Latest project: Fear No Evil: A Test of Faith, a Courageous Church, and an Unfailing God (Zondervan, April).

Your church suffered a tragedy on Dec. 9, 2007, when a gunman came to your campus. What happened? Matthew Murray, a 24-year-old young man, came on our campus. He had a thousand rounds of ammunition attached to the vest that he was wearing. He had an AR-15 assault rifle, a couple of handguns and some smoke grenades. He had distracted part of our volunteer security team and drove up through our parking lot, got out of his car and opened fire into a family who was getting into a van. As he fired into that van, he struck Rachel and Stephanie, an 18 year old and a 16 year old. (They) were both shot and died almost instantly. Their dad was injured, shot through the abdomen. This gunman then turned and shot into several other cars, injuring a lady who was driving by. … He then came in one of the doors of the church and was shooting down the hallway at people as they were running for their lives. A very heroic security guard, who was a volunteer at our church, stepped out and confronted him, injured him, and as he was injured, he crawled over into another hallway and took his own life, but not before two people died and several others were injured. It was by far the darkest day of my life. In fact, that day I had only been a pastor for that church for 100 days. 

And this was the same gunman at the Youth With a Mission location nearby? Yes that's right. That was the night before. … This young man had once been a part of that YWAM base, but he had been dismissed years earlier because of some mental issues. 

Murray's parents later came and met with the couple that lost their two daughters. What was that like? The four of them met in my office and I'm telling you it was the most powerful display of forgiveness and grace I had ever seen in my life. These two families embraced one another, prayed for one another, cried with one another, and I've just never seen such an expression of forgiveness. Then, of course, the next Sunday when I told our entire church what had happened, our church just erupted. It was just an amazing display of gratitude. 

Tell us about the "miracles" you say have happened in your church since. Thirteen months before the shooting, the founding pastor of New Life, Ted Haggard, had been on the front page of every newspaper for a scandal that involved him. Obviously he had to resign at the church, and all of that is a story in itself. Then we had a shooting on our campus. So in the stretch of 13 months we were on the front page of every American newspaper and newspapers around the world for two very bad things. … At that time we had actually begun the recovery. We started seeing life come back to the church. We saw the church start growing again. It's a miracle. That just doesn't happen. 

What do you hope readers will take away from this book? It's all based on the 23rd Psalm, verse 4, that even though we walk through the shadow of death, we will fear no evil. … This story is about a church who found themselves in the darkest place imaginable, and we began to worship together and pray together. We began to come alongside one another as friends, and we have found ourselves on the other side of the valley. … Those lessons that we have learned are absolutely invaluable. I shared a lot of these things in the book. 

Having risen from poverty to the halls of power, Barry C. Black has discovered that wealth and prestige do not offer immunity from difficulties—nor do they necessarily make it any easier when tough times do come.

Rather, suffering is universal and demands the same response regardless of circumstances or station, if someone is to find hope and meaning, he says in The Blessing of Adversity (978-1-414-326801-1, $14.99), released this month from Tyndale House Publishers.

Subtitled "Finding Your God-given Purpose in Life’s Troubles," Black’s book draws from his 30-plus years in ministry, including his duties since 2003 as the 62nd Chaplain of the United States Senate. He shares what he has learned serving as a counselor to the rich and powerful, as well as from his own impoverished childhood and military service.

"I’ve seen enough anguish to convince me that evil is real; sin is pervasive, and death is a regular and frequent intruder on humanity," he writes. "Yet in spite of the brokenness and suffering all around me, I believe that God can use our pain and enable us to benefit from affliction."

Black’s six-point road map through painful territory directs readers to guard their tongue, stay positive, be constant, grow up, follow God’s Word and control their doubts. He finds wisdom from the Scriptures, including the story of the Prodigal Son, Daniel and Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem and in the words and actions of a wide-ranging cast, from Roman Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Martin Luther King to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

Black also quotes William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Coldplay and recalls stories from his own life. Among them his mother’s resilient faith despite the family’s being evicted for being unable to pay the rent, her determination in seeing her children enjoy good education and his remorse on being caught bullying. He also tells of listening as a child to recordings of then-Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall, reciting them for friends little realizing that one day he would hold the same office.

With boiled-down action steps such as "Live with praise," "Be tenacious" and "Refuse to rationalize" anchoring the lessons in each of 23 chapters, Black encourages Christians not to try to wiggle out of hardships but to trust God in the midst of them and look for the lessons and foundations He wants to lay for their future.

Failure can become "a teacher whose instruction will produce positive dividends for years" for those willing to learn even from self-inflicted difficulties, he says. "The knowledge that I am able to overcome something that would have beaten me in the past allows me to celebrate my troubles in victory."

Humility, generosity and confidence in God’s goodness are powerful antidotes to the poisons of self-reliance, self-centeredness and self-defeating doubt, Black maintains. Prayer and study are vital, too, he says, telling how when asked to deliver the eulogy for someone he does not know, he asks to see the deceased’s personal Bible because he can get to know them through what is written in it.

Black also offers glimpses into his service on Capitol Hill, including conversations with some leading decision-makers—who sometimes need help knowing what to do in their own lives. Great or small, every life has purpose, Black asserts.

To order, call Tyndale House at 800-323-9400 or visit www.tyndalebooksellers.com.

Abby Sunderland's solo seafaring crisis strengthened her faith in God

 Title: Unsinkable

 Author: Abby Sunderland and Lynn Vincent

 Publisher: Thomas Nelson

 Isbn:978-1-400-20308-6

 Price: $22.99

 Release date: April

 Quotable: "He came through for me. I was a strong Christian throughout my trip and came out an even stronger one in the end." —Sunderland

Motivated to become the youngest person to ever sail solo around the world non-stop, 16-year-old Abby Sunderland came close to fulfilling her dream. 

She and New York Times best-selling co-author Lynn Vincent tell of her 12,000-mile journey in Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas, releasing this month from Thomas Nelson.

Raised in sailing with her father a shipwright, Sunderland was "pretty confident" as a sailor, she said. "Taking on the world was a pretty big challenge, but one that I was pretty sure I was up for."

Aside from her upbringing and specialized training, she was inspired by her brother Zac Sunderland's sailing solo around the world, a 13-month quest that ended successfully in July 2009. 

While her brother took on the world by the equator route, Sunderland chose the southern ocean route, leaving from Marina Del Ray, Calif., and heading around Cape Horn through the Atlantic Ocean, then to Cape Town, South Africa, and out to the Indian Ocean—where her journey ended nearly 2,000 miles east of Madagascar. 

"When you're going along the equator, it's tougher navigation; there are pirates and things like that you have to worry about," she said. "When you're down South, it's freezing cold and you get some pretty gnarly storms down there and icebergs and things like that." 

The second of eight homeschooled children lost her battle with the sea four months into her voyage and just over halfway around the globe. "I was in the exact middle of the Indian Ocean," she said. "I was as far as you can get from any search and rescue place. I was hit by a rogue wave and my boat was rolled. I was dismasted and I lost pretty much all of my communication. I had no way to contact home and let anybody know what happened. So my boat was completely disabled and I had no way to tell anyone." 

After her boat—Wild Eyes—rolled, her parents, Laurence and Marianne Sunderland, withstood a great deal of criticism in the media, but the young sailor defended their decision to let her go on the trip.

"After I rolled, some of the criticism was just so off the wall and ungrounded," she said. "I really couldn't believe some of it. It was a little bit hard. My parents were coming under a lot of criticism for a decision that I had made. I felt pretty bad about it. I had gone out and told the world that I was going to do this because I wanted to." 

Sunderland wants to inspire other teens to think big about their lives and how they spend their time. "I think there is a lot of trouble with low expectations with teenagers," she said. "It would be nice to see more teenagers getting out and breaking the normal status of the teenager world. All they are expected to do is get good grades, take out the trash and that sort of thing."

But it's not only teens she wants to inspire to follow their dreams. "Some people would say my whole trip was a failure because I didn't reach my goal," she said. "But the way I look at it, at least I tried, and it's so much better that I gave it a shot and I am not saying, 'I wish I had taken that chance when I had it.' 

"I really just hope that through my story people see that you can follow your dreams. Things don't always work out, but it's good to go for it. Also see how amazing God was in my life, it's really a great story, I think."

After rolling her boat, she was "a little worried," she said. "I didn't think anyone would be able to get to me so far away from land." After sending in her position for rescue, it was two days before she was picked up by a fishing ship. Eventually she made it to Reunion Island, where she was reunited with her brother and a couple of her team members.

Sunderland found her faith strengthened and her life changed from the experience. "I don't think you can come through a trip like that without having changed in some way or another, although, being myself, I really am not the best person to ask about that," she said. "My faith definitely played a big role on the trip. 

"The morning after I rolled I was sitting on my chart desk, and I was starting to think a little bit too much about what was happening, so I prayed, and just seconds after I prayed, a huge plane flew over me. 

"It's said that at some point in any sailor's life, they are going to reach their limit and they're going to reach their breaking point and call on the Lord—and that was mine there. He came through for me. I'd been a strong Christian throughout my whole trip and came out an even stronger one in the end."

To order Unsinkable, call Thomas Nelson at 800-251-4000, or visit www.thomasnelson.com.

Ask the author

Maureen Lang

Next release: Springtime of the Spirit (March), the final book in “The Great War Series.”

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers

What turned your focus to World War I in “The Great War Series”?

Family history. My grandfather was in the Signal Corps in the First World War and gave me a whole box of pictures from France during that time. He’d written on the back what was going on in each shot, and it’s fascinated me ever since.

What can readers expect in Springtime of the Spirit?

I learned so much writing this, mainly because the political drama of 1919 Germany seems to touch on many topics we hear about in the news today: How big do we want our government to be? How much should we depend on government to take care of us? Does faith play into the design of government? 

Questions like those fascinated me, but to make the story fun instead of a textbook, I knew I wanted to include a romance. So my hero and heroine explore things like socialism and faith, and since they’ve survived different war experiences, they have very different opinions. How they work through those differences—eventually risking their lives in the process—is where the romance and drama really mesh together. 

How did you tackle the classic question about God and suffering--how could God allow war? 

Anyone who’s lived long enough has probably asked why God allows suffering, and after the brutality of war, it seemed especially appropriate for my characters to question this. At one point my hero, whose faith is solid, says that if God had stepped in to end a war that we started of our own free will, He would have to step in and stop other mistakes we make as well. Where would our free will be then? As my hero says: Doesn’t having to allow the little mistakes mean His having to allow the big ones, too?

Do you have a fondness for a particular character in the series?

I do love Christophe, the hero in this book. However, my absolute favorite in Springtime of the Spirit is Annaliese, my heroine. She’s so determined, so sure of herself and so totally unafraid to do what she thinks best. And she has absolutely zero fear of speaking in front of the biggest audience she can draw—something I always admire, because I possess not one ounce of such a talent.

What are your thoughts about Christian romance as a category?

I love Christian romance, and I read quite a bit of it. Falling in love is exciting, and to see two people withstand obstacles for love makes great reading. That said, I do pray for the genre—actually for all of Christian fiction—that in the hope of coming up with new and different stories, we’re mindful of “pushing the envelope.” My prayer is that we—and I include myself in this—will still create stories God wants to read.

Where to next in writing for Maureen Lang?

I’m heading into an even more romantic thread with my next project, this one between a thief and a sheltered young woman aspiring to become a thief as well—until God catches their attention. My settings are headed home to the USA, placing my next story in New York City during the 1880s. No more wars for the time being, but hopefully just as much excitement.

See Author Corner at www.christianretailing.com for more on this author.

ECPA Fiction Top 10

1. Unlocked, Karen Kingsbury (Zondervan)

Inspired by the true story of Mitch Thatcher—a teenager on the autism spectrum who experienced an “unlocking” of sorts when he became part of a musical theater group—Unlocked has brought hope to families struggling with autistic children. Thatcher also created a Facebook page to inspire others in similar situations.

2. The Twelfth Imam, Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House Publishers)

3. Her Mother’s Hope, Francine Rivers (Tyndale House Publishers)

4. Her Daughter’s Dream, Francine Rivers (Tyndale House Publishers)

5. Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers (Multnomah Books)

6. The Thorn, Beverly Lewis (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

7. The Shack, William P. Young (Windblown Media/Hachette Book Group)

8. In the Company of Others, Jan Karon (Viking Adult)

9. Immanuel’s Veins, Ted Dekker (Thomas Nelson)

Thomas Nelson gathered reader reviews in advance of the book’s release. The frontmatter of Immanuel’s Veins includes six pages of comments from these readers, speaking to how it impacted their lives.

10. Sarah’s Choice, Wanda E. Brunstetter (Barbour Publishing)

The ECPA list is compiled from sales of Christian books in hundreds of Christian retail outlets nationwide, collected using Pubtrack Christian (www.ptchristian.com). December best-sellers are for the four-week cycle ending November 20, 2010. All rights reserved. © 2010 ECPA. www.ecpa.org.

New fiction releases coming next month:

Beside Still Waters, Tricia Goyer (B&H Books)

Griselda Takes Flight, Joyce Magnin (Abingdon Press)

Home Made Haunting, Rob Stennett (Zondervan)

How Huge the Night, Heather Munn and Lydia Munn (Kregel Publications)

On Hummingbird Wings, Lauraine Snelling (FaithWords)

Patchwork Dreams, Laura V. Hilton (Whitaker House)

The Alarmists, Don Hoesel (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

The Corruptible, Mark Mynheir (Multnomah Books)

The Daughter’s Walk, Jane Kirkpatrick (WaterBrook Press)

The Deepest Waters, Dan Walsh (Revell/Baker Publishing Group)

The Final Summit, Andy Andrews (Thomas Nelson)

The Judgment, Beverly Lewis (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

Wolves Among Us, Ginger Garrett (David C. Cook)

Latest project: Scars of a Chef, written with Lisa Jackson (Tyndale House Publishers, March).

You’ve written cookbooks, but this is a different kind of book for you, isn’t it? It is. It’s an extremely personal book of my journey, really just kind of a memoir and the wonderful journey that my life was taken over the last 30 years in the restaurant industry.  

What’s it like working in the restaurant business? It’s an extremely aggressive field as far as competition these days. People are striving now, coming out of culinary schools to not only become chefs, but then to obtain their own restaurants or multiple restaurants, and it’s become such a multimedia world with Bravo and the Food Network and the Cooking Channel and all these multimedia outlets, having your own television show or books or multiple books, so it’s very competitive. It’s really become extremely popular and turned into something that I never thought it would become. Back in the day when I was growing up, there was Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet.  

Can you tell us about your restaurants? For the last 10 years I’ve had a restaurant called Tru in Chicago, which is a fine dining restaurant, high-end restaurant. I also have a place called Tramonto Steak and Seafood and the R.T. Lounge on the north shore of Chicago. And the last year I’ve been in New Orleans getting ready to open up a new restaurant in the French Quarter in the Royal Sonesta Hotel called Resturant R’evolution with my partner, Chef John Folse. 

You started at Wendy’s and worked alongside Dave Thomas on occasion. It was the first Wendy’s in Rochester, N.Y., that had opened when my dad went to prison when I was a kid. I left school and was getting into trouble and my mom was a lunchroom lady during the day and a cleaning lady at night, and I needed a job. I needed to help out. I’ve always grown up in a family that loved food. My grandparents had both lived with me at one time from Italy, so at least I got my arms around it. 

You were aiming to reach the top of that “kitchen ladder.” To what do you attribute your overall success? There was just this dedication, of relentlessness of wanting to learn this trade and wanting to do this regardless of the obstacles, and then I think the bigger piece was God. … Now that I may have a culinary stage to be able to be respected on, I think that was the purpose of my life and my journey now, to be able to be used by God, to be able to speak into my industry because my industry still has a lot of excess and darkness. There is a lot of darkness in my industry because it has such high alcohol and drug and divorce rates and just so many things that are negative and dark. 

You suffered a divorce yourself and used drugs, so you can relate, can’t you? Yes, very much so. We serve the God of the second chance, and I think the message of this book is God loves us so much that He’ll continue to bring light into our life and second chances to help us to draw (closer) to Him. 

How would you like to encourage the Christian retailers in selling this book? It just continues to show the God of the second chance, the love of God, the hope that is in Christ, and it’s certainly a great snapshot of the behind-the-scenes of the restaurant industry, of being in the kitchens—a different take on Kitchen Confidential, if you will, but from a Christian viewpoint and from somebody who has spent his whole life in professional kitchens.

Reggie Dabbs had a rough start in life, but learned that although he couldn’t change his past, he could make a difference in the future—and that’s just what he is doing now every day. Dabbs speaks to 2.5 million young people a year, and, with John Driver, he tells his story in Reggie (978-0-849-94626-4, $15.99), in stores next month from Thomas Nelson.

Dabbs was born to a 16-year-old unwed mother who already had three children. In order to feed them, she felt compelled to accept the offer of a male friend who said he would give her $20 for sex. As a result, she became pregnant and knew she couldn’t handle raising another child. It was then that she remembered a caring former schoolteacher, Mrs. Dabbs, who had said to her students, “If you ever need anything, call me.” And she did. 

Mrs. Dabbs and her husband had six grown children, but took the girl into their home and cared for her until baby Reggie was born. They served as his parents until he was in fourth grade and then officially adopted him.