God Centered Life Ministries is grateful for the Ministry Council that God has brought together. We regularly try to bring articles and resources to you from this group of godly men who are serving God in various arenas. This year, we hope to periodically bring collective pieces with several of the members contributing.

Book Recommendations

As we continue to move into the new year, Dr. Philip Ryken provides us with two book recommendations from 2016: On Larry Alex Tarrant, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist (Thomas Nelson, 2016). “Larry Tarrant’s intimate portrait of a Christian apologist’s personal encounter with the soul of avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens is more than a thoughtful exploration of faith and unbelief. It is a model for befriending Christianity’s cultured despisers as they search for truth and grace in their struggle with the realities and ambiguities of life, death, and eternity.”   On Makoto Fujimura, Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering (InterVarsity, 2016). “Silence and Beauty is as beautiful a work of art as any of Mako Fujimyra’s magnificent paintings, full of compassion for the Ground Zero traumas of a fallen world while at the same time hopeful about the redemptive beauty of the suffering Christ. This timely, many-layered historical, theological, and aesthetic interpretation of Shusaku Endo’s important novel Silence lays bare the secrets of the Japanese soul and sets a new standard for the deep reading of any culture.”  

Beginning a New Year

Pastor Greg Hendrickson shares with us how he begins a new year: “For the last few years, as the new year begins, I have returned to this prayer from the Valley of Vision and this poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Along with Psalm 90, they both remind us of our dependence upon the Lord and encourage us to cast ourselves upon him with humility and with expectancy. Bonhoeffer’s poem, which he wrote on New Year’s Day 1945 while in a concentration camp, has been adapted into a hymn entitled “By Gracious Powers” (which can be sung to the tune of “Great is Thy Faithfulness”).    ]]>