Patrick Morley, author of the best-seller The Man in the Mirror (Zondervan), targets pastors dealing with men’s ministry challenges and opportunities in Pastoring Men: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why It Matters Now More Than Ever (978-0-802-47553-4, $19.99, Moody Publishers), releasing this month.

The book includes personal stories, point-by-point plans for implementation and statistics to drive home the need for focused men’s ministry in the local church.

Conversation-starter tackles range of weighty topics with a light touch

Crossway Books & Bibles aims to cater to the boundless appetite tweens have for facts and information with What Does the Bible Say About That? by Carolyn Larsen (978-1-433-50213-2, softcover, $15.99). Releasing Jan. 31, this compendium of facts about the Bible’s teaching—on everything from anger to movies, boredom to divorce—can provide conversation-starters for adults and relevant reading for youngsters.

Larsen notes in the book’s introduction that what’s inside “is not just a bunch of ‘do this and don’t do that’ lists. It’s the story of God’s love for you and how His Spirit living in you will guide, protect, love, forgive, and love you again.”

Author charges ‘slander’ as researchers misidentify nominal Christians

Reformed theologian and author John Piper defends biblical salvation from modern interpretations and affirms the sacredness of the term “born again” in Finally Alive.

Piper told Christian Retailing that, although there wasn’t a precise moment of inspiration, he felt “a prompting” as he preached through the book of Romans in his church, Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis.

Pope John Paul II’s series of “Theology of the Body” talks, given between 1979 and 1984, offered his integrated vision of the person—body, soul and spirit. Now, author Matthew Pinto shares in Freedom: 12 Lives Transformed by the Theology of the Body ($13.99, Ascension Press, January) how the lives of 12 people were radically changed through an understanding of God’s true intent for the body.

Our Sunday Visitor has tapped three top authors to focus on St. Paul during the bi-millennium of the apostle’s birth. The resulting January titles are Scott Hahn’s The Pocket Guide to St. Paul ($6.95) and Faith Charts: St. Paul at a Glance ($7.95); Mitch Pacwa’s St. Paul on the Power of the Cross ($8.95) and Paul Thigpen’s Praying the Rosary With St. Paul ($7.95).

A U.S. speaking tour by Christopher Jamison, abbot of Worth Abbey—a Benedictine monastery near London which was featured in the BBC TV documentary series “The Monastery”—will include an appearance at the 2009 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in February. Jamison will highlight content from his January release, Finding Happiness: Monastic Steps for a Fulfilling Life (Liturgical Press, $19.95), on the tour.

Using the insights that made the “Joshua” series a classic, Joseph Girzone writes about the multifaceted character of Jesus in The Wisdom of His Compassion: Meditations on the Words and Actions of Jesus ($21.95, Doubleday, February).

Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the best-seller Dead Man Walking and has fought capital punishment, writes the foreword to Marilyn Lacey’s This Flowing Toward Me: A Story of God Arriving in Strangers ($15.95, Ave Maria Press, March). In the book, Lacey explores her own journey of working with refugees.

Renowned writer’s novel is ‘too Catholic’ for major publishers

The new novel Death of a Pope by internationally known author Piers Paul Read (978-1-586-17295-4, hardcover, $21.95, Ignatius Press) is filled with intrigue, love interests and conspiracy theories, but what really makes it a page-turner is a plot to destroy the longest continuous government in the world—the Papacy.

Read is a screenwriter and author of 13 novels and seven nonfiction works, most notably the 1974 book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors that was later made into a movie. Interest in that work was recently revived with the docudrama Stranded: I Have Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains, released to the U.S. market in October.

Providing a different perspective on a familiar topic, Ruth Tucker’s Leadership Reconsidered: Becoming a Person of Influence (978-0-801-06824-9, $14.99, Baker Books/Baker Publishing Group) releases this month. Tucker, who was the first female faculty member at Calvin Theological Seminary, believes what’s missing from most leadership discussions today is the idea of legacy.

“Too often, we fail to emphasize the critical role of legacy to that of leadership,” she told Christian Retailing. “People take leadership courses and read leadership literature so that they can become (a) leader—so they can raise their own profile.”

The author’s take came as a surprise to some of her students when she presented the genesis for the book in a leadership studies class. Many of her students had come to the class expecting to hear 12-step development programs. Instead, she challenged what she felt was the “phoniness” of such promises.

“As we dug into the material, they seemed eager to join me in challenging the leadership industry that is typically given a pass,” she said.

Tucker offers examples of biblical leaders like Moses and Jesus as well as historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr., but she also sees value in dissecting the leadership skills of such figures as Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.

For more information, visit www.bakerpublishinggroup.com, or to order, call Baker Publishing Group at 800-877-2665.