Homeless at Harvard: Finding Faith and Friendship on the Streets of Harvard Square tells of the 10 weeks John Christopher Frame spent among the homeless during his final studies at Harvard Divinity School. Frame shares his experiences and the stories of those he came to know who lived on the streets, helping readers better understand the problems of the homeless. Zondervan releases this book in softcover for $14.99 Aug. 6.

Pastor and author Shane Stanford, along with former CEO and member of the Tennessee House of Representatives R. Brad Martin, offer a series of lessons on slaying “giants” in life and business in Five Stones: Conquering Your Giants. Using the story of David and Goliath as a framework, the authors show how ordinary people can overcome challenges in all areas of life. One giant Stanford has had to face is an HIV-positive diagnosis, which he contracted after receiving infected blood. Releasing this month from Abingdon Press, this title retails for $18.99 in hardcover.

Leading and Loving It: Encouragement for Pastors’ Wives and Women in Leadership by Lori Wilhite and Brandi Wilson releases from FaithWords on Aug. 6 (softcover, $15). Revealing their own personal stories as pastors’ wives, the authors give readers tools for handling the pressures and expectations of their roles and tips for dealing with criticism, burnout and more. Wilhite founded Leading and Loving It, a community that supports women in ministry, where Wilson is a co-leader.

This month Charisma House releases You Are Anointed for This!: Walk in Confidence, Boldness and Authority (softcover, $16.99), in which author Judy Jacobs defines anointing and helps readers see that God’s power is not only for pastors, evangelists and ministry leaders, but also for every Christian. Jacobs, host of the television program Judy Jacobs Now!, is also founder of His Song Ministries and the International Institute of Mentoring.

Drawing upon Scripture and the latest research, including a large survey of couples and singles, pastor and best-selling author Adam Hamilton looks at how to sustain healthy romantic relationships for the course of a lifetime in Love to Stay: Sex, Grace, and Commitment. Abingdon Press releases this title in hardcover this month for $18.99. A companion DVD study and a leader’s guide are also available. 

Brett McCracken examines some gray areas of Christian cultural consumption in Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty. McCracken, managing editor of Biola Magazine and a journalism instructor at Biola University, leads Christians to refine their discernment of truth, goodness and beauty and to adopt a more thoughtful approach to engagement with culture. This book releases for $14.99 in softcover from Baker Books/Baker Publishing Group this month.

The latest title in Allison Bottke’s “Setting Boundaries” series is releasing from Harvest House Publishers this month. Setting Boundaries for Women: Six Steps to Saying No, Taking Control, and Finding Peace is designed to inspire and equip women with the tools they need to set and enforce appropriate boundaries with the people in their lives. In softcover, the book retails for $12.99.

In My So-Called Life as a Submissive Wife: A One-Year Experiment … and Its Liberating Results, Sara Horn shares her personal account of examining the concept of submission in marriage and challenges women to do the same—without preconceived ideas and with openness. Horn is founder of Wives of Faith, a military wives’ ministry and author of My So-Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife. Harvest House Publishers releases this title in softcover ($12.99) this month.

Latest project: God in Slow Motion: Reflections on Jesus and the 10 Unexpected Lessons You Can See in His Life (9781400204625, $15.99, Thomas
Nelson).

Why do you begin God in Slow Motion with the story of photographer Eadweard Muybridge? [While writing this book,] I was also reading a biography of Eadweard Muybridge and the beginnings of the motion picture industry. I was fascinated by his story and thought I might include it somewhere in my book. One night, after prayer, I was unable to sleep and was thinking through what I wanted to write the next morning. Muybridge kept coming to mind, and his photographic attempts to slow active life into still images that could be closely examined. I realized I was trying to do (spiritually speaking) the same kind of thing with my book. Mentally, I wanted to take a few still photographs of Jesus in action and see what I had missed in the blur of my own spiritual life and studies.

How did Muybridge’s story inspire you? Muybridge’s story was inspiration for me not to let Christ’s life (as recorded in the Gospels) simply run by me through the pages of the Bible. Instead, I wanted to linger on the scenes included there. To examine them. To ask out loud the difficult questions I’d normally hide from others. To find out, at least a little bit, what I’ve been missing in my understanding of Jesus and His intimate power in my life. To get a glimpse of the bigger, better faith—and its consequences—that I find too hard to see on most days.

What was your purpose in writing God in Slow Motion? It’s all about Jesus, about deepening intimacy with Christ. To see what discoveries God has for me when I look for Him deep in the underneath things of Christ’s life and my own. To risk seeing God as He has actually revealed Himself to our world through the Bible, regardless of how that challenges my preconceived notions of who He ought to be or why He ought to do what I expect Him to do. This book actually grew out of my own private times with God.

The book’s 10 chapters are based on 10 key events in Christ’s life. Which was the most personally challenging? The hardest chapter for me to write was “Insulting Greatness,” where I looked at the image of Christ washing His disciples’ feet. Interestingly enough, because I am of Middle Eastern descent, frequently in my life people have asked me to portray Jesus (in stage plays or VBS events or photo shoots or whatever). I have always turned them down. This picture of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet is the reason why: I could never even pretend to be that kind of selfless person. I am way too far away from this ideal … so digging into Christ’s selflessness and degrading service to others was hard for me … but I had to deal with that in the book—both Christ’s ideal and my failures to live up to His beautiful example. 

You include stories from contemporary culture and history. How did you choose which stories to tell? I’m a total pop-culture nerd. I collect comics. I watch too much TV. I love movies and books and history and all that nerdy stuff. I am always reading several things at once. … When it comes time to choose stories for my own books, I typically just pull them from whatever I’m reading/watching/listening to at the time. 

What else would you like Christian retailers know? I am very grateful to them for including my work in their retail ministries. In my career, my books have sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide, and I’ve had three books chart on Christian best-seller lists. The success of each of those books was a direct result of efforts by Christian retailers in their local communities. I’ve heard from readers all over the world who have shared with me how Christ met them—and changed them—through the words of my books. Where did those people get my books? Christian bookstores. I’ve needed help and encouragement myself. I’ve found what I needed in the smiles and service and products of Christian booksellers all across the nation. So, [I’d like to] just say this: Thanks!

Charisma House releases a black imitation leather edition of the best-selling Spiritual Warfare Bible on Aug. 20. Featuring the New King James Bible text, the Spiritual Warfare Bible includes declarations, prayers, interactive study elements, Bible character profiles and articles from Christian leaders and authors to help readers understand and engage in spiritual warfare. The leather edition retails for $59.99.

The New Inductive Study Bible is now available in the English Standard Version. The inductive edition includes an 18-page explanation of the inductive method, full-color instructions for studying and marking the text, and 23 pages of charts, maps and other study aids. Developed by Precepts Ministries International and releasing this month from Harvest House Publishers, the new edition comes in hardcover for $49.99.

Harvest House is releasing a large print edition of The Daily Bible, which has sold more than 1 million copies. Using the New International Version, the 365 readings in The Daily Bible are arranged chronologically. Devotional commentaries provide historical and spiritual insights into the text. Available in hardcover, it retails for $44.99.

With the start of school, Zondervan is releasing the Homeschool Mom’s Bible in the King James Version (KJV) this month. The $34.99 hardcover edition includes a topical index and 365 devotions. Veteran home educator Janet Tatman wrote the meditations, with the foreword by Vickie Farris, a homeschool mom, author and wife of Michael Farris, founder of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

ASK THE AUTHOR: Rene Gutteridge
LATEST PROJECT: Misery Loves Company (9781414349336, $12.99, August).
PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers.

Please start us off with a brief summary of your latest suspense novel.

Misery Loves Company involves Juliet Belleno, recently widowed when her husband is killed in the line of duty as a police officer. With her grief, she retreats inside her home, cutting herself off from the rest of the world except through the small window of her computer. She writes reviews of books and keeps up with her blog, but does little else that involves contact with people other than brief outings to the nearby grocery store. When Chris Downey, her late husband’s best friend, receives a call from Jules’ father explaining that Jules is missing, he at first thinks perhaps she’s taken a long weekend. But as he searches deeper, more and more evidence is pointing toward something more sinister. As it turns out, he may be right. The last thing Jules remembers was running into her favorite author at the store. Now she has awoken in a dark room, is tied up and her own words from her latest book review are scrawled in red across the ceiling above her. Everything she believed about her life, her husband and her faith is about to change.

What kind of character is Jules?

Jules is the epitome of all a person can become when life unravels in the way you fear the most. Her very heart is ripped from her when Jason dies, and she has no way to deal with her grief. Her husband was full of faith, but Jules is less sure of a God who seems unable to keep her safe, secure and happy, so she retreats into herself, into her home and into her own life.

What is Patrick Reagan like?

There is the Patrick Reagan on the book jacket of all his novels. He’s handsome. Regal. The library behind him looks massive, expensive and showcases every book you’ve always intended to read. You think, Man, just to have an hour to chat with him! Then there is the Patrick Reagan who is quietly losing his mind. Jules believes she knows this man from his books. She’s read every one he’s written. But she does not know the man he has become since facing his own devastating loss.

There are many thought-provoking themes threaded throughout the novel. One is the idea of not always knowing the good guys from the bad. Will you expand on that?

When I teach writing, I often remind writers that the scariest bad guys aren’t the dark monsters in the closets, but more the ones that, on some level, you can relate to. Right from wrong is fairly easy to navigate. More frightening for people, I believe, is when they’re having a hard time discerning what is good and what is bad. In a world that seldom holds the Bible as absolute truth, those lines can be blurred very easily. Even in my personal life, there have been times when I have had to pray through situations because what seemed right to me at the time was proved later not to be the right thing at all. Proverbs 14:12 comes to mind: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” I rarely trust my own instincts when there are shades of gray. I have to go in prayer and seek God and search His Word. As I get older, I am learning to be more patient with this process. I don’t always have to know. I have to trust the One who does.

What else should Christian retailers know about Misery Loves Company?

First and foremost, I think it’s an unusual and entertaining tale, even with some of the deeper themes it explores, such as grief and loss and a God of suffering. I think readers will have a lot of fun imagining what they would do if their favorite author kidnapped them. ... But, as I try to do with all my books, this story points to some ways we can all search our own hearts and what we believe about a God who does not stop tragedy. These are the things my characters wrestle with. It is the thing we must all come to terms with at some point in our lives. Just this year, my beloved town of Moore, Okla., had to confront this tremendously heavy question as we buried friends and family and children after the May 20 tornado. Why does a loving God allow His children to face such grueling misery? Jules Belleno and Patrick Reagan must search for their answers together in what has become the heartbreak of their own lives.

An abused child and a misguided counselor become unlikely friends in feature film

Lives are changed and unconditional love is modeled when a troubled towhead meets a clueless counselor in new drama Camp (818728010368, $19.98, Word Films/Word Distribution). 

Produced by Roebuck Media, the 111-minute film released to theaters in February and makes its home video debut Aug. 7. With a budget of $200,000, the film tells the story of Ken Matthews (Michael Mattera), an investment advisor, who signs up to be a camp counselor to impress a client. He is paired with 10-year-old Eli (Miles Elliot), an abused boy who has become bitter and hateful. As the story unfolds, the reluctant counselor manages to break through the walls of Eli’s heart to make a connection that changes them both. 

Jacob Roebuck, writer and director, said the film was inspired by events in his own life. While serving on a local church staff, he was required and initially reluctant to participate in a mission trip to help abused and neglected children at the Royal Family Kids Camp. 

“In my heart, I felt the call to go help these kids,” he said. “The call went against my wiring. I did not work with kids. But I also knew better than to ignore what could be a divine prompting. I still resisted interaction with children, many orphaned, who desperately need contact with loving, caring adults.”

The film not only focuses on the special ministry of youth camps and personal evangelism, but also addresses themes of abandonment, abuse and neglect, especially the need for men to step into their roles as fathers and father figures. 

“The camp experience, learning to care for the fatherless, has become the heart of the story we want to tell with our film,” Roebuck said. “Why was it so hard for me to connect with kids? Where did the wall come from? Why is so hard for men to step into the place of father?”

Roebuck said he hopes the film will “inspire people to open their hearts to forgotten children who need adults in their lives.” 

Camp is rated PG-13 for brief language, mature thematic elements, brief violence and a crude gesture. 

To order, call 800-876-WORD (9673).

Last Days: Bible prophecy expert Ed Hindson is featured in Understanding Revelation in 60 Minutes, releasing Aug. 1 from Harvest House Publishers. Promoted as a “60-minute panoramic overview” of the Bible’s oft-discussed book, the DVD covers the main events, characters and predictions of the Last Days in a format designed for church and home study groups. It will retail for $19.99. Call 800-547-8979 to order.

Sex study: Moody Publishers will release Passion Pursuit: What Kind of Love Are You Making? ($29.99) this month. A 10-week study led by Bible teacher Linda Dillow and Dr. Juli Slattery, formerly of Focus on the Family, the DVD addresses the issues of sexual intimacy from a female perspective. The study is structured from Scripture, especially the Song of Solomon, encouraging women to embrace passion in their relationships with their husbands. It also addresses topics such as temptation and holiness. Call 800-678-8812 to order.

Visual worship: Integrity Music will release iWorship Visual Worship Trax Volume 1 on Aug. 13 for $39.99. It features popular worship songs in an “all-in-one” lyrics projection resource for churches and other settings. The lyric video uses the original artist recording with backgrounds and words for a user-friendly performance track. Songs come in original stereo, split-trax and click-track versions. The two-disc combo includes Darlene Zschech’s “Victor’s Crown” and Planetshakers’ “The Anthem.” Order through Provident Distribution.