Thank you so much for publishing the wonderful piece in the December 2010 Industry Forum by David Almack. The title and subtitle said it all: "Reading is our industry's key to survival: Knowing and loving the books we publish and sell is essential to our success."

Like Almack, I've been distressed to realize the number of authors, publishers, editors, sales reps, store owners and frontliners who simply don't seem to care much about reading widely. Almack wisely reminded us of the joys of a passion for the printed page that must be central to our calling in the book world. That this is linked to our fidelity to God, our obedience to develop the Christian mind and our effectiveness in ministry in our complex world underscores the urgency of his good reminder. 

That our financial success is at stake may be most obvious, but it is these deeper matters—are we pleasing God, making a difference in the lives of others, being agents of Christ-like transformation of the culture, and are we nurturing the habits of heart and mind that form character and integrity and biblical wisdom that reading facilitates, that make our work so urgent? 

Even pastors and church leaders have too often been seduced away from the task of study and thoughtful disciple-making, so the local Christian bookseller sometimes has to supplement the feeble diets that some of our customers have. If we don't know and love books and insist on their value, how can we possibly expect others to?

So, thanks, Christian Retailing, and thanks, David. This was one of the most important industry articles I've seen in 30 years. I pray there is a renaissance of the renewed mind (Rom. 12:2) inspired by serious publishers, well-read reps and book-loving local shops who equip the saints to love and use books as tools for the kingdom of God. This piece is a wake-up call, and I'm sure many of us are grateful.

Byron Borger

Hearts & Minds

Dallastown, Pa.

www.heartsandmindsbooks.com

What do you think?

Share your opinions on these and other industry issues by writing to: Andy Butcher, editor, Christian Retailing, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746. Or e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. we reserve the right to edit letters for style and content.

I have just read your April editorial, “Wanted: big-picture thinkers,” and I have to say that it spoke to me loud enough to prompt this response.

I moved to the area where I live a few years ago and opened my store, expecting great support from the churches and community. After all, this is a very conservative, churchgoing, KJV-only, Southern gospel-listening bunch of people, so why wouldn’t they appreciate a Christian bookstore?

Well, I was wrong in my thinking. I have offered pastor discount programs, a place for pastors to network together, a coffee shop, a place to hold Bible studies or to just gather and many other ideas—but to no avail. Businesswise, I do well enough to pay the bills (barely, some months), but ministrywise I feel like I have failed at everything that I have tried.

If you have any suggestions that I may try, then please send them my way.

Darlene Alldredge

Owner

His Place Christian Resources

Lineville, Ala.

I enjoyed your editorial in the April issue. I have been in business seven years, and my vision for the store was and is that it would truly be an oasis for people.

I also have a coffee shop with espresso drinks/fresh fruit juices, smoothies and muffins. I had hoped the coffee shop would draw non-Christian people in and it has. I consider it my outreach.

I hope your article encourages many others to come up with creative ideas to connect and spread the gospel.

Jane Cook

Owner

Oasis Christian Bookstore

Farmington, Mo.

Thank you for the May 27 Christian Retailing Update report about our new “Free Bible Charts of the Month” program for helping bookstores. We now have nearly 100 Christian stores using this program.

I wanted you to clarify a couple of things about the article. Stores and their customers do not go to the Rose Web site, but to FreeBibleCharts.com, a deliberately non-branded Web site. Store customers do not download nine e-charts at one time. In the “Free Bible Charts of the Month” program for bookstores, they download only one free Bible e-chart per month.

For more information, contact Eric Lau at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Gretchen Goldsmith

President/CEO

Rose Publishing

I recently read a Christian Retailing report that, starting Aug. 1, every Thomas Nelson Bible will be guaranteed for life against manufacturing defects in what was “believed to be an unprecedented quality pledge.”

I would respectfully like to point out that Fireside Catholic Publishing for over 40 years has provided a Lifetime Guarantee of all its Bible line, should the Bible ever prove unsatisfactory due to manufacturing defects.

We welcome Thomas Nelson’s commitment to quality. However, it can hardly be described as unprecedented.

Mark Brosz

Vice President Sales and Marketing

Fireside Catholic Publishing

As a publisher, Bob had an incredible instinct for what would sell, what the title should be and who the author should be for a particular subject. And in seconds he could calculate the cost. He was an early champion of CBA. He contributed to the industry through the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) as a board member, chairman and one of the creators of the Gold Medallion Book Awards.

He and I would talk about our inadequacies—yet many others thought (that) we thought we had none, I guess. Well, we didn’t let those thoughts out in public, but in private—many late-night conversations—we would share them. Sometimes his wife, Shirley, would get so upset when Bob and I would argue back and forth over the industry, politics, a Bible passage or whatever. But good friends, who love each other, know how to disagree—agreeably.

Bob turned Harvest House over to his son, Bob Jr., early on, giving him plenty of time to get firmly in the saddle. No one at the time knew that Parkinson’s would take control of him, making this decision all the more important. The company has thrived under Bob Jr.’s leadership, and his father was proud of that.

I was honored to speak at Bob’s memorial service. Lloyd Ogilvie brought a heartwarming message, and many others spoke, including children and grandchildren.

Doug Ross

President emeritus, ECPA

Tempe, Ariz.

Thank you for the great article on Francis Chan in the March issue of Christian Retailing. I appreciated your thoughtful reporting on how David C. Cook is marketing and developing him.

Though you did not mention it in the article, I think it is interesting to note that Francis is not accepting any of the author royalties for the sales of Crazy Love—something he talks about on page 164 of Forgotten God. Instead, he has designated all the money to go to The Isaiah 58 Fund. It is stunning to think of the money he is gladly handing over to help the poor worldwide. Talk about someone who is joyfully living a “crazy” life for God.

Jana Muntsinger

McClure Muntsinger
Public Relations

Houston

We've been so concerned about the falling trees, in recent times, that I fear that we have lost sight of the forest.

But it's time to recognize that any discussion about the future of Christian retailing needs to include more than just those of us directly involved in it.

It's time to step back and look at the bigger picture. It's time to remember the bigger story of which we are part. It's time to broaden the conversation.

And we now have an opportunity to do just that, exploring what kind of role Christian stores might have to play in what God is doing and wants to do on a wider scale in the United States—including through their doors.

If we don't, my fear is that we are going to spend all our time mending our leaky umbrella and then turn round and go outside to find it's stopped raining.

The kind of thinking out loud I have in mind was well-captured recently in a blog by a pastor in my U.K. homeland. Simon Jones wrote that it was high time for some "fresh mission thinking and creative partnership between churches and the high (main) street."

After all, he observed, "our neighbors are regularly on the high street and rarely in our (church) buildings. The high street offers something they want. Analysts argue that shopping is a leisure activity and a source of 'spiritual' fulfillment in the absence of traditional organized religion.

"Missional thinkers have been rightly identifying consumerism as a rival god over recent years, which makes the high street the place where we should be—as Paul was in amongst the idols of Athens—living and modeling a different form of spirituality to our neighbors.

"And where better to do this than in a retail space that offers coffee, conversation, Internet access, books for browsing and buying, people to pray, space for groups to gather on a regular basis. The Christian bookshop could become a vital missional space with a bit of imagination on the part of church leaders and Christian retailers."

Admittedly, the church and cultural context is a little different over there, but the broad strokes apply. Jones closed his comments by wondering: "So are we up for this or will we all be lamenting the passing of the Christian presence on the high street the next time we gather at a conference to talk about how to do mission?"

Having expressed similar thinking in this column—that the strategic potential of Christian stores should be on the agenda of some of our national church leadership conferences about missions and outreach—I was interested to learn about two organizations meeting recently to—as the organizers put it—"dialog, discuss and prayerfully design a strategy of how to 'love America to Christ' through evangelism in the next decade."

These two groups were the National City Impact Roundtable (NCIR), a network for "cityreachers" whose focus is to reach whole communities for Christ, and the Mission America Coalition (MAC), which brings together hundreds of denominational and ministry leaders to develop collaborative prayer and evangelism efforts.

Contacting the organizers of the NCIR's "Convergence" meeting and the MAC's "Accelerate 2010" gathering, held in March, I wondered whether Christian retail stores figured on the agenda or in the program in any way?

The short answer turned out to be, no. But as I chatted with Eric Welch, one of the MAC leaders, it became, why not?

As we talked about the dual place Christian stores can hold in a community—as a midway point between church and home for people who may be more comfortable and familiar with stepping into a place of business than a house of worship, and neutral ground on which different churches could come together—he acknowledged their strategic potential.

Welch followed up by suggesting there might be value in adding a network specifically related to Christian retailing to the others he serves as national facilitator for MAC's roster of almost 30 existing networks.

In the past few years these have grown to include groups focused on everything from arts and entertainment to emergency preparedness, "marketplace" business ministries and prison ministries. They exist to "provide ongoing opportunities for connection, cooperation and collaboration," serving as "forums for sharing ideas, discussing topical issues (and) strengthening collective response to common challenges."

Welch suggested that a similar network for Christian retailing might aim to "mobilize Christians to share the Gospel story clearly with those around them through Christian products and services" and "promote collaborative relationships between Christian retailers and cityreaching networks." Sounds good to me.

I'm hoping that CBA may consider exploring how it could be part of this possibility, but I think that it is one that goes beyond just the trade association. We need rank-and-file participation, not just representatives.

So, what do you think? While we have many important issues to deal with in the here and now, shouldn't we also be taking some time to look to the future? Would you like to be part of some possibility thinking? If you feel a stirring to explore some of this, make contact with Eric Welch (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and me (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Our Sept. 21 article "Vampire titles a new vein in Christian bookstores" generated a lot of response, mostly on our Web site and Facebook fan page. Here's a sampling of what people had to say:

"Christian bookstores and Christian authors are just trying to get a piece of the currently popular vampire trade. If this is the kind of fiction I will find in Christian bookstores, I—and I would venture to guess, many others—will stop frequenting them and take our trade to Barnes & Noble or Borders or the like. At least with them, they do not claim to be representatives of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!"

—Bill Kilchenstein

"I have read two of the four books mentioned in the article and can say that both of the authors did exactly what Jesus followers are made to do: reclaim and redeem creation, which includes storytelling. Not a shred of Satan glorification can be found in either book."

—Kevin Kaiser

"Should we toss out 'The Chronicles of Narnia' because Lewis uses mythological creatures and beings in the books? They are no more real than vampires and just as evil if you look at it on the surface."

—Shaun Estey

"My students are reading Twilight and similar books. That's fact. Are we to hide our heads in the sand, or can we offer these students an alternative with a Christian worldview? We engage readers where they are, but we do so with a message of hope and peace found in Christ. That's what Paul did."

—Greg

"The Bible has many stories of beings much worse than vampires, and I'm thinking the stories in the Bible aren't fiction."

—Jim Seybert

"The Christian market has to stay open-minded, and bookstore buyers should read the books first before making a judgment call. Many are drawn to the supernatural and more than often books are showing the romanticism and the lure of darkness. The Christians should use books such as Thirsty and the others listed to show how God is the redeemer."

—Nicole