California Fire Update

As things seem to be more under control with the California fires, I am thankful to report that Pastor Hyde and his family and the families in his congregation made it through without loss, as did Westminster Seminary. However, among the many Californians who lost their homes were two URC families, one in Escondido and one in Santee. Also, one of the brave fire fighters who served well is a member of the Oceanside URC congregation. For more detailed and accurate information about these families, click on the Oceanside URC blog at the right and go to Dr. Scott Clark's Heidelblog. He even includes information for those who would like to provide financial assistance for the two families, who have lost all of their possessions.

California Fire

For the third time since I began this blog, I'm writing about dear friends who are being threatened by fire. Earlier this spring, I wrote about the devastating fire that destroyed my hometown's lovely old buildings. On July 4, a fire destroyed the company (Trussway) that my dear Henry worked for. And today I received an e-mail from my friend, Reverend Danny Hyde, pastor of Oceanside United Reformed Church in Oceanside, California, telling me that the out-of-control fires there are threatening the homes of his parishioners and Westminster Seminary in Escondido.

This evening Pastor Hyde sent me an update: He now has two evacuated families staying in his home, and Westminster Seminary has been closed for the week. In fact, fires are burning only a few miles from the campus.

Pray for Reverend Hyde and his congregation and for Westminster Seminary, its faculty and students. While these fires rage, seemingly out of control, it is comforting to know that we have a God who never loses control. "Thy Keeper slumbereth not, nor shall He cause thy foot to fail, when danger doth assail. Lo, He that keepeth Israel doth neither sleep nor slumber, naught shall thy soul encumber" (Psalter Hymnal, Psalm 121).

Calvin at 500

Aside from editing a few notes pages, I have completed my work on With Heart and Mouth, Reverend Daniel Hyde's commentary on the Belgic Confession, a publication of Reformed Fellowship. Now that I won't be spending my "at home" evenings copyediting my heart out, I may have a little more time for blogging. I'm back!

And speaking of Reformed Fellowship, that excellent organization had its annual meeting last Friday, October 12, which featured a lecture by Dr. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary, California. Dr. Godfrey specializes in Reformation history (one of the books he has written--now on my "to read" list--is Reformation Sketches), and in anticipation of Calvin's 500th birthday in 2009, Dr. Godfrey spoke on the topic of Calvin at 500: Was He a Success?

Dr. Godfrey talked about Calvin's contributions in three areas: government, the church, and his legacy of spreading the gospel. Dr. Godfrey talked about all of Calvin's great contributions, that he was probably one of the most influential people of the millenium, and the fact that even today we are interested in our political candidates' religious beliefs--probably because of Calvin's influence. If there were an area in which Calvin was not a success, however, according to Godfrey, it was in government. But, of course, Calvin's contributions to the church and to a rich gospel legacy were a profound success.

Some interesting insights Dr. Godfrey shared were his observation that Calvin, and Calvinists, are usually perceived today as solemn and joyless. He shared an anecdote in which he met a young man who was from an area of the Netherlands particularly known for its rich Reformed heritage (at least at one time). Dr. Godfrey asked the young man if he was a member of the Reformed church there (which would have been Calvinistic), and the young man responded that those were the people who had no TVs. Dr. Godfrey noted how sad Calvin would be to find that those who followed him would be identified in these ways rather than for their love for the gospel and its spread.

One other interesting insight that has stuck with me was Calvin's favorite verse--and it isn't in Romans. His favorite verse (reflecting his love for the gospel) is John 17:3: "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

It was a great evening, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to meet Dr. Godfrey and hear him speak about his passion, John Calvin. I expect that eventually his address will be posted on Reformed Fellowship's Web site (see the link, above right).

Better Than Life Update

October is here--suddenly, warmly, and surprisingly! While most of you are thinking about getting out those sweaters, raking leaves, drinking apple cider, and that most important of October holidays (Reformation Day, of course), at our offices we are thinking about the exciting release of the Better Than Life CD and book and all of the events surrounding them.

The CD actually made its way to our offices last week, and it was greeted with great excitement. The first five hundred copies of the book should arrive in our offices next week (October 17), and while I'm sure everyone eagerly anticipates it, I'm especially excited to see this one come back home.

The Better Than Life project was created to celebrate the International Day of Prayer in November, which focuses on remembering Christians around the world who are persecuted for their faith. The songs on the CD, written and performed by Shannon Wexelberg, Scott Krippayne, and Charles Billingsley, all deal with the themes of persecution and suffering, and several of them are based on actual stories of persecuted Christians. The book is its younger sibling, and it tells the stories, in words, of persecuted Christians.

We do have an excellent Web site (www.dhp.org/btl--click on the link under "Other Interesting Sites") that includes sample stories from the book, song samples, and interviews with the artists who wrote and performed the songs. Check it out! The artists are also taking the songs out on the road with a seven-city tour, and the opening night is here in Grand Rapids at Sunshine Community Church on Thursday, November 1. It should be an exciting evening. Ticket information is on the site, as well as information about how to get your own copy of the book and CD.

Dear readers out there who bump into me from time to time: I would be happy to pick up both the book and CD for you at our Discovery House bookstore and deliver them to you in person. I do understand that Parable bookstores will be carrying a (very) limited number of the books and CDs. They will also be available at the concert, of course.

We Americans who go to church each Sunday, sitting in our comfortable sanctuaries with plentiful Bibles surrounding us--air conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter--tend to forget that not everyone in the world enjoys these privileges. It's difficult for me to put into words what I've learned from working on this project about the price some of God's servants in other parts of the world pay for a life of faith. And yet they happily "count it all joy" because of what Christ has done for them. Everyone who has been involved in the creation of this project hopes that we have captured a little sense of what our brothers and sisters endure for the sake of Christ, and that as listeners and readers learn of their plight through story and song, they will be encouraged to pray, to rejoice in God's perfect providence, and to never take the freedom we enjoy in America for granted.

The War

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven . . . A time for war, and a time for peace.

Last night Jonathan and I watched the final episode of Ken Burns's new series for PBS, entitled The War. As a nearly fourteen-year-old male, Jonathan finds the subject of warfare, guns, trenches, and bombs fascinating, and his interest in history made this great television for him. As usual, Burns took an intriguing approach, telling the story of World War II through the eyes of the everyday, ordinary person who was there, with a few well-known personalities adding their commentary as well.

While I didn't watch as faithfully or as attentively as Jonathan, I couldn't help but make some interesting observations, especially given the fact that our own nation is embroiled in a controversial war.

While none of the men Burns featured who fought in the war relished the fact that they were required to kill--there was no glamorization in this piece--they all believed that what they did was necessary, that the world faced a tremendous threat that had to be addressed. One woman from Alabama, whose brother and other friends fought in the war, commented about the end of the war that no one would ever convince any member of her generation that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a bad thing. They brought an end to the war, an end to bloodshed, and finally all of the boys could come home.

All of the men in particular that Burns interviewed throughout the hours of footage had been profoundly affected by the war. Some still broke down in tears as they discussed memories that several of them confessed they really didn't like to talk about. One man said that he had returned from the war, gotten married, had a family--had had a good life. And yet there was still the war. But it was a worthy cause--something that had to be done.

It seems like in hindsight, the threat was obvious. This was a cause worth fighting for, and freedom was definitely at stake. But there were many at the time who just wanted it all to end, wanted the boys to come home, and if it had been up to them, the war would have ended when Germany surrendered--never mind the Japanese. A co-worker and I were talking about all of this today, and she wondered if this generation has the stamina, the strength, the sense of commitment that it took to fight--and triumph--back then. It's a good question.

One of the profound statistics revealed last night was that two out of three European Jews were killed during World War II. Would even a third have survived if Hitler and the Nazis had not been stopped? Probably not.

So what if, fifty or sixty years from now, we look back on our current war and recognize that Islam was, in fact, a real threat. That it was a threat that we underestimated at one time. That some farsighted people acknowledged the threat at the time and tried to do something about it, but that those farsighted people were ridiculed, slandered, and their actions undermined and eventually overturned because more people didn't think there was a real threat. That we should have listened. What kind of a world will the world of fifty or sixty years from now be like?

A Cover Story

"You can't tell a book by its cover"--or can you? Book publishers certainly believe a book's cover is an important piece in the book-selling puzzle. Marketers want the cover to attract buyers, make them pick the book up, and hopefully buy the book. Editorial, of course, wants the same thing, but we also want the cover to artfully, attractively reflect the contents, the author's message.

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), along with Dickinson Press, is offering awards for book cover design this fall. Discovery House submitted two of our favorite covers from the past year, and the one pictured above has made it to the finals in its category. We will find out whether it wins the award in November at the ECPA conference in Chicago. But it was pretty exciting to arrive at work on a dark, rainy Monday morning and receive the notification that our book was a finalist. It took a lot of hard work to get here from there.

Our book covers are usually designed before the book is even edited. For marketing and publicity purposes, we need the cover design long before we actually start working on the inside of the book. As with all of our books, our managing editor contacted a designer and gave him minimal information about the book (so he or she is free to come up with a concept without undue influence). The intended audience for the book is teenage to 20-something women, and the designer was aware of that. It deals with issues like modesty, self-image, and beauty from a biblical perspective. Several of us had settled on what we were convinced was a beautiful cover (and it was), but as it turned out, not the best cover for the book itself.

The first objection came from the author, who had an entirely different vision for the cover. Usually authors must live with their publishers choices, but we do try to take their preferences under advisement, and the author in this instance so disliked what we had chosen that she had a designer-friend create a cover herself. Of course this cover was unacceptable to us, so we took the author's concept back to the designer. Another interesting development was that the men on our marketing team who saw the cover that we were in love with, absolutely hated it.

But we were sure we were right. So the designer came up with some new designs for us to look at, including the one posted above. Most of us hated this cover, and the author wasn't extremely excited about it, but our managing editor, who found it not to her taste, believed that it would be a strong cover that would attract positive attention for the book. (And she reminded us of that today.)

Finally, one of our marketing people suggested that we have a small focus group that included about twelve young women who are on the RBC staff. What an interesting thing to observe! And the young women, hands down, chose this cover over what was apparently an "old lady" cover. It seems that they knew what they were talking about, because look what a long way this little cover has come.

And people think working for a publishing company must be boring! Stay posted for the results in November. . .