GRAMMY-nominated and Dove-winning Peter Furler releases his first independent album since the leaving the Newsboys—On Fire—June 21 from Sparrow Records (EMI CMG Distribution).

Has going solo been a significant adjustment?

It kind of has. It’s something that I’d never thought of. Newsboys was something that was very dear to me, still is dear to me. It was like a tree I planted when I was a teenager, and obviously God made it grow. Over the years it’s been such a blessing, and when it came time—really because of the non-stop touring schedule—I just really felt, to be honest, I felt the Lord tell me it was time to let the ground rest, even though I wasn’t actually tired the last couple years I headed the band, which were the best years really. I thought we were at the top of the game and things were great, but at the same time, I was getting this sense to let the ground rest. I didn’t know what it meant because I wasn’t tired or burnt out, none of the things that usually happen, but I knew I had to follow the little checks I was getting. … I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I kind of liked that. I’d had 20-odd years of knowing exactly what was happening pretty much a year in advance, but then the music itch came back.

You bring a joy to your music, just as you did with Newsboys. Are you just naturally a happy kind of guy?

I’m not a life-of-the-party type person. When I’m out on stage, I definitely like to encourage people and stir up things, cause a stir. I enjoy that to a certain degree, but that’s not who I am usually around my home. I’m not a depressed person either, it’s not that. It’s something that we have to stir up within us. We have to kind of put on something and think and watch our thought life. These songs, at the same time, they are full of joy, because that is within me also, but it doesn’t come natural. … It comes from the Lord.

The first single was “Reach,” about God reaching for us. Have you sensed that greatly in your own life? 

To me, it’s become more evident that God is everywhere, which we know that from Scripture. … The greatest example of Him reaching out to us is through Jesus and Him coming to earth. That’s the greatest example, but also at the same time, we can sometimes feel like we’re forgotten as people and we’re just caught up in this big world. But God cares for us individually.

“All in Your Head” talks of getting a “kick of love.” Is it a motivational song? 

It is, and it’s really just a thing of not letting life pass you by. I think for my wife and I, in the last couple years I was with the band, probably even a few before that, we had another inkling, another stirring to simplify. … My wife and I bought an RV, so instead of riding in the tour bus and getting driven to shows, I drove myself and her and her little dog. We drove to every show, performed the concert, then I’d get in and drive again. It was just such a thrill. We’d stop at the KOA campgrounds and sleep at the Wal-Mart Supercenters, which was kind of strange. You’d play a show for 10,000 people in Minneapolis, and that night you’re sleeping in the Wal-Mart Supercenter. It was definitely an eye-opening experience. … We sold the house we had and bought a smaller one. We got rid of things, got rid of furniture. We’re kind of still in that process, in a way. It was a really great time for us to do that and to live the adventure—to step out and take some chances, and to not just settle. I think even in our life as Christians, to really get on mission trips and to step out a bit, or do something in your local community or local church. Any time someone’s depressed, my first advice is to say go on a missions trip—to get out there. That was the song, again stirring up folks to not settle.

What touring are you planning? 

I’m looking at doing quite a few shows around the release of the record in June. We’re working all that out. Then doing a full tour—probably about 25 cities—in the fall, then, hopefully, the possibility of being on Winter Jam.

Palmer Chinchen knows that while many Christians would like to be able to tie up the loose ends left by the question of suffering in a nice neat bow, the reality is that they tend to flap loosely—and can threaten to entangle and trip.

So in place of a simplistic answer to an age-old problem, the Chandler, Ariz., pastor and former college ministry leader offers a multilayered perspective on how to find faith and hope in the midst of troubled unknowing, in God Can't Sleep (978-1-434-70057-5, $12.99, David C. Cook), released this month.

Subtitled "Waiting for Daylight on Life's Dark Nights," the 240-page book is no academic exercise. Chinchen draws on a wide range of personal experiences, from growing up as a fearful missionary kid in Africa to serving as pastor of a growing church.

He tells of the young African girl who died when a Christmas Eve candlelight service went wrong and a group of children were enveloped in flames, a young mom parishioner who committed suicide and having to flee war-torn Liberia with his heavily pregnant wife. He also writes of the tragedies he has witnessed in places like Haiti.

Though not all suffering is on the scale that makes world headlines, its personal impact is equally felt by those facing disease, divorce or other domestic trials, he notes. But Western Christians may be less equipped to deal with catastrophe because "the messiness of pain simply doesn't fit with polished shopping malls, granite countertops and cushioned pews," he observes.

While he has no single answer to suffering, Chinchen does have suggested approaches—including being honest about how sin impacts the world and being involved in issues of justice. "Like a smoggy day in Los Angeles, injustice is the dark cloud that turns God's beautiful creation gray," he writes.

Chinchen also cautions against the lure of narcissism and encourages reducing the busyness of life to allow more room for God, while looking for "snapshots of heaven" in everyday life, from children and friends to music. Above all, he says, don't quit because there is always hope.

In addition to pulling from his personal files, Chinchen references thoughts by other Christian writers, the likes of C.S. Lewis, Brennan Manning and Dr. Paul Brand. In the Bible, he looks at lessons from Obadiah, King Saul and the Psalms. 

He observes how Jesus "always gave the same brief speech at funerals"—the two-word exhortation, "get up," spoken to Talitha, the boy in Nain and Lazarus. "Life is not meant to be lived in dark places," Chinchen adds. "The days God gives you on earth are not meant to be covered with gray clouds, so get up and live. Really, really live."

By sharing cliffhanger personal stories, telling the rest of them later in the book, Chinchen illustrates how what may seem to be hopeless can yet be turned around. He encourages readers that "God uses the dark and difficult days to mature us spiritually in a way that won't happen on the days when the sun shines and the flowers bloom."

Though he urges people to look up when life casts them down, Chinchen acknowledges it can be tough to respond well at times—admitting to wishing one man dead who abused, terrorized and tried to kill his girlfriend and offering to help beat up a man who was having an affair with a friend.

To order, call 800-323-7543, or visit bookstores.cookministries.com.

Easter Sunday fan-to-follower sermon urges 'honest' reevaluation

What began as a personal journey for author and pastor Kyle Idleman became a widespread movement. Born of Idleman's own need to get serious with God, Not a Fan. Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus confronts readers with Jesus's call to a life of obedience.

The teaching pastor at the fifth largest church in America—Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky.—Idleman found himself at a loss for what to preach to his congregation and all the visitors who were coming to Easter Sunday services three years ago. 

"I opened up the Bible and I started looking at some of the passages of Scripture where Jesus would have his Easter-type crowds and the most popular times in His ministry when the large crowds gathered," he said. "What I discovered was very much convicting for me and changed, in large part, my approach to preaching and teaching and ministry."

What he discovered was that when Jesus taught the masses, He often didn't deliver a message that was comfortable. "It was very challenging and motivated the people not necessarily to come back, but oftentimes to leave—to go home," he said. 

Looking at his own life through that lens, the pastor began to consider the possibility that he was more of a fan of Jesus than a true follower. 

"A fan is this idea of an enthusiastic admirer—someone who cheers for Jesus when the season is going well, and when things are good, they root for Him, but when things are rough or when life is hard, they grow more distant," Idleman said. "I started writing down, as I studied through the Gospels, the different descriptions of a follower of Christ.

"I had to be honest enough with myself to say, 'I'm not sacrificing a lot. I say I'm a follower of Jesus, but there's a lot of things Jesus did that I don't do, a lot of people He talked to that are not the types of people that I talk to.' I wanted to reexamine, as honestly as I could, my relationship with Jesus based on how He describes a follower in the Gospels." 

Having grown up the son of a pastor, Idleman walked forward one day after hearing his father offer an invitation to surrender all to Christ. 

"I loved Jesus with all of my heart, but what I discovered as I grew older is that although I loved Christ, I began to hold certain things back," he admitted. "There were certain areas of my life that I had not surrendered to Him, or as they came up, I shared them with Him, but I was still the one clearly in control and calling the shots."

In the process of renewal, he was reminded that Jesus called His followers to die to themselves—the ultimate surrender. "I began to pray a daily prayer that reflected the decision I had made as a child that I never really understood," he said. "I would pray daily and still do, 'Today, God, I surrender all that I have to you. Everything I have, all that I am is yours. Today I want to die to myself.' "

Along with a revival his church experienced in hearing the "Not a Fan" message, more than 20,000 people from 16 countries have declared on Facebook: "I don't just want to be a fan of Jesus anymore." 

Idleman acknowledged that the call to follow Jesus is not new, but said: "I really believe there's something about this language—something about packaging it in this way—that opens the eyes of today's culture to understand not just what it means to really follow Jesus, but understand what so many of us who call ourselves Christians have settled for. Then we compare what we've settled for to what Jesus really wants, and change comes about." 

With the online movement growing, the book was recently featured on Rick Warren's Pastors.com Web site and has been endorsed by leaders such as Max Lucado and Mike Huckabee. The message has also spawned a small group discipleship study on DVD from City on a Hill Productions.

To order, call Zondervan at 800-727-1309, or visit zondervan.com.

Latest project:

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…of Sorts (Thomas Nelson, June).

Why is your book "A memoir…of sorts"? In the preface I really go out of my way to explain to people that the story dances on this hyphen between the genre of straight memoir and autobiographical fiction, and the reason it does is because first I had to change a lot of names. The preface outlines the types of things that I had to do in order to make the story really flow correctly, which includes things like compressing timelines, conflating stories, things that memoirs often do, but I wanted to really spell out and like an author such as Dave Eggers or others there are pieces of the story that are what I would call lightly fictionalized for the purpose of protecting people, identities, but also for the sake of keeping flow in the story.

What was it like for you and your three siblings growing up with your father working for the Central Intelligence Agency? We didn't know really anything about it, at least for me, until I was in high school with any certainty. You also have to remember my father was a terrible alcoholic and so it was also very difficult knowing what was the line between truth and fiction.

You sometimes blamed yourself for your father's drinking, didn't you? The whole CIA thing is an interesting metaphor for the secret that my father was to me, the fact that I didn't know him really. The story really is about my relationship with my father, about the wound that a boy, and I would also add a woman, can suffer when their father doesn't see them with the eyes of his heart and how you find forgiveness. 

You had your own battle with addiction. How did you tackle alcoholism? We all have attachments, which are displaced longings for God. … To make things worse, we're actually all the seething cauldrons of them—I don't just have one, I got a bunch. The trick is learning how to allow Jesus to remain at the center of our persons and to continue to turn away from those things which are counterfeits of that relationship, which eventually become addictions.

There was a time you said you felt there was no God. How did get over that? I prayed for so long for my dad to get better because every child of an alcoholic or an addict feels that somehow or another it's their fault that their parent chooses to love their substance more than them. At least on the outside, that's what it looks like and feels like. How many times can you pray and not have it answered before you start to believe that God either hates you or has deserted you or that there is no God? It's hard not to arrive at that conclusion for a lot of us and yet I think that little seed never departed me.

Today you are an Episcopal priest. How did you come to faith and then sense the church was to be your life's work? I actually really believe I came to faith in Christ as a little boy in the Catholic church. The experience of church itself to me was just so beautiful, the mystery of it, the prayers I didn't even understand, the atmospherics of church itself … and I could really sense God's presence in that place. It's one of those things where I think I became a follower of Jesus at such a heart level as a little boy. I was just completely convinced and in love with God … then in high school I got involved in Young Life and I had a second kind of encounter with God, and that one involved a more intellectual understanding of the gospel and being given a language with which to talk about God that I didn't have. And so I would say for me there were two pivotal moments for me.

What would you like to tell Christian retailers about this book? In the midst of the debris, I can find grace and even laughter in it. I think that's what we all want, to know that our suffering means something, that it's not arbitrary, so I think the book will inspire people to face their lives squarely, knowing that if they do, they can find that thread of redemption. 

Ask the author: Bob Hamer

Next release: Targets Down (June).

Publisher: B&H Books (B&H Publishing Group).

As a Marine veteran and retired FBI undercover agent, you have a lot of material from which to draw, don't you? 

Besides an overactive imagination, most of what I write comes from cases which have already been litigated, and in many cases, I've testified to the facts in court. Twenty-six years on the street, many of those years undercover, provide more than enough experiences.

Special Agent Matt Hogan goes into some dark places in Targets Down. Were you attempting to bring some of the reality you lived into its plot?

Yes. Although no one ever accused me of being Billy Graham, I maintained my faith throughout my career. I don't believe I would have been as successful as I was without my faith and my family. But I've been in dark places, some darker than where Matt Hogan travels. Yet even in the darkest times, I felt God's protective arms around me.

What kind of character is Hogan? 

I joke that he has more hair, is better looking and is a younger Bob Hamer. He's a warrior, a patriot and a devoted husband. Marine Corps General James Mattis popularized the Marine slogan, "No better friend, no worse enemy." I think that sums up Matt Hogan.

Aside from your debut novel, Enemies Among Us, you wrote your life story. How do you like writing fiction?

Writing the memoir was easy since the stories were mine and I had just enough notes, news accounts and court documents to fill in the details. I'm not sure I would like to write a nonfiction account of a life or event in which I did not have a direct involvement. I like fiction because you can adjust the facts to fit the plot. Although several defense attorneys accused me of doing just that in my various court documents, I always told the truth in my affidavits and testimony. Now I can lie and get paid for it!

You have consulted for shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Does your TV work feed off of your fiction and vice-versa? 

When consulting, I stick to the truth. I help the writers in developing realistic plot lines and dialogue. I have several TV writing credits and clearly those ideas came from my life experiences with enough "Hollywoodizing" to make the scripts marketable.

How would you encourage Christian retailers to promote Targets Down?

A Hollywood producer says Targets Down is "pedal to the metal, red lining in every gear." It's fast-paced fiction, truer to life than you might imagine. Too many times as Christians we want to avoid focusing on the evil around us, but at times we must. Targets Down is written by someone who has been there, by an author who brings a Christian worldview to a dark side of society few will ever see.

ECPA Fiction Top 10

1. Vicious Cycle, Terri Blackstock (Zondervan)

Author Note: During her years working in prison ministry, Blackstock got to know several drug addicts who came from homes where everyone was using, and many had abandoned their children for drugs. She patterned the character of Jordan after some of those women.

2. Leaving, Karen Kingsbury (Zondervan) 

3. Unlocked, Karen Kingsbury (Zondervan)

4. A Heart for Home, Lauraine Snelling (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

Author Note: In her research for A Heart for Home, Snelling was having trouble finding information about the Rosebud Indian reservation, so she posted her need on Facebook. Several people from South Dakota responded and were able to provide the needed facts.

5. Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers (Multnomah Books)

6. Crossing Oceans, Gina Holmes (Tyndale House Publishers)

7. Hearts Aglow, Tracie Peterson (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

8. Almost Heaven, Chris Fabry (Tyndale House Publishers)

9. Breach of Trust, DiAnn Mills (Tyndale House Publishers)

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

The ECPA list is compiled from sales of Christian books in hundreds of Christian retail outlets nationwide, collected using Pubtrack Christian (www.ptchristian.com). April best-sellers are for the four-week cycle ending March 19, 2011. All rights reserved. © 2010 ECPA. www.ecpa.org.

New fiction releases coming next month:

Canary Island Song, Robin Jones Gunn (Howard Books)

Fallen Angel, Major Jeff Struecker and Alton Gansky (B&H Books)

Lion of Babylon, Davis Bunn (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

Love by the Book, Cara Lynn James (Thomas Nelson)

Perfectly Invisible, Kristin Billerbeck (Revell/Baker Publishing Group)

Restless in Carolina, Tamara Leigh (Multnomah Books)

Shadows on the Sand, Gayle Roper (Multnomah Books)

The Blessed, Ann H. Gabhart (Revell/Baker Publishing Group)

The Muir House, Mary DeMuth (Zondervan)

Veiled Rose, Anne Elisabeth Stengl (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

Wolfsbane, Ronie Kendig (Barbour Publishing)

Listen to Christian Retailing's complete conversation with artist Peter Furler below.

{mp3}June11.PeterFurler{/mp3}