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Toward
the latter half of 2011, my co-director, Ariel Lawhon, and I started
looked at our She Reads participants and the comments they left. We
learned some interesting things. While most of the regulars are
Christians, a majority of them read a healthy mix of both Christian and
general fiction. With this in mind, in September of last year we chose
our first title published by a general market publisher, The
Violets of March. And we had our best month ever. It was the
first time we had participants returning after reading the selected
book just to thank us for recommending it and to let us know that they
were telling friends and family about the book. These readers liked the
thought-provoking issues in the book and they wanted to share their
thoughts with other Christians. They, like us, have experienced some of
the themes that Sarah Jio touched on, appreciated the chance to talk
about those things from a Christian worldview, and then shared the book
with others.
Based on our readers’ overall
reaction, we made some decisions about a new focus for 2012. We’re not
going to choose solely Christian fiction any longer (though we will
continue to select the Christian novels we love). We’ll select books
that are written by both Christians and non-Christians. We’ll select
books that are well-written, are different from every other book on the
market, and have something to say that resonates with us. And we’ll
always choose books that, at their very core, offer a message of
redemption to the reader. The Bible says that “even the rocks cry out.”
And I think that is true of many of the books we read. We find Jesus in
the pages of both Christian and non-Christian books. And we want to
create a community where women of faith can gather and talk about
seeking Him in not just the safety of where we expect Him but in the
surprise of where even the author didn’t know He was going to show up.
He supersedes all the boxes we try to put Him in, and these books are
proof of that.
We
want to thank Bonnie and the folks at CFOM for
allowing us to come to you via this column every month. We’re grateful
to
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Bonnie
for catching the vision for this new direction and readily
agreeing to give us a place to keep sharing what we’re doing,
introducing you all to books and authors we love, albeit with a
different flavor than before.
We
hope that many of you will
make your way to She Reads in this new year, get the books we select
each month, and join us for a loving, healthy discussion about being a
woman of faith in an increasingly puzzling and troubled world as viewed
through the stories people are reading―both Christian and
non-Christian, like your neighbors, your coworkers, your unsaved
friends. It is our sincere hope that you’ll be equipped to discuss
these books in a way that might invite them to know Jesus. We’ll be
there waiting, offering these books we’ve prayed over, and welcoming
those who might not have found us otherwise. It is our greatest prayer
that She Reads be used of God in a way that surprises us all.
Marybeth Whalen is the founder
of She Reads (www.shereads.org) and the author
of The Mailbox, She Makes It Look Easy, and her
upcoming novel, The Guest Book. She is the wife of
Curt and mom of six children, ranging in age from college to
kindergarten. When she’s not in the grocery store, she is at work on
her next novel. You can find her blogging Monday through Friday at www.marybethwhalen.com.
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