Library Life #8

Library ministry…a ministry of discernment.

Many, many times I have been reminded how vital a church's library can be to the spiritual nurture of a congregation. Many children, youth, adults and seniors visit the library with the hope that they will discover a book that will inspire, nurture and inform their spiritual life.

The article on the back side of this page, taken from The Mennonite, urged me to think once again about the process of discerning which books to place within a church's library. I know from my experience at the Resource Centre and my conversations with church librarians that this is no simple task. I pass this article on to you with the hope that it will encourage you to continue to reflect upon your own practice of discernment. I also share with you some steps in the process of discernment that you might want to implement, if you do not practice them already. -Kathy Giesbrecht

A Process for Choosing Books for the Library…Research, Review, Request.

#1 Research the options. What are the best books/videos available on a certain topic, or for a certain age group? Ask other librarians/pastors/readers for recommendations. Visit a variety of book stores and/or websites. Call Mennonite Church Canada staff persons: Marilyn Houser Hamm (worship and mission), Elsie Rempel (Christian Education …starting Aug, 2002), Kathy Giesbrecht/Connie Loeppky (Resource Centre directors).

#2 Review the Book/Video. Does it contain sound theology? Does it affirm the teaching/preaching that happens in our congregation? Is it well written and presented?

#3 Request Feedback. Share your selection suggestions with people in the church who work in a certain area or with a certain age group. Invite deacons/pastors to review books/videos for you before purchasing.

Great Additions to a Church Library…

For Worship Planners:

Through Laughter and Tears: The Church Celebrates by Bertha Landers. Designed to help worship planners in providing new ways for a congregation to acknowledge significant life events. #5351. Faith and Life Resources 2001. 160 Pages.

Even More Little Stories for Little People by Donna Mckee Rhodes. Offers excellent children's stories for the worship context. Includes scripture index. This is the third collection of stories by this author. Faith and Life Resources 2000. 128 pages. #6074.

For General Readers:

Where Was God on September 11? Seeds of Hope and Faith. These collected essays, articles, sermons, interviews, and letters reflect the heartthrob of Christian leaders and thinkers as they struggle with profound questions of faith and seek to be people of peace in a world of terror. Herald Press 2002. 194 Pages. #6346

Call the Resource Centre to preview. Above books are available for purchase from Faith & Life Resources, 1-800-743-2484.

This Library Life idea sheet was prepared by the Mennonite Church Canada Resource Centre. We welcome your feedback and invite you to give us a call at 1-866-888-6785, and let us know what kind of ideas you are looking for.

TheMennonite April 16, 2002 Gordon Houser
MED I AC U LT U RE

Beware simplistic revenge stories

by Gordon Houser

At the top of many best-seller lists in the past few years have been novels from the Left Behind series, which has sold well over 10 million copies and is still going strong. Readers gobble up these books like candy, which may be an apt metaphor of their value. Caveat emptor.

British New Testament scholar NT. Wright in Bible Review (August 2001) discusses the supposed biblical basis for these books. He writes: "The New Testament, building on ancient biblical prophecy, envisages that the creator God will remake heaven and earth entirely, affirming the goodness of the old Creation but overcoming its mortality and corruptibility. When this happens, Jesus will appear witbin the resulting new world."

The Left Behind series, however, takes off from images Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 about being snatched up on clouds "to meet the Lord in the air." Little did he know how people would use bis images to sell millions of copies of badly written fiction.

"Paul's mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven," Wright says, "are not to be understood as literal truth but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere."

He goes on to ask questions about what view of the world is sustained by the Left Behind ideology. He writes: "Is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God's world on the grounds that it's all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn't this be overturned if we recaptured Paul's holistic vision of God's whole creation?"

In an article in The Weather Vane, Eastern Mennonite University's newspaper in Harrisonburg, Va., Nancy Heisey, who teaches Bible and church history at EMU, asks several questions after viewing the film Left Behind, based on one of the books:

Why is Jesus Christ, or any mention of his teachings, his life, his death and resurrection, so invisible?
Why does the schedule proposed for the end of time depend on such an odd patchwork of biblical phrases removed from their contexts?
Why are American Christians so captivated by imaginations of disaster and terror during the great tribulation but so oblivious to the political oppression, rape, torture and famine that so many Christians around the world face today?
Why, in the face of massive Israeli oppression of Palestinian people, is the modern state of Israel presented as the only world government protected by divine defense?
Why is the United Nations the most likely place for the emergence of the Antichrist rather than Microsoft, Cargill, the World Bank or the White House?

Heisey concludes: "I believe that the Bible offers us the message that Jesus Christ has already defeated the powers of evil, the challenge to accept that victory by living in Jesus' kingdom way now and a lively hope for the completion of God's work which draws us forward."

Those who consume these books may find their simplistic revenge stories sweet as candy, but their nutritional value is suspect, and the kind of theology they present may be unhealthy. [TM]

Reprinted from The Mennonite, April 16 2002 issue