Encountering Jesus
by Pat Collins CM (New Life, £10.99; orders@goodnewsbooks.co.uk; ISBN 978 1 90362312-1)
The author will be known to many readers not only for his earlier books, but as one of those who helped in recent years to establish the Alpha Course in Ireland. He is a founder member of the New Springtime evangelising community, and has been involved in aspects of spreading the Good News for many years.
This is a book which aims to activate people. The first half is devoted to outing the nature of historic evangelisation and aspects of the ‘New Evangelisation’.
The second half, however, is devoted to practical means by which indivudals and groups can achieve the aim outlined in the first half. These pages are based on those years of experience, and will undoubtedly provide those who have been inspired, perhaps by attending Alpha lectures, to share what they have experienced with others, not only in the church, but in the wider community.
For it is surely that wider community than will benefit most from this rearticulation of an ancient faith in more modern and accessible terms.
It is true that many Christians are often a little shy, perhaps even fearful of actually expressing their faith in a public way. The temper of the times is against this. The best witness that Christians might make for thier faith would be to live out the tenets of the Gospel
The Healing Habit
by Daniel O’Leary (Columba Press, €12.99)
The healing promoted in Daniel O’Leary’s new book is not a miraculous cure, but the cultivation of a restorative sense of inwardness and wonder, which will resolve the tensions and fears of everyday life. His earlier books have been widely read, and his established readers will welcome this new book.
He hopes to make them aware of “the vision of God’s incarnate presence everywhere which transforms our lives”. The publishers speak of the book as “a tonic”, and that is certainly something we would all benefit from these days.
Grumpy Frog
by Ed Vere (Puffin Books / Penguin, £6.99 / €7.99 pb)
Parents are always on the look-out for a book to read and share with small children, if only to break them of the TV and video habit. British author and artist Ed Vere is a hard working man, New York Times best-seller list and all that. But his new book is a delightful romp, in which the Frog claims he is not grumpy, he just loves green and likes to hop. Anything else is quite out of place, almost unnatural. But through a series of encounters he learns he is really not quite what he thinks he is. He admits he was a grump and mean with it. But he learns not to be grumpy, and to even tolerate the troublesome, Pink Rabbit – who also like to hop, though he does not think much of being green – an echo of Kermit here perhaps.
A delightful moral fable, for young and old, wrapped up in 32 entertaining pages.
