Casting Crowns was nominated Oct. 13 for an American Music Award (AMA) in the Favorite Artist-Contemporary Inspirational category. Casting Crowns has previously won the award twice, including last year, and has been nominated seven times.

Bookstore Manager plans to ship new EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) readers to Christian retailers as soon as the product gets certified, according to the company's vice president of operations and customer relations, Brent Casey.

The readers are designed to comply with new credit card regulations, outlined in greater detail here. Bookstore Manager has been working on the new devices for over a year and told Christian Retailing the company is nearly ready to release them to Christian retailers. The delay in release is attributed to waiting on certification.

Independent Christian retailers from across the country came together Sept. 20-22 for Christian Product Expo (CPE) in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Munce Group sponsored the annual trade show.

This year's show featured a number of special guests, including Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice and Haydn Shaw, a leadership expert and author of Generational IQ and Sticking Points (both Tyndale House Publishers). During the Sunday workshops, Sekulow spoke to the independents about their rights as Christian store owners and addressed concerns from the audience in a question-and-answer session. On Monday, Shaw enlightened retailers on reaching the millennial generation.

The 46th Annual Gospel Music Association (GMA) Dove Awards were handed out Tuesday night in 41 categories, as well as four special awards. Lecrae took home the top prize—Artist of the Year—as well as Rap/Hip-Hop Album of the Year and Rap/Hip-Hop Song of the Year.

Lauren Daigle, Seth Mosley and Matt Maher were the night’s other big winners, taking home multiple Dove Awards. Mosley took home four Dove Awards: Songwriter of the Year/Non-Artist, Producer of the Year, Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year (for producing For King and Country’s Run Wild. Live Free. Love Strong.) and Inspirational Album of the Year (for producing Phillips, Craig & Dean’s Above It All). Daigle won New Artist of the Year, and her song "How Can It Be" won both Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year and Song of the Year.

New Day Christian Distributors joins the Bible journaling trend through its newest product line "Illustrated Faith" by Bella Blvd. "Illustrated Faith" is a line of stickers, tapes, labels, paints and pens. 

New Day also offers a number of journaling Bibles from Crossway, featuring wide side margins to allow room for art. Spurred by images of decorated Bible pages on social media, these products encourage the creative expression of an individual’s spiritual journey.

Worthy Publishing Group and Museum of the Bible have teamed up to form a new book-publishing imprint, Museum of the Bible Books. The partnership will allow the Washington, D.C.-based Museum of the Bible to encourage Scripture engagement for people of all ages.

The Newsboys are giving back to the Columbia, South Carolina, where residents have suffered greatly with recent flooding. In conjunction with the band's Oct. 23 tour stop at the South Carolina State Fair, held in Columbia, the Newsboys will make a financial contribution to Harvest Hope Food Bank.

Harvest Hope Food Bank (harvesthope.org) has served hundreds of thousands of meals to local residents since the flooding began.