West Ohio Authors
Authors: Callie and Rosario Picardo
Title: Money Talks: A Biblical Take on Earning, Saving, Spending, and Giving
Money talks. Money has power. Influence. It ascribes worth and value. Almost like a god, money beckons us to worship and idolize. In fact, money has become a god for many of us.
The good news is, money isn’t the only thing that talks. God also talks. Even louder than money if we have the ears to hear.
This book is spiritual, but it’s also practical. Throughout these pages readers will explore how to actually earn, save, spend, and give in a way that puts God, not money, first.
Where to buy: Amazon
Authors: Sue Nilson Kibbey and Rosario Picado
Title: Dynamite Prayer: A 28 Day Experiment
Money talks. Money has power. Influence. It ascribes worth and value. Almost like a god, money beckons us to worship and idolize. In fact, money has become a god for many of us.
The good news is, money isn’t the only thing that talks. God also talks. Even louder than money if we have the ears to hear.
This book is spiritual, but it’s also practical. Throughout these pages readers will explore how to actually earn, save, spend, and give in a way that puts God, not money, first.
Authors: Rachel Billips
Title: Unlikely Advent: Extraordinary People of the Christmas Story is an Advent Study
This four-week Advent study focuses on the experiences of four sets of often overlooked characters in the Nativity story. During this Advent season, Rachel Billups guides readers through the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace by sharing the stories of Elizabeth and Zechariah, Herod, the Magi, and the shepherds. Each set of unexpected characters has something to teach about living faithfully on the journey to Christmas.
Additional components to use the book as a four-week small group study include a leader guide and DVD/Video Sessions featuring Rachel Billups.
Title: Be Bold:Finding Your Fierce is a Spiritual Growth
For anyone who’s ever felt put down, unsure, underestimated, or overlooked, these biblical stories encourage you to recognize your own power and potential to be bold.
Where to buy: Click here
Author: Rebeka Maples
Title: Finding Our Way Back, Praying Our Way Forward: Prayer moments for Lent, Holy Week, Advent, Christmas and beyond
This book offers inspiration for daily devotions in Lent, Holy Week, Advent, Christmas and beyond. Each day includes short passages from scripture, reflective poems, suggestions for meditation or action, and the beginning of a short prayer which readers can use to continue their own prayer. The book may be used for personal devotions or group studies during these holy weeks or as desired through the year.
These daily devotions were inspired by two years of writing during the Covid pandemic. Subsequently, this compilation was produced as we continue in the process of finding our way back and praying our way forward into an unknown post-pandemic reality.
The author's hope is that you will find an echo of your own story in the biblical readings, prompting you to ask questions of the Mystery of God as you find yourself in a space of prayer and meditation. As you feel the breath of new life, may you re-emerge from these sacred moments into the world with a renewed sense of optimism and hope.
Title: Praying with Light: In Candlemas and starless nights
This book includes prayers and poems about praying with God's light in seasons before, after and during Christmas. They are offered to encourage readers to turn to the Light and find the Source that is able to restore what the wounded soul yearns for, because no matter the season, Light will always find a way to reach you.
There are pauses at the end of each prayer-poem for reflection. These pauses invite you to stop and pray as you can, where you are with words and thoughts, images and feelings that are stirring in you at the time. There is no best order, time or season for reading them, just use them for practicing pausing during the day, and the best way for doing that is to begin where you are.
Where to Buy:www.ionabooks.com
Author: Susan Montgomery
Title: Surrounded by God's Blue Sky: Christian Affirmations for Chronic Pain
Title: Surrounded by God's Painted Sky: Christian Affirmations to Start Your Day
Genres: Christian Devotionals, Christian Inspirational, Christian Women's Issues
The Surrounded by God series contains two books with Christian affirmations and original illustrations Susan created. Each book contains 50 positive self-talk statements, scripture references, and journal prompts.
Surrounded by God's Blue Sky: Christian Affirmations for Chronic Pain is designed to help you deal with difficult days you may have when living with chronic pain. As you focus on physical, mental, and spiritual wellness, you will find new value in God's beautiful, blue sky and his wonderful creations as you work through the book full of colorful nature illustrations.
Surrounded by God's Painted Sky: Christian Affirmations to Start Your Day aims to get your day started on a positive note with 50 additional Christian affirmations, scripture references, and journal prompts. The colorful nature illustrations included can help remind you of God's blessings and the beauty in this world. A special section about Faith Journaling is also included.
Where to buy: Surrounded by God (2 book series) Kindle Edition (amazon.com)
Authors: Brenda Buckwell
Title: Spiritual Direction and the Metamorphosis of Church
It is a new day! God is creating opportunity everywhere. You do not have to walk into newness alone. With Brenda as your spiritual guide, gather your friends, family, and leadership teams for an experience of formation through the book Spiritual Direction and The Metamorphosis of Church.
Taking cues from the extraordinary lifecycle of the Monarch butterfly, the practices in this book are easy-to-implement for all who are seeking new ways for opening God-sized potential of faith, leadership, and being in community together through the art and practice of spiritual direction.
This book seeks to transfigure personal and professional leadership and congregational ministry into the God's greatest potential. Spiritual direction IS for anyone seeking to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. AND it is for those desiring to love our neighbors as our self.
Title: The Advent of God's Word: Listening for the Whispers of the Divine
“The weeks leading up to Christmas are often hectic times preparing for the holy celebration of Jesus’ birth. This book provides an opportunity for you to pause, take a refreshing breath of the Holy Spirit, and look beyond the surface of the lights and glitter to notice the inward shaping of Jesus’ virtues of hope, love, joy and peace for faithful living. It sets a course for daily retreat and devotional living into the new era for hope and unity in the heart of Christ.”
—from the Introduction
Where to buy: www.livingstreamsflowingwater.com
Authors: John Edgar
Title: A Front Porch for All People
This book offers inspirational guidance for any reader who yearns to live in a sustainable mixed-income community – and cares enough to do something about it. Rev. John Edgar, the founder of the United Methodist Church for All People and Community Development for All People, tells the story of laboring alongside low-income residents across two decades to transform the South Side of Columbus into an opportunity rich community where everyone may thrive.
Starting with an outreach ministry called the Free Store, people came together and launched the Church for All People, the most diverse United Methodist congregation in the nation in terms of the intersection of race and social class. Each year, direct service ministries provide over 35,000 individuals opportunities to touch grace and experience positive transformation in their lives. Having developed over 100 million dollars of affordable housing, Church and Community Development for All People is forging a radically inclusive neighborhood, where everyone can dwell in unity on a front porch for all people.
Where to buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and can be ordered through most local bookstores
Authors: Dan Metzger
Title: How NOT to Ruin Christmas
How (Not) to Ruin Christmas is a funny, hopeful, and heartwarming guide that will help you replace worry with hope, conflict with peace, misery with joy, and selfishness with love, even in the chaos of the holiday season.
Through humorous personal tales and the unedited, messy story of the first Christmas, you will discover that Christmas was never about the absence of pain and struggle but about God’s light piercing the darkness – a light that still shines in our lives, 365 days a year.
Without adding one more thing to your to-do list, How (Not) to Ruin Christmas will inspire you to shift your perspective, reclaim the wonder of the season, and experience Christmas like you never have before…from the inside out.
Where to buy: Available at Invite Resources: https://www.inviteresources.com/store/view/how-not-to-ruin-christmas and
Amazon (Paperback and Kindle): https://a.co/d/1iu7exQ
Authors: Linda F. Huling
Title: What Matters Most (Embracing Life's Connections & Complications)
What Matters Most is a book about finding answers, significance, and meaning from both the challenges and the wonders of life.
By looking at life through the lens of everyday things---like the thrill of breezes and the healing power of nature--- we can be connected to the bigger lessons in faith.
Through stories, devotions, poetry, and prayer, the author writes about finding motivation, passion, the redeeming power of friendship, and connections to each other and God in our search for what matters most.
Where to buy: Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Word Association Publishers at
724-226-4526- The author: 614-648-6464 or lfhuling@gmail.com
Authors: Daniel Thaxton
Title: The Heresy of Freedom
Free will is fundamental to our interaction with everyone we come into contact with. While we've come to presume freedom to think and act for ourselves, we sometimes struggle with allowing others that same privilege. It gets even harder when their behavior is irritating or in conflict with our beliefs! Today's heretic may be just another fool, OR tomorrow’s visionary! How can we tell the difference? How can we decide when to be patient and when to take action?
This book examines our freedoms, beliefs and responsibilities as we attempt to live in harmony with others.
Where to buy: Contact author by email: dthaxto@gmail.com or phone: (937) 687-8661
Authors: Elaine J. Clinger Sturtz
Title: Live Different Moments
Is it possible to live differently in your current life with all the changes that have occurred?
Elaine J. Sturtz says “Yes” in this book. “Yes, this is the life you now have. You are free to live boldly and abundantly. Be present in today. Focus on what is in front of you. Draw closer to God. Embrace the change and enjoy each adventure. Live in the different moments.”
Drawing from her own journey through grief and transformation, Elaine J. Clinger Sturtz offers a poignant exploration of the emotions, changes, and memories that accompany loss. Live Different Moments delves into the complex tapestry of grief, where sorrow and joy intermingle, and tears and hope coexist. Through personal anecdotes, the author shares how love, a constant presence even in the face of loss, becomes an integral part of one's foundation. As readers navigate the chapters of their own lives altered by loss, they'll find solace in the author's experiences and insights.
Where to buy: Amazon
Title: Living in the Different
Elaine Sturtz shares in Living In The Different, that grief is messy, hard, painful, filled with tears and loneliness, but also includes faith, hope and love. She walks through the journey, the emotions, the changes and hurts. Each grief is different, and grief changes our lives. We are different, and how we live and interact with others is different. The journey of grief takes different forms as we learn to live and mingle joy and sorrow together. Elaine offers hope, a hope of hope, through these passages of sorrow and loss. Hope is found in our faith in God who is love, and love never ends.
Where to buy: Amazon
Title: Life Lessons of a Lone Trooper
Elaine Sturtz shares that the full meaning of a person’s life is revealed in how they live on in the hearts of others. It is their legacy and influence that bears fruit. David D. Sturtz made a difference in this world and leaves a legacy through his work – in the Ohio State Highway Patrol, as the first Inspector General of the State of Ohio and as a friend. Dave was a story teller and giver of life lessons. The book shares his stories and the fruit of his labor.
Where to buy: Amazon