Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
Surrounded by a Cloud of Witnesses
Do you ever feel like you’re alone in your struggles to live out the Christian faith? Do you ever read the Bible yet still wonder what it looks like to follow Jesus in the complexity and difficulty of our time?
The stories of great men and women throughout the history of the church can help us form a bridge between the teaching of Scripture and our embodied lives. This illustrated devotional vividly depicts the lives and words of great women and men of faith. Artist Ben Lansing and Anglican priest D. J. Marotta offer fifty-two profound images and reflections on Christians, from Polycarp in the first century to the martyrs of Sudan in the twenty-first century. These saints, from every continent and century of church history, demonstrate the historic church’s relevance for Christians today and reveals God’s faithfulness in all times and circumstances.
The artwork, biographies, devotionals, and prayers in this book are meant to spark our imaginations, helping us to be faithful here and now, in our own age.
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- Presents the stories of great men and women throughout the history of the church.
- Offers fifty-two profound images and reflections on Christians.
- Shows how these lives reveal God’s faithfulness in all times and circumstances.
- Preface
- Introduction: Saints Over Celebrities
- How to Use This Book as a Prayer Tool
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- September
- October
- November
- December
- Appendix A: Church History Survey
- Appendix B: Chronological Listing of Saints
- Appendix C: Geographic Listing of Saints
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
In a world captivated and mesmerized by the cult of celebrity, this book helps us to reorient our hearts to experience the saints as ones that not only speak to our past but also shine the light and guide the path to our future. We stand on the shoulders of brothers and sisters in the faith who’ve faithfully shown us the way—and this resource helps make them accessible and relevant to our everyday lives. Our Church Speaks is a useful tool full of stunning artwork and meaningful prayers to help us to sit at the feet of saints young and old and learn from those who are a part of the great cloud of witnesses. For the past few years, I’ve been shaped and formed by these visuals online. I’m thrilled this collection has been published into a book we can now hold in our hands!
—J.R. Briggs, founder of Kairos Partnerships and author of Fail and The Sacred Overlap
This isn’t a history textbook but a lively introduction to a group of flawed but faith-filled followers of Christ spanning the breadth of the Christian church. You will come away from this book not just educated about these men and women but inspired to seek out the ways of the Spirit to which they point.
—Russell Moore, editor in chief at Christianity Today and host of The Russell Moore Show
Whenever I’ve encountered these arresting modern ‘icons’ on social media, I’ve always stopped scrolling in order to read further. To have them wonderfully collected into one winsome book is a gift to the church, especially as we seek to know and honor the global story of our great ‘cloud of witnesses’.
—Jennifer L. Holberg, co-director of the Calvin Center for Faith and Writing at Calvin University and author of Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape Our Faith