex, and thus the Outreach Saga was born.
I’ve been spending time on the internet looking for resources to help us understand this journey and the new way we feel Jesus is leading us. We’ve stumbled by accident into a way of doing things that has been called organic church or simple church. We’ve gained a heart to really see people discipled in Kingdom ways. So here are some resources that I’ve found to be helpful in our six-month adventure.
Alan Knox is a PhD student in theology who writes very gracious but challenging posts on New Testament practice and how it relates to modern church practice.
Frank Viola is a prolific author. He has written numerous books and keeps up a daily blog. He’s written a lot about organic church but has moved to a fuller study of the person of Jesus. His book, Jesus: A Theography is on my Christmas wish list.
A book recommended to me a year ago became very helpful when we started this summer – The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. It is a thoughtful challenge to the body of Christ and a book that I would highly recommend.
I’ve followed CMA Resources on Twitter and found many encouraging links and articles posted through their work. They have a whole training setup there for people interested in organic church.
Neil Cole is associated with CMA Resources and is another frequent author passionate about organic church and seeing multiplication of disciples. His book Church 3.0 was another intriguing read with some practical advice for those investigating this way of doing church.
The Verge Network has a subscription required for premium content, which I haven’t done yet. Still, there have been free videos released from the likes of Francis Chan and Neil Cole that have been challenging and exhorting for the church to really reach out.
I’ve begun to pay attention to the blog Church In A Circle. Would it be better for the body to interact in a circle than with one person in front speaking to a bunch of rows? That question and more on organic church is discussed here.
There’s a wealth of wisdom and insight above. I hope if any are curious about what we’ve doing will check some of those out. I believe God can use any church for His purpose, from a traditional style of meeting to one that meets in a park with a free-flowing format. It is up to us to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us and be willing to take risks for our Lord Jesus. That’s my prayer for all of us in the coming year.
Hope this helps!
If you have any feedback on this, please share below!
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