Family Library
The family library is located in the common area of the lower level. Please feel free to check books out to enjoy. Directions on how to do so are located on the top of the book-shelf with the card box.

Highlighted Book:
Wrestling the Word: "The Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Believer"
by Carolyn J. Sharp. To be honest, I chose to read this book in December because it was short (140 pages) and sounded interesting to me. However, it did not take long to realize that this was not going to be an easy read. Truthfully, I suspect it is on the reading lists of some seminaries' courses (and not the 100-level ones). And, to be fair, as the newsletter goes to press I have not finished reading it. In fact, I may not finish it at this point in the year. I made a poor choice for a busy month.

However, if you are familiar with, and excited by terms like "exegesis," "hermeneutics," and other two-dollar words, this may well be a book that you could pick up and read easily. If my cursory understanding of the premise of the book is accurate, Sharp seeks to raise self-awareness of the ways people - from biblical scholars to laypeople - approach reading the Bible. Being aware of how we approach reading and studying scripture, the approaches others have to this endeavor, and the strengths, weaknesses, and value of these various approaches can help us to have a deeper and fuller experience reading scripture. This can be particularly helpful when approaching the Hebrew scriptures ("Old Testament").

Accidental Saints, Finding God in All the Wrong People
by author Nadia Bolz-Weber
Tattooed, angry, and profane, this former standup comic turned pastor stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve.

Nadia is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. She is author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Pastrix. Nadia has been featured on CNN, the BBC World Service, and NPR’s Morning Edition, and in the Washington Post ...

In Accidental Saints, Nadia invites readers into a surprising encounter with what she calls “a religious but not-so-spiritual life.” Tattooed, angry, and profane, this former standup comic turned pastor stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve. But God keeps showing up in the least likely people—a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious Bishop, and a gun-toting member of the NRA.

As she lives and worships alongside these “accidental saints,” Nadia is swept into firsthand encounters with grace—a gift that often feels less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit by a blunt instrument. But by this grace, people are transformed in ways they couldn’t have been on their own.

In a time when many have rightly become disillusioned with Christianity, Accidental Saints demonstrates what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with scripture together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives. This unforgettable account of their faltering steps toward wholeness will ring true for believer and skeptic alike.

Told in Nadia’s trademark confessional style, Accidental Saints is the stunning next work from one of today’s most important religious voices.

Note from David Keesey-Berg on Accidental Saints
The GEMS have begun reading and discussing this book and the initial impression has been very positive. Chapter five is particularly interesting to us because it describes the close friendship that developed between Nadia and our former Bishop Bruce Burnside. In chapter sixteen we hear of her contacts with our own Pastor Nick, who was a colleague of Bruce’s at St. Stephen’s Lutheran in Monona.