Resource Review

I spent some of yesterday morning, on yes, my vacation, reviewing publishers of books for the 13-30 market for Christian folks.

Basically I looked at four sets of resources.

THINK which is an imprint of NavPress
RELEVANT which is an imprint of Strang Communications
TRAFFIC which is an imprint of Thomas Nelson.
and EMERGENT which is an imprint of YOUTH SPECIALTIES which is an imprint of ZONDERVAN.

Each of them have different strengths.

EMERGENT is a publisher that develops resources for the emergent church. A lot of good stuff from here. Strangely enough my favorite book of the series would have to be THE SEARCH TO BELONG, which takes the study of proxemics and applies it to places of belonging in a church setting.

RELEVANT is a little bit lower key than EMERGENT. Aimed at a reader that is not necessarily intellectual, but wants something relevant to read to their situation in life. The quality of these books varies widely. The book TO BECOME ONE looks like an excellent book about marriage. There are some others that a sophomore in high school with a B average could right. That is ok. Different strokes for different folks.

THINK is from NAVPRESS. There are some interesting books in this series even for adults my age, such as the THE STRUGGLE, which is a history and theology of masturbation from a Christian perspective. There are also "dumbed down" versions of well known books published by NAVPRESS by authors such as Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, and Jerry Bridges. In addition, there are products that try and repackage things in the NAVPRESS line for teenagers and young adults. Finally, there is their contemplative stuff that goes with the title READ THINK PRAY LIVE, also a title of a book in their series from Tony Jones.

TRAFFIC is clearly aimed at youth.

Isnt all of that interesting.