Sittin' in the Front Pew

Sittin' in the Front Pew
Author: Parry Ann Brown
Publisher: Villard
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2002
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0375757058

Returning to Baltimore from Los Angeles to bury her late father, Glynda Naylor and her three sisters celebrate their father's life and search for answers about who the real Edward Naylor, who had raised them after their mother's death, was. Original. 35,000 first printing.

Pew

Pew
Author: Catherine Lacey
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2020-07-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374720134

WINNER of the 2021 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award. Finalist for the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize. Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. One of Publishers Weekly's Best Fiction Books of 2020. One of Amazon's 100 Best Books of 2020. “The people of this community are stifling, and generous, cruel, earnest, needy, overconfident, fragile and repressive, which is to say that they are brilliantly rendered by their wise maker, Catherine Lacey.” --Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers A figure with no discernible identity appears in a small, religious town, throwing its inhabitants into a frenzy In a small, unnamed town in the American South, a church congregation arrives for a service and finds a figure asleep on a pew. The person is genderless and racially ambiguous and refuses to speak. One family takes in the strange visitor and nicknames them Pew. As the town spends the week preparing for a mysterious Forgiveness Festival, Pew is shuttled from one household to the next. The earnest and seemingly well-meaning townspeople see conflicting identities in Pew, and many confess their fears and secrets to them in one-sided conversations. Pew listens and observes while experiencing brief flashes of past lives or clues about their origin. As days pass, the void around Pew’s presence begins to unnerve the community, whose generosity erodes into menace and suspicion. Yet by the time Pew’s story reaches a shattering and unsettling climax at the Forgiveness Festival, the secret of who they really are—a devil or an angel or something else entirely—is dwarfed by even larger truths. Pew, Catherine Lacey’s third novel, is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: its contradictions, its flimsy morality, and the limits of judging others based on their appearance. With precision and restraint, one of our most beloved and boundary-pushing writers holds up a mirror to her characters’ true selves, revealing something about forgiveness, perception, and the faulty tools society uses to categorize human complexity.

The Last Pew

The Last Pew
Author: Sophia Sunshine Vilceus
Publisher:
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2015-10-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9781937741655

The Last Pew is the story of a young, single Christian woman who for most of her life lived a pure, wholesome, spiritual, and obedient existence. Upon moving to a new city and beginning her career as an educator, on the job she encounters a young unhappily married man who also happens to be a minister at a local Baptist church. Throughout a 2 year period of the two working together, she is courted; they fall in love, and commit to a life and relationship of immorality and sin. The narrative essentially tells the love story of the two. It shows how two people who know God intimately and have been doing God's will for so long can eventually walk down a path of spiritual destruction. The story illustrates the reasons that enabled the young woman's spiritual judgment to decline in order for this relationship to even take place. Moreover, the story shows the spiritual steps that the young woman had to take in order to be freed from the affair. The story clearly shows the power of God's Grace, Mercy, Forgiveness, and the true capacity of Prayer and Fasting. The Last Pew is an important story because it is an account on adultery which certainly is a muzzled issue within the Christian community. The story is an honest, transparent and appropriate narrative written with the hopes of providing its reader with a different take of who the other woman is. It is proof that the other woman can in fact be a woman of God who got lost while on her walk with Christ. At its core, The Last Pew is a story of redemption and finding purpose after sin. The title, The Last Pew, symbolizes how far the narrator was from God's altar and His will. But the story is a reminder that God's love can always allow for any lost soul to move back to the front of His altar. The end of the book serves as a workbook for struggling women coming out of their affair. There is a chapter devoted to points and scriptures to guide women through the process of their healing. The end of the book closes with an open letter to any woman who has had to deal with infidelity within her own marriage. A riveting testimony and a biblical based workbook, TLP is a resource for all women. Though adultery is a silent story within the Church, it certainly is a reality for many Christians, making this a conversation one that needs to be had. Whether the person reading this story is a woman trying to come out of an affair, a wife trying to heal from learning about an extra-marital affair, or a man of God that is caught in the middle---this book will minister.

The Devil in Pew Number Seven

The Devil in Pew Number Seven
Author: Rebecca Nichols Alonzo
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2010-07-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1414338295

2011 Retailers Choice Award winner! Rebecca never felt safe as a child. In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him—with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca’s father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family’s kitchen . . . And Rebecca’s life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seven tells a different story. It is the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family’s faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.

In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart

In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart
Author: Ruth Graham
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2009-05-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310565855

Ruth Graham - daughter of beloved evangelist Billy Graham - offers a guide for those who are hurting or those who love them. She illustrates through personal stories and Scripture how nothing can keep you from experiencing the fullness of God's grace. Run with Ruth to the arms of the God you can trust, the Father God who embraces, sustains, and redeems your brokenness. Ruth Graham has discovered through bitter personal experience that God does his great work in the ruins of our lives. As Ruth's life descended through divorce, depression, and shame; as she bore heartrending parental struggles; and as she faltered trying to make wise choices in the wake of bad ones, she discovered the unending embrace of a faithful, forgiving, and grace-filled God. This book surpasses the testimony of her fascinating story as she brings sharp new insight from the Word of God for all who fear their actions may be beyond forgiveness or their broken circumstances may keep them from being used by God ever again. Through the words of Jeremiah - the weeping prophet - Ruth reveals the God who makes wasted places come to life. You'll explore the parable of the Prodigal Son as never before as Ruth discloses her own likeness to each character: The indignant older brother, struggling to understand God’s grace toward her husband's infidelity The prodigal, wading through the deep shame and painful circumstances of her own actions The father, running to embrace her children in the midst of bulimia, drug abuse, and unplanned pregnancy Ruth includes practical steps in every chapter anyone can take to offer care, support, and hope to the broken people they encounter in their lives and in the pews beside them every Sunday.

Witchcraft in the Pews

Witchcraft in the Pews
Author: George Bloomer
Publisher: Whitaker House
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1603746625

Deception, witchcraft, and occult practices reign worldwide—and these evils have even infiltrated the Christian church! So, fasten your seatbelt as you read the most provocative book of our time, in which you will learn to recognize: Ministers who use intimidation and fear Controlling power in families Spiritual discernment and its many uses Manipulative media techniques Distractions coming from Satan It's time to take a stand and engage in spiritual warfare. Bishop Bloomer shows how to prevent others from unfairly taking advantage of you.

It Goes Like This

It Goes Like This
Author: Miel Moreland
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2021-05-18
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1250767490

In Miel Moreland's heartfelt young adult debut, It Goes Like This, four queer teens realize that sometimes you have to risk hitting repeat on heartbreak. Eva, Celeste, Gina, and Steph used to think their friendship was unbreakable. After all, they've been though a lot together, including the astronomical rise of Moonlight Overthrow, the world-famous queer pop band they formed in middle school, never expecting to headline anything bigger than the county fair. But after a sudden falling out leads to the dissolution of the teens' band, their friendship, and Eva and Celeste's starry-eyed romance, nothing is the same. Gina and Celeste step further into the spotlight, Steph disappears completely, and Eva, heartbroken, takes refuge as a songwriter and secret online fangirl...of her own band. That is, until a storm devastates their hometown, bringing the four ex-best-friends back together. As they prepare for one last show, they'll discover whether growing up always means growing apart. "It Goes Like This was everything my music nerd heart needed AND wanted. Lyrical and heart-wrenching...beautiful representation, sweetest longing and the pop-star romance of my dreams; Swifties will swoon happily with this story tattooed on their hearts." —Erin Hahn, author of You'd Be Mine and More Than Maybe

Radical

Radical
Author: David Platt
Publisher: Multnomah
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010-05-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1601422210

New York Times bestseller What is Jesus worth to you? It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily... But who do you know who lives like that? Do you? In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment -- a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Cheat Day

Cheat Day
Author: Liv Stratman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2022-01-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982140550

This clever and witty debut novel about the unexpected consequences of one woman’s attempt to exert control over her life by adhering to a strict wellness routine is “the kind of book you devour in a day or two…sexy and funny, but also very perceptive” (BuzzFeed). Kit and David were college sweethearts. Now married and in their thirties, they live in Kit’s childhood home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. While David has a successful career, jetting off on work trips to exciting destinations, Kit is stuck in a loop. She keeps quitting her job managing her sister’s bakery to seek a more ambitious profession, but fear of failure always brings her back to Sweet Cheeks. Kit finds a fraught solace in cycling through fad diets, which David, in his efforts to be supportive, follows along with her. Their latest program is the Radiant Regimen, an intense cleanse, and Kit is optimistic about embarking on a new chapter of healthy eating and self-control. Hungry in more ways than one, she soon falls into a flirtation with a carpenter named Matt who is building new shelves for the bakery kitchen. Unable to resist their mutual attraction, Kit and Matt soon begin a passionate affair. Kit suppresses her guilt by obsessing over her diet, pushing herself in greater extremes. Told in precise, intimate detail, Cheat Day is “an incredibly likable novel of hungers controlled and liberated, and marriage’s gray areas” (Booklist) that explores monogamy versus monotony, deprivation versus indulgence, and limitations of modern wellness.