MSI Press Blog

Sent to the printer today: Jesus Is Still Passing By by award-winning author J. Bennett Easterling. Look for pre-orders on Amazon and Barnes & Noble as early as next week. This is a great book for individual devotions and for group study. From the Bible: 36 miracles, each explicated by Easterling in a background information section. Every miracle of Jesus in days of yore finds three (!) parallels in real life stories from today.Reflection questions that cause pondering and self-development accompany each of these life applications -- in all, well more than 100 study, reflection, and discussion questions. A rich resource for all Christians and those wanting to know more about the Christian religion.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when small ads would sell new books, when large ads would sell large numbers of new books, and when catalogues were the media to which librarians and bookstores looked for stocking books. Books in Print was an essential tool for everyone -- researchers, reviewers, writers, booksellers. Times have changed. Two revolutions have taken book marketing into very different directions. First, the accessibility to self-publishing for authors struggling to be picked up by a major (or any) house resulted in an explosion of books. Some of these have been as good as those published by traditional publishers; many, if not, most have not because authors lack the full range of expertise and resources available from a traditional publisher. Nonetheless, these books make it onto the shelves of bookstores or at least onto the virtual shelves of online stores in droves, droves being thousands every single day. Given relative steady and limited opportunities for

The human ability to err comes through in American Ninja Warrior that I have watched. No missteps or a fixed error result in a run to glory. One simple misstep, and even the greatest warrior can fall from glory. Last night, Isaac Caldierno, one of only two ninjas to finish Stage Four at Mount Midoriyama, fell on one of the early obstacles in the Indiana city competition. Had he lost his touch? No. Had his muscles atrophied? No. Did his strategic thinking skills fail to keep up with the ever-evolving courses? No. Had he miscalculated the obstacle? No. Did he feel sick, confused, or distracted? No. He simply took a misstep—as we all do from time to time throughout life, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally. In other words, he is human. When Kacy Catanzaro made her way through tall poles rising from water, situated farther apart from each other than Casey could possibly reach, she did a quick calculation and jumped, managing to grab and hang on to the next pole. The c

 Yesterday, a newly adopted feral cat hid himself under our very large, 7-section sofa. I pushed the sofa out a bit to reach him and found that by doing so I had trapped his paw under one of the heavy bars that held the sections together in the back of the sofa. Concerned for his safety, I instinctively reached out with my left had, lifted up the end of the sofa (about three sections) and pulled the cat out with my right hand. My goodness, I thought, after letting the sofa back down, I have become quite strong from my training over the past seven months. Quickly, though, the reality set in. It as not my muscles alone that lifted the sofa. It was adrenaline pouring into the muscles, making them stronger. Very quickly, my wrist began to throb. Oh, oh! I made it through the night, sleeping though the pain -- I can do that. In the morning, the pain made it clear that I needed to confess to the doctor my foolishness at thinking I might be superwoman. I wrapped an ace bandage around

About the Book People are often at a loss to find the right words to say in prayer. Whether you're a believer but unchurched or are a devout member of a religion, if you wish to expand your home worship, finding the right words to say to God can be a problematic issue. The prayers in Everybody's Little Book of Everyday Prayers are nonsectarian-suited for Protestants, Jews, and Catholics, as well as unaffiliated deists who believe in God but not in organized religion. They cover a raft of occasions on which individuals or families may wish to say a prayer. If prayer is an integral part of your life, or you would like it to be, you'll find the help you want in Everybody's Little Book of Everyday Prayers. Delightfully illustrated by Zhenya Yanovich of Moscow & Siberia (Russia) and Charlottesvile (VA< USA). Book Endorsement "This book is a keeper. It gets to the heart of our communication with God." Rev. Grant A. Houser, M. Th. Review of the Book

General Prayers – Communicating with God – for Adults and Children Sometimes you want to talk to God when it isn’t an occasion or a specified time of day and when there isn’t something happening in your life that you want to ask God for or thank God for. You just feel a need to reach out to Him and talk to Him. You might be inspired by an especially pretty sunset, or there may be something else that you want to say that doesn’t fall under a particular prayer category.               I’ve always wondered whether maybe God likes those prayers best, when He hears from us at times when we want to talk to Him not to ask him for something, or to pray at a time we think we’re supposed to, but “just because.” Don’t you appreciate the phone call from a friend who says, “I was thinking about you, so I thought I’d pick up the phone and say Hi”? Don’t you appreciate the spontaneous kiss from your child—or from anyone else—that isn’t a Hello kiss, a Goodbye kiss, a Good morning kiss, or

... toward the end of the year, we had games and festivities, one of which involved guessing the amount of candy in a very large jar. Whoever guessed the right amount of individual candies was the winner. I didn’t care about the candy, but I did care about winning, as I was wired to be extraordinarily competitive, something that was often discouraged by my teachers who would classify my displeasure at losing as being a “poor sport.” In essence, they were trying to filter out of me the exact quality that would help me be successful in life—thanks a lot.             In any event, I watched as other children tried futilely to maintain their count of the giant candy jar. I had other ideas. When there was no activity around the jar, I took a ruler and decided that I would focus my efforts on counting the candies in exactly one inch of the jar. This would not necessarily give me an accurate count, but I believed it would give me a better chance to focus with precision on a small are