WordServe News August 2021

Congratulations to Shannon Deer and Cheryl Miller for the August 15, 2021 release of Business of Doing Good: Engaging Women and Elevating Communities from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Outlines six principles and best practices for hiring and retaining women with challenging backgrounds.

Recently, business leaders have shifted their focus from a profit-only mindset to considering the impact of their businesses on all stakeholders. At the same time, the United Nations set aggressive Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) to improve our world by 2030. These SDGs address all major needs facing our world today, such as: eradication of poverty and hunger, access to clean water, gender equality, and decent work and economic growth. These are significant problems facing the world that have in the past largely been left to nonprofit organizations and governments to solve.

Investors and customers have higher expectations for companies to make a positive social and environmental impact. They want to know business can do good. Following suit, today’s business leaders are starting to recognize we will never fill the gap between where we are and where we want to be if businesses do not also do their part to contribute sustainable solutions to these enormous social problems. This book provides a guide for businesses to make a significant positive impact while also benefiting their businesses.

Business Doing Good outlines six principles business leaders can implement to effectively hire women who have experienced incarceration, poverty, addiction, and/or engagement in the sex trade. While making a difference to both these women and communities, businesses benefit from the women’s resourcefulness, resilience, ability to motivate, and other unique skills and perspectives only available to someone who has overcome difficulties. Investments in women, in general, are exponential as they are more likely to return that investment to future generations. The impact is endless. If we are going to end poverty and create economic development, women who have overcome challenging pasts cannot be excluded.

Congratulations to David Stoop for the September 7, 2021 release of Living Strong Finishing Well from Revell Publishers.

Growing older is inevitable and, as we often say, it beats the alternative. But just because we age does not mean we must give in to a slow deterioration of our bodies, minds, social circles, and interests. It doesn’t mean we need to give up on our dreams, goals, or aspirations. In fact, as people live longer and healthier into old age, we need to decide what we want to do with all the extra years we’ve been given!

In Living Strong, Finishing Well, Dr. David Stoop draws upon his more than 80 years on the planet and his decades of counseling, speaking, and writing to show you how to live every moment to its fullest until you’re finally called home. He shows you how to be yourself, continue the search for meaning, stay humble, build on your friendships, develop resilience, stay teachable, and more as you learn to accept the gifts that come with growing older and wiser in a world that needs what you have to give.

Congratulations to Preston Ulner for the September 7, 2021 release of The Doubters Club from NavPress Publishers.

The closer we get to the heart of God, the closer we should grow toward the doubter, the skeptic, the differing perspective, even the atheist.

And that should make us wonder: Is it possible to grow in our Christian faith without engaging the doubter or the skeptic? And if growing in our faith means growing closer to the doubter, how do we do that without compromising what we believe to be true?

The Doubters’ Club is a guide for people who want to live in friendship with those who think differently than them. In The Doubters’ Club, you’ll learn how to: (1) rebuild the impression the other person has of us as Christians; (2) renovate the intention we have with the nonbeliever; (3) rely on an invitation into real life (not a church service); (4) reexamine our views through initiating conversations that matter; and (5) redefine progress as imitation, not just immersion. You’ll get practical steps and tools to help you navigate relationships and conversations―but not foolproof methods (because there aren’t any).

Maybe you’re ready to take a chance because it’s your mom or dad who is the skeptic, a sibling, an old friend, a coworker, or a neighbor. Maybe you’re just ready to embrace the adventure of your faith. If you are open to the mystery of doubt, The Doubters’ Club invites you to bring your uncertainties as common ground for relationship with skeptics and see what God does.

Congratulations to Rick Lawrence and Daniel Emina for the September 14, 2021 release of The Suicide Solution  from Salem Books

This is a book for people who are struggling to find their way out of a cave of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts—and for anyone who cares for someone who’s been lost in that cave.

Suicide is now the leading cause of death among young adults 18-34, and the fourth-leading cause of death among the middle-aged.

Just as a computer’s hardware determines its foundational capabilities and its software determines how it interfaces with the world, humans’ hardware is tied to our biology and our software dictates how we relate to others and ourselves. Together, these parts of our identity determine our functionality, limitations, and possibilities.

We become the story we have decided to live inside. When Jesus said, “I have come to set captives free,” He meant that He came to “de-bug” our programming. Jesus invites us to partner with Him to bring to the surface and then move past our debilitating bugs.

This book is a conversation between a minister and a psychiatrist. Informed by the clinical realities of anxiety, depression, and suicide, the authors draw from the transformational relational strategies of Jesus to chart a path into life and freedom..