This might be my favorite E-news introduction of the year because its the week I share my favorite books of the year. To be honest, I thought my reading was down a little this year because I spent much of the summer reading free mystery and spy books from Amazon Prime. But then I started making this list and realized I read a lot of books in the last 12 months. I stuck to my goal of reading from a wider variety of authors including multiple women, minorities, and a variety of Christian traditions, though heavily leaning toward reformed and evangelical. To be absolutely clear, I do not agree with all the books, I simply found them helpful and informative for my thinking and faith. So, in a little bit of a particular order, following are my top 10 books of the year:

10. A Church Called Tov by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer. Scot and Laura look at the various scandals in evangelical churches, predominantly abuses of power by pastors, and do some carefully thinking about how to create cultures of goodness (Tov) that can both resist/prevent those abuses and respond well when they do happen.

9. Future Church by Will Mancini and Cory Hartman. Will and Cory look at 7 changes they believe churches need to make to transition from a Sunday morning event to disciple making ministries. We read this book as a staff and now Consistory is reading it as well.

8. Beyond Doubt by Brian McLaren. McLaren swims in the more progressive strand of Christianity. This book attempts to help people embrace doubt as part of the process of spiritual growth. His overall point, I believe is dead on, doubt is always a part of faith. This book had more bones to spit out than many, but I appreciated reading a very different view than my own.

7. When Everything is on Fire by Brian Zahnd. Zahnd also reflects on the role of doubt in our spiritual growth, but emphasizes the importance of our experience of the risen Christ as the center of faith. I have not yet finished this book, but loved the first few chapters that brought in Nietsche and Kiekegaard and the poor response of modern Christianity to modern skepticism.

6. It’s Not Your Turn by Heather Thompson Day. Day is a professor at Andrews University in Michigan, but had been a professor at Colorado Christian College prior to this year. She is a millennial and I think this book really hits the target for younger millennials and Gen Zs who are wrestling with the bumps and bruises of launching into adulthood and early career. She offers great advice on how to handle the success of others and how to keep growing as you wait for your opportunity as well. I really liked this book and I thought all the way through that I wasn’t really the target for it.

5. The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr. Barr combines historical analysis with her personal experiences moving from a complementarian view to an egalitarian one. While allowing women to be Elders, Deacons and Ministers is not an ongoing discussion in our denomination as we have allowed woman in all those roles for over 40 years, it was interesting learning about all the ways women were preaching and leading in the church from the very beginning and well into the Middle Ages.

4. Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey. Few authors have had as much influence in my life as Yancey. In his latest book, he offers a memoir of his life and the way God kept reaching out to him as he struggled with the racist fundamentalist Christianity with which he grew up. If you have enjoyed Yancey’s other books, this is a great look at his personal story.

3. The End of the Christian Life by J. Todd Billings. Billings is a professor at Western Theological Seminary and for several years now has been living with a terminal cancer. Diagnosed in his 30s with two young kids in the house, he has written often on grief, death, and the providence of God. This latest book is a really thoughtful look at how embracing our mortality and limits puts our focus back on our hope in Christ and enables us to truly live. It moved me to tears often and left me with that confident hope of the resurrection to come.

2. What if Jesus Was Serious by Skye Jethani. I read this book and another by Skye on vacation this summer. This one offers 72 devotionals on the Sermon on the Mount. They are short, insightful, and they all have cute stick figure illustrations. Our staff will be preaching through the Sermon on the Mount beginning on January 9. This would be a great devotional tied to the series and a fun way to kickstart your personal devotional time as we begin the new year.

1b. A Burning in My Bones by Winn Collier. Collier wrote a truly moving biography of Eugene Peterson (the writer of the Message paraphrase of the Bible). I read Peterson’s own memoir a few years ago, which was good, but this is even better. The story of Peterson and Bono from U2 becoming friends is worth the price of the book. This one brought me to tears as well, especially as Collier tells of Peterson’s relationships with family.

1a. Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans. I almost forgot this book. Rachel passed away in her 30s the year before Covid hit and this book is written from her notes by Jeff Chu, a friend. There may be a theme in my favorite books because they all made me cry, but the introduction and conclusion written by her husband and friend were both very moving. The book itself offers Rachel’s trademark insights, great questions, humor, grace, and hope as she reflects on living authentically as a follower of Jesus.

I also read books on leadership development, responding to racism as a christian, a short book by a former professor, Jim Brownson, on questions Christians are afraid to ask, a couple other books by Skye Jethani, a book on Revelation by Eugene Peterson, the latest spy book by Daniel Silva, and a few more that were less memorable.

What books did you enjoy this year?

– Greg

Connect to God
This Sunday we will gather for worship at 9:30 am. The service will be live-streamed at 9:30 and replayed again at 11. This weeks service will not be on Facebook because of the Zion Kids Christmas Program, but will be at zionreformed.online.church and streaming on our YouTube channel. We will also rebroadcast a version of the service on WCET at noon on Friday and 4pm next Sunday.

Join us this Advent season as we consider the importance of prepositions in our spiritual lives. This year we celebrate the God who has not called us to live under, over, for, or from God, but in Jesus came to be with us. At Christmas, we remember again God loves us so much he came to be like us and with us. Unfortunately, we can often unintentionally live from God, treating God like a giant vending machine, rather than as our loving Father

We want to invite you to join us to celebrate the birth of Jesus this Christmas on either Friday, December 24 at 6:30 pm or Sunday, December 26 at 9:30 am. Both services will be very very similar (think almost identical) and will point us to the hope we have in our God who has come to dwell among us in the person of Jesus.

Grow in Community
Zion Kids practice for the Christmas Service practice is this Saturday morning. Kindergarten through 5th grade practice from 9:30 to 10 am. 3 years old through pre-school students practice from 10 to 10:30 am. They will also be practicing before church on Sunday as follows:
K-5th Kids meet in the sanctuary at 8:30 for practice.
Preschoolers meet in their classroom at 9:00 for practice.

Our Middle School youth group will be having their Christmas party this Sunday, December 12, from 11-2 in the youth room. Students should make sure they bring a white elephant gift!

Serve the World
We welcomed 35 families to Threads this week Tuesday. We continue to receive comments from shoppers about the high quality of the clothing and how thankful they are for this opportunity. We were also able to provide each shopper with a bag or box of items from the Personal Care Pantry. Your generosity is lifting up the name of Jesus in the people of our community.

Tim Mekkes and others from Good News Nepal returned from a recent visit to Nepal. But this week their hearts are saddened because a pastor in Nepal has been imprisoned by the Nepali Government for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a church. Although Pastor Keshab Acharya is not a GNN pastor, he is a brother in the Lord and a fellow servant of Christ. He also grew up in Jumla, one of the places they had just visited. Please pray for this pastor and his church.

We also have two missionary updates, one from Geoff Kooistra and the other from Keith Krebs.
Geoff Kooistra has been in Ecuador since November 28th and will return December 14th. He is participating in the 90th anniversary celebration and with the share-a-thon in Quito and Guayaquil. HCJB does lots of special programs for the season so pray that they will bring listeners closer to the Lord.

Keith Krebs will retired in March 2022 from his position as chaplain of the American Mission Hospital in Bahrain. Then he will continue with the RCA Global Missions as the Spiritual Care Coordinator for RCA Mission in Europe and the Middle East. In his eight years as chaplain he has met people from 134 countries! A new chaplain, Rev. Paul Deutsch, will start serving there in Bahrain January 1, 2022.

If you need help, either with food, personal care items, help grocery shopping, or with financial needs, please contact Jerrod Holzgen, our chair of deacons, and he can help connect you with the appropriate resources at Zion. His e-mail is Jholzgen@yahoo.com and his phone number is 616-520-1771.

Administration
We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.

Fiscal Year 2021/22 Budget:  $302,677.29
Fiscal Year 2021/22 Contributions: $228,266.01
Giving Last Week: $10,654.46