WESTMONT, IL – InterVarsity Press was honored to have two titles make the shortlist for WORLD Magazine’s 2019 Books of the Year. WORLD editor Marvin Olasky wrote, “Here’s our pick of vivid and insightful new releases for better understanding America, world events, history, science, and theology.”
Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image was selected for the shortlist for WORLD’s science book of the year. In this book leprosy surgeon Dr. Paul Brand and bestselling writer Philip Yancey offer a new audience timeless reflections on the body in this updated and combined edition of the award-winning books Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image.
“I have long loved the collaboration between the marvelous theologian Philip Yancey and his mentor—orthopedic humanitarian surgeon Paul Brand,” said Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies, Bird by Bird, and Hallelujah Anyway. “What a blessing to reread this work after thirty years, to immerse myself in the story of Dr. Brand’s work with leprosy patients in India and the Bayou, and in the resultant lessons about the miraculous workings of the human body, the beauty of human friendship and caring, the profundity of God’s love. Brilliant, charming, and wonder inducing, this is a modern classic of science and faith.”
A Big Gospel in Small Places: Why Ministry in Forgotten Communities Matters by Stephen Witmer was chosen for WORLD’s shortlist in the accessible theology category. In this book pastor Stephen Witmer lays out an integrated theological vision for small-place ministry. Filled with helpful information about small places and with stories and practical advice from his own ministry, Witmer’s book offers a compelling, comprehensive vision for small-place ministry today.
“While I’ve learned a lot, it turns out my experience in small-town ministry hasn’t so much resulted in the discovery of things I didn’t know as in the rediscovery of things I once knew,” said Whitmer. “I’ve come to see afresh the beauty and brokenness of small places—the one in which I now live as well as others around the world and throughout history. I’ve slowly come to view these places through a biblical lens, with a gospel-centered theological vision, more like God sees them. I long to communicate this vision in this book.”
Jake Meador, author of In Search of the Common Good and editor in chief of Mere Orthodoxy, said, “Stephen Witmer’s A Big Gospel in Small Places is compelling because it is a simple depiction of the deeply normal, deeply human life of small places, a life that many evangelicals have regarded with indifference for far too long. For several decades now, evangelicals have thought more often in terms of size, efficiency, and influence than in the more humane and Christian terms of fidelity, affection, and rootedness. There is a call in this book to love small places and serve them faithfully, of course. But there is also a call to cultivate a certain patience in one’s own life, a commitment to belong fully to the local life of one’s home place, and to view all of this work with a smiling affection borne of the confidence that God smiles on such a life.”
WORLD is the nation’s most widely read news outlet from a Christian perspective, with a half-million people reading the magazine and website or listening to the podcast.
Founded in 1947 as an extension of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, InterVarsity Press serves those in the university, the church and the world by publishing thoughtful Christian books that equip and encourage people to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord in all of life. For more information, visit ivpress.com.
