R&R
If you’re asked to create a retreat for your church and you have no idea where to start, pick up The Complete Leader’s Guide to Christian Retreats, by Rachel Gilmore. Part 1 deals with logistics—finding centers, making checklists, and handling special concerns. Part 2 contains sample retreat themes and outlines you can replicate, forms you can photocopy and use, and an extensive list of retreat centers throughout the U.S. Judson Press
Challenging Words
In Romero’s Legacy: The Call to Peace and Justice, Pilar Hogan Closkey and John Hogan have compiled a series of lectures that have been delivered annually to commemorate the life and death of Oscar Romero, former archbishop of El Salvador. Contributors Thomas Gumbleton, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Helen Prejean, and others address topics including liberation theology, racism and the economy, and the Eucharist and social justice. Rowman & Littlefield
Thou Shalt Not Steal
Billions of dollars in wages and benefits are being stolen from U.S. workers—at small neighborhood businesses as well as some of the country’s largest employers. In Wage Theft in America, Kim Bobo, a labor activist and founder of Interfaith Worker Justice, details the inadequate or unenforced laws that result in millions of workers getting short shrift—and also what we can do about it. The New Press
Beloved Community
We know we need prayer, but why is it so hard? In Becoming the Answers to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals, Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove write about the struggle of being contemplatives in the ’hood. The two activists focus on three biblical passages—The Lord’s Prayer, John 17, and Ephesians 1:15-23—to demonstrate that prayer and action go together. InterVarsity Press