In his debut book, writer and blogger David Zahl riffs on the intersection of music, memoir, and theology to create a fresh and colorful series of essays that truly stands alone. Arranged like an album, A Mess of Help surveys some of pop’s most eccentric icons in hopes of finding answers to both the small questions (“Who am I?”) and the big ones (“What about Michael Jackson?”) — unearthing timeless wisdom even as it entertains. So if you’ve ever wondered how fundamentalism sparked Guns N’ Roses, what ABBA can do for your marriage, or why Brian Wilson built his sandbox…open your heart and drop the needle.
Paperback: 268 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (December 7, 2014)
ISBN-10: 9780990792703
ISBN-13: 978-0990792703
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Get the ebook ($5.99) here.
A walk is better with a friend. Reading the Bible can be the same way. In An Easy Stroll Through a Short Gospel, Larry Parsley guides us through the shortest official take on the biggest life ever lived — the story of Jesus played out in the Gospel of Mark. The journey is relatively quick, but the vistas you’ll see along the way can linger for a lifetime.
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (December 3, 2018)
ISBN-10: 0998917192
ISBN-13: 978-0998917191
Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
Get the ebook ($8.99) here.
Robert Capon’s first book, originally published in 1965. Re-released for the first time, Bed & Board is Robert Capon’s enduring, rambunctious counsel on marriage and family life—woven through with the message of grace that never changes.
Paperback: 194 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (April 12, 2018)
ISBN-10: 0998917117
ISBN-13: 978-0998917115
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
Get the ebook ($9.99) here.
One woman’s hilarious and deeply touching dispatch from the trenches of contemporary life, Churchy traces the fingerprints of grace from hospital hallways to community swimming pools to church nurseries and back again. Unflinchingly honest yet unfailingly hopeful, Rev. Sarah is a genre unto herself. You’ve never had this much fun going to church.
Paperback: 180 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (December 4, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0990792781
ISBN-13: 978-0990792789
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
Get the ebook ($6.99) here.
Editors: John D. Koch, Todd H.W. Brewer
What is grace? And more important, what difference do the “comfortable words” of grace make in the lives of everyday people? These essays reflect Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl’s emphasis on the relationship between theology as an academic discipline and the pastoral impact of “one-way love.”
Contributors include: C. FitzSimons Allison, Todd Brewer, George Carey, James D. G. Dunn, Susan G. Eastman, Mark Mattes, Geiko Müller-Farenholz, Justin S. Holcomb, John D. Koch Jr, Lauren Larkin, Jonathan A. Linebaugh, Jürgen Moltmann, Heinz-Dieter Neef, J. Ashley Null, Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Dylan D. Potter, Justyn Terry, Tullian Tchividjian, Jonathan K. M. Wong, Paul F. M. Zahl, and Simeon Zahl.
Paperback: 294 pages
Publisher: Pickwick Publications (November 6, 2013)
ISBN-10: 1610977874
ISBN-13: 978-1610977876
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
Get the ebook ($9.99) here.
The Bible is as strange as it is surprising. Even its most well-known stories can catch us off guard, revealing things about God and about ourselves that we had not seen before. Nowhere is this more true than with the book of Genesis. Its iconic accounts of shepherds and nomads, apple-eaters and ark-builders, sharpen our view of human life and the God who works in the midst of it. With empathy and imagination, Eden and Afterward traces the first notes of the song of grace which plays throughout the entire Bible.
Paperback: 132 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (March 27, 2014)
ISBN-10: 9780615997933
ISBN-13: 978-0615997933
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches
Get the ebook ($5.99) here.
When Father William Jansson hears the unexpected confession of a dead priest’s mistress, he finds himself caught in a web of secrets and mysteries. Exit 36 is Robert Capon’s probing investigation of death, judgment, Hell, and Heaven.
Paperback: 287 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (October 19, 2018)
ISBN-10: 0998917184
ISBN-13: 978-0998917184
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Get the ebook ($9.99) here.
Author: John Z.
Church basements are curious places. Playing host to the vibrant world of 12 Step Recovery, they witness the sort of healing and redemption that would make those on the ground floor proud, and maybe even envious. Yet despite the Church and Alcoholics Anonymous both being in the business of bringing “hope to the hopeless,” the two worlds seldom seem to interact. Packed with vivid illustrations, good humor, and practical wisdom, Grace in Addiction attempts to bridge this divide and carry the unexpected good news of AA out of the basement and into the pews — and beyond! Recommended for anyone who has struggled with addiction, knows someone who has struggled with addiction, or spent any time living and/or breathing.
Paperback: 286 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (September 19, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1479313815
ISBN-13: 978-1479313815
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
Get the ebook ($5.99) here.
Author: David Johnson
David Johnson brings the upside-down world of grace into the common corners of our personal lives, whether in parenthood or marriage, the rat-race or the fine print. Using humor and insightful experience, this selection of sermons draws on the things we love (from Springsteen and Shakespeare, to Marty McFly and T.S. Eliot) to talk about the things that matter. In doing so, Dr. Johnson brings home the very good news of that age-old grace.
Paperback: 284 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Pub (December 10, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1481181440
ISBN-13: 978-1481181440
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
Editor: Sean Norris
This collection of 35 true-life stories illustrates the powerful truth that when love is shown in the face of deserved judgment, lives are changed. A heartfelt introduction to the realities of the Christian message, these stories will keep you coming back again and again. To read a handful of preview entries, click here.
Paperback: 111 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (2009)
ISBN-10: 7770063914
ISBN-13: 978-7770063916
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
There’s a big difference between judgment and love, obligation and freedom, a wage and a gift. The difference characterizes an extraordinary amount of our day-to-day experience, often dividing fear from hope, and death from life. At the heart of Christianity lies a similar and related dynamic: between the Law and the Gospel. Far from being a reductive or antiquated distinction, understanding where one ends and the other begins allows a person to see both the Bible and themselves—indeed, the whole world!—in a fresh and enlivening way.
Written with the non-theologian in mind, this short volume unpacks the good news of God’s grace with practicality, humor, and a whole lot of heart.
You can find this book’s companion/study guide here.
Paperback: 102 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (April 10, 2015)
ISBN-10: 0990792722
ISBN-13: 978-0990792727
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.5 inches
Get the ebook ($3.99) here.
“No one ever said life would be easy….” Many of us will admit that, at times, life is hard. We buckle down, put our noses to the grindstone…and all too often wind up exhausted or burned out. But the problem isn’t that life is difficult. The problem is that life is impossible! Fortunately, what sounds like bad news is merely the beginning of the Good News in this concise, gospel-centered book about God’s abundant mercy and love. With wisdom, humor, and compassion, Nick Lannon casts life’s painful realities in the light of Jesus, the One who achieves the unachievable.
Paperback: 183 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (March 15, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1-7337166-1-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-7337166-1-1
Editors: CJ Green & David Peterson
A movie theater is a magical place. We laugh and cry, marvel and curse — occasionally we are even transported, the projector casting fresh light on both ourselves and the world around us. Mockingbird at the Movies is a collection of essays from a wide range of contributors, exploring the films that have touched us most. Some are beautiful, some confrontational, some silly, some sad, some all of the above; taken together, they bear witness to the power of film to move the heart and lift the spirit. Grab your popcorn and press play.
Paperback: 356 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (December 5, 2015)
ISBN-10: 0990792757
ISBN-13: 978-0990792758
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
Get the ebook ($5.99) here.
A dash of theology. A pinch of satire. The unmistakable smell of roasted lamb. This can only mean one thing: Father Capon is back. More Theology & Less Heavy Cream is the never-before-published collection of essays from the much-missed theologian, writer, and chef, featuring his and his wife’s lovable alter-egos, Pietro and Madeleine. Armed only with oven mitts and a razor-sharp wit, this unforgettable couple spars over God, food, grace, and everything in between.
Paperback: 174 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (December 2, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0990792765
ISBN-13: 978-0990792765
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
Get the ebook ($6.99) here.
Grace runs through Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, e.g., the titular character’s new start in North America, Aaron Burr’s nuanced portrayal, and Eliza Hamilton’s forgiveness of her scandalous husband via “a grace too powerful to name.”
Never Satisfied Until Satisfied in Thee, an e-book edited by Tim Peoples and Cort Gatliff, explores the many ways that grace shows itself in Miranda’s musical: Cort Gatliff, Michael Sansbury, Matthew Linder, and Amanda McClendon each contribute essays on how Hamilton strived for more in this world but only found moments of peace in failure and death. Margaret Pope wonders whether it is better to be ruled by God or King George. Stephanie Phillips and Lauren R.E. Larkin explore their Hamilton-character spirit animals—respectively, Aaron Burr and Angelica Schuyler. Tim Peoples closes the collection with thoughts on first and final drafts composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Creator of the Universe.
And now…we’ll leave you to it!
File Size: 445 KB
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (November 1, 2017)
Imagine you have ten minutes to live. You’re the patient who’s being operated on and suddenly finds himself looking down on the action as the doctors try to save his life. What do you need to know? What is there to know? What can this religion or that religion say to you when you really need some light?
PZ’s Panopticon weighs the world’s organized religions, such as Christianity and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism; but it also weighs “dead” religions like those of the Aztecs, the ancient Egyptians, and the Greeks and Romans. There are also religions that are not called religions, like money and fame and sex; family and your children; ideology; and power. PZ’s Panopticon is a wild ride. But it’s part of a trip we are all going to take.
Paperback: 222 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (May 8, 2014)
ISBN-10: 0692218114
ISBN-13: 978-0692218112
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
Get the ebook ($5.99) here.
Order here for a signed copy.
At the heart of our current moment lies a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough — what religions call “righteous.” To fill the void left by religion, we look to all sorts of everyday activities — from eating and parenting to dating and voting — for the identity, purpose, and meaning once provided on Sunday morning.
Hardcover: 250 pages
Publisher: Fortress Press (April 2, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1506449433
ISBN-13: 978-1506449432
Sermons of Grace collects forty-four sermons delivered by The Rev. John Zahl from the pulpit of Grace Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. With the help of pop-culture, humor, and plenty of personal illustrations, John leads readers through the church calendar year with reflections on the counter-intuitive reality of God in the midst of everyday life. Each short sermon offers a helpful point of re-orientation, bridging head with heart, and heart with the good news. Read them as a whole, or in devotional form; may you find yourself comforted and inspired by “the enabling word” of grace!
Paperback: 260 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Pub (November 13, 2014)
ISBN-10: 9781503181021
ISBN-13: 978-1503181021
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
It’s time for a drink, Marvin Goodman decides after missing his red-eye out of Cleveland. Moseying into to the airport bar, he encounters a charismatic young chef named Jerry — who also claims to be God. Before long, Marvin finds himself in the middle of a spiritual revival — witnessing miracles, healings and one everlasting anchovy pizza — in this weird and wonderfully inspired account of the Gospel story.
Get the ebook ($8.99) here.
Editor: Ethan Richardson
For as long as the Bible has been available, people have turned to it to address the problems and anxieties of everyday life. We look to it for comfort in the midst of suffering, clarity in times of confusion…or simply to learn about God. Thankfully, what we find in its pages is not ultimately a collection of rules or demands but a message of unbending honesty and unspeakable compassion: the gospel of Jesus Christ.
With humor and heart (and a surprising number of disco and B-movie references) the 365 short devotions in The Mockingbird Devotional carry the good news of God’s mercy and forgiveness to the inner-rooms of human reality.
Hardback/Paperback: 470 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (April 12, 2013)
ISBN-10: 148402771X
ISBN-13: 978-1484027714
Get the ebook ($9.99) here.
Author: Jim McNeely III
What if God sees us the way a man sees a woman he is infatuated with, and His main question is not how to make us moral but rather how to get us to fall in love with Him?
In The Romance of Grace, Jim McNeely explores Bible passages that tell us what God really wants for us and what His love means. This is the love of a God who chose to give His life for ours, even carefully retaining His scars into the throne room of heaven and telling us in His very body, “I have gone to great lengths and great costs to say that I forsook all comforts for the love of you.”
Paperback
Publisher: Libertary Company (January 21, 2013)
ISBN 13: 9781935961970
ISBN 10: 1935961977
Author: J. David Hawkins
“For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.” So wrote St. Paul, a “useful sinner.”
On a winter day in 1990, J. David Hawkins was in the field, hunting with friends, suffering inner turmoil. Shortly he would be exposed as an adulterer, involved with the wife of his friend and employer. This is an absorbing true story of grace — of betrayal, trial, pain, forgiveness, and new life.
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries, Inc (August 28, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0880281626
ISBN-13: 978-0880281621
Package Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.8 x 0.2 inches
Get the ebook ($4.99) here.
Author: CJ Green
Illustrator: Maddy Green
While most children are drifting to sleep,
one kid and his monkey are drifting at sea.
One day, they spy a treasure
that is not theirs…
This is the story of what happens when a little boy and his monkey steal booty from a snoozing pirate. A beautifully illustrated adventure about the stubbornness of grace and forgiveness, Mockingbird’s first children’s book, The Very Persistent Pirate, is a swashbuckling tale of good news for sinners and saints ages 3-7.
Hardcover: 36 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries (July 6, 2017)
ISBN-10: 099079279X
ISBN-13: 978-0990792796
Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
When it comes to grace, no one writes with more elegance, humor, and well, grace, than Robert Farrar Capon. Since his first publication hit shelves in 1963, Robert’s voice has served as one of the guiding lights for the Christian faith from generation to generation. Now, in one of his most intimate works, Robert welcomes readers young and old to join him at his home on Shelter Island, NY, for a series of reflections on the seasons and the nature of God’s divine love. Originally published in 1983, this slim, poetic volume offers some of the sweetest, most evergreen musings in the Capon canon. He begins, “If you are in the habit of associating resurrection only with spring, if you think of winter as somehow incompatible with rebirth–let me show you something…”
Paperback: 198 pages
Publisher: Mockingbird Ministries Inc (May 01, 2019)
ISBN-13: 978-1733716604
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
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