Preaching magazine included three InterVarsity Press titles among its lists of “The Year’s Best Books for Preachers” and the “Top Books on Preaching.”

IVP named A Change of Heart by Thomas C. Odenand God Dwells Among Us by G. K. Beale and Mitchell Kim among “The Year’s Best Books for Preachers.” Mohler chose 10 books that are “representative of some of the best volumes that will add value to the preacher and the preaching ministry, long after the year has passed.”

A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir tells the story of how Thomas Oden, one of the twentieth century’s most celebrat ed liberals, had a dramatic change in thinking and theology.

“The great value found in reading this book not only is found in tracing Oden’s personal pilgrimage, eloquently and vividly portrayed. To the contrary, the greatest value is in what the preacher will experience in the process of reading this book: a personal awareness of the transformations and shifts that have taken place in our own thinking,” Mohler said. “More than anything else, this book will help every preacher come to a deeper understanding of what it means to embrace biblical Christianity despite facing a highly secularized age.”

God Dwells Among Us: Expanding Eden to the Ends of the Earth considers the temple, a source of rich scholarship and theological reflection. But what does the temple mean for the church’s ongoing mission in the world? Beale and Kim take temple theology off the bookshelf and bring it to our modern-day life, where the church is instructed and exhorted in its purpose.

“This approach to biblical theology, soundly exegetical and powerfully persuasive, not only will help the pastor place every text of Scripture within the context of the entire canon, but also understand every text of Scripture in terms of the everlasting purposes of God,” Mohler said.

Preaching magazine also listed “The Top Books on Preaching,” which included IVP’s Preaching in an Age of Distraction by J. Ellsworth Kalas. Michael Duduit, executive editor for Preaching, selected the titles for this list.

“Kalas helps us step back and better understand our environment, and then offers counsel to help us respond wisely to the distractions of our age,” Duduit said. “Kalas reminds us that while we spend our days immersed in biblical texts and theological thought, our people live in a different world. Facing such challenges, preachers must learn to deal with distraction in our congregations and in ourselves.” 

For a complete list of award-winning books from InterVarsity Press visit ivpress.com/awardwinners.

Foreword Review magazine recently lauded seven Abingdon Press titles for finalist status for its 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Awards.

Foreword’s IndieFab Book of the Year Awards program was created to discover distinctive books from the indie publishing community across a number of genres. The award winners, which will be determined by a select group of more than 100 librarians and booksellers from around the country, will be announced during a program at the American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco on Friday, June 26.

The publishing imprint for the The United Methodist Publishing House, Abingdown Press garnered finalist nods for: Slowing Time by Barbara Mahany in the Adult Nonfiction: Body, Mind, & Spirit category, The Book of Not So Common Prayer by Linda McCullough Moore and When God Becomes Small by Phil Needham in the Adult Nonfiction: Religion category, Man’s Best Hero by Ace Collins in the Adult Nonfiction: Pets category, Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past by Sharyn McCrumb in the Adult Fiction: General category, and All My Belongings by Cynthia Ruchti and Home to Chicory Lane by Deborah Raney in the Adult Fiction: Religious category.

For an entire list of the 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Awards finalist, visit forewardreviews.com.

CBA, the Association for Christian Retail, is moving to new headquarters offices with an address change effective Monday, March 16. The office move will be completed by March 30.

The new address is 1365 Garden of the Gods Rd., Suite 105, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80907. Phone numbers and email addresses for the company and its employees remain the same.

 CBA has been leasing space under favorable conditions in a building it sold in 2010. With its lease expiring in March, CBA leadership decided to improve its stewardship position by relocating.

The move will save the Association tens of thousands of member dollars over the course of the new five-year lease. The new facilities also will provide more space built to association specifications to better serve members and the industry.

“We have an opportunity to make a new beginning at CBA, and even after 65 years of association service continue to fulfill our promise to help Christian-product providers reach all people,” says CBA President Curtis Riskey.

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company has announced the hiring of Lil Copan as senior acquisitions editor—General Trade.

Copan brings two decades of experience to Eerdmans. She has worked in acquisitions for several religious publishing houses—Abingdon Press, Ave Maria Press, and Paraclete Press, among others. Among her areas of expertise are trade line development, project

management, author and platform cultivation, substantive editing, and cross-platform content development.

Copan has worked with an impressive array of bestselling authors including Madeline L’Engle and Lauren Winner. She acquired Frederick Buechner’s Faces of Jesus for Paraclete in 2004 and was credited by Jana Riess in a 2011 Publishers Weekly interview for having “brilliantly suggested” the concept for her book Flunking Sainthood.

“Very few publishers manage to balance respect for authors, excellence in content, and a sense of responsibility to their readers,” Copan says. “Eerdmans has continued to invite readers and generate new ideas, introducing valued voices of faith over the last century-plus. Presenting diverse voices and faithful work with Eerdmans is an opportunity to sow seasoned skills, experience, and sensibility in the fertile ground of faith-based publishing.”

“We at Eerdmans have always had a strong interest in the relevance of ideas to the church broadly and to culture generally,” says Eerdmans Editor in Chief Jon Pott. “It is wonderful now to bolster that interest with so distinguished and creative an editor as Lil Copan has been. It is also warming, may I say, to welcome to the Eerdmans team someone whom several of us have long counted a friend and kindred spirit.”

Time is winding down on the voting period for Christian Retailing's Best awards. Christian Retailing invites anyone involved in the Christian trade to help us name the top products of 2014 in the Christian Retailing’s Best awards. The voting period runs through March 31.

Click here to vote.

Christian Retailing’s Best finalists will be announced April 6, and winners are expected to be announced at the International Christian Retail Show in Orlando, Florida, in June.

Introduced in 2001, the awards have been increasingly acknowledged as an important way of recognizing some of the most significant new life-changing products in the Christian retail industry.

For more information, email Awards Coordinator Jenny Rose Curtis at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Covenant Group, The Parable Group and their respective partner retailers nationwide have announced a joint initiative with Prison Fellowship International to launch the Children of Prisoners Sponsorship Program to rescue, restore and rebuild the lives of poor and vulnerable children of prisoners—impacting lives across the globe.

Prison Fellowship International is the largest and most extensive association of national Christian ministries working within the criminal justice field.

“Around the world, millions of children have lost one or both parents to imprisonment,” said Frank Lofaro, president of Prison Fellowship International. “These children don’t have a safe place to live and lack food, medical care, education—and hope. They fend for themselves on the street or live with their parents in prison and are at a high risk to be sold into child slavery and sex trafficking. The need is daunting; PFI already has 10,000 kids located and identified on our waiting list.”

Bill Anderson, former CBA president and now executive advisor and consultant to Prison Fellowship International, added, “We are excited to be working with Christian retailers to bring hope, relief and Christ’s love to children of prisoners around the world. Christian stores are the ideal partner—cutting across denominational lines and serving the whole church.

“We are delighted with the strong response and high level of participation by Covenant and Parable and their partner stores. Together we will make a huge difference—for God, for good … forever in the lives of thousands of kids. And we’re encouraged that additional stores and groups will join us as we move forward.”

Founded 35 years ago by former Nixon aide and Evangelical leader Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship International is dedicated to communicating the redemptive love and transforming power of Jesus Christto prisoners, ex-prisoners, their families, and victims of crime around the world. Prison Fellowship International works in more than 125 countries and engages 45,000 volunteers in prison ministry.

“Remarkably, PFI has been able to save lives as they work to restore physical health, improve nutrition, provide general education and ultimately bring the lost to Christ. We couldn’t be more privileged to partner with them and our partner retailers in this great work,” said Steve Potratz, founder and president of The Parable Group. “Christian retailers will be able to connect children in need to customers who can help.”

The Parable Group and Covenant Group has begun to raise awareness to customers via catalogs, emails, online and in stores. Retailers will aim to engage customers to enter into a one-on-one sponsorship with a child for just $28 a month. The turnkey, easy-to-implement program includes training resources, marketing support, in-store merchandising, data-reporting and accounting services for participating retailers.

“The full sponsorship program is well-planned, well-executed, and highly cost-effective for the child sponsors,” said Covenant Group President Chuck Wallington. “We look to enroll many sponsors for children in need over the coming months as our stores work to promote this program to the customers we serve.”

A group of 27 Christian publishers has filed a joint lawsuit against Family Christian—who filed for bankruptcy in February—to keep the retailer from selling their products at a future auction.

According to Katy Stech of bankruptcynews.com, publishers are demanding that the company either return consigned goods held at the chain’s 266 stores or pay them outright. Family Christian recently made the decision to sell approximately $20 million worth of consigned books, music, DVDs and church supplies at an auction scheduled later in 2015.

If Family Christian is allowed to sell the inventory at an auction, publishers will not have the opportunity to recoup their money.

A number of well-known Christian publishers are owed a substantial amount of money by Family Christian, including HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Tyndale House Publishers, Baker Publishing Group, B&H Publishing Group, Barbour Publishing, Crossway and Harvest House Publishers. Court documents reveal that the company owes banks and vendors about $97 million, excluding the consignment inventory.

Grand Rapids, Michgan-based Family Christian has 266 stores across 36 states. The bankruptcy has left its more than 3,000 employees wondering whether or not they will have jobs in the future.