Renovare
Books

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Journey through four soul-shaping, Christ-centered books.

September 21, 2020–May 2021

Join Book Club$45 Membership or scroll down to learn more...

Membership Includes

Notebook Membership-only schedule, study guides, podcasts, essays, and email reminders.
Lighthouse Exclusive content from the author or seasoned guide.
Notebook Thoughtful discussion with other Book Club members.

This Season’s Soul-Stretching Books

Chosen by Renovaré for 2020-2021

How to Pray
Session 1 September 21–November 14
How to Pray : A Simple Guide for Normal People
by Pete Greig
Pete Greig Facilitated by Pete Greig
Jesus and the Disinherited
Session 2 November 16–February 6
Jesus and the Disinherited
by Howard Thurman
Walter Fluker 600x600 Facilitated by Walter Earl Fluker
Prayer in the Night
Session 3 February 8–April 10
Prayer in the Night : For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep
by Tish Harrison Warren
Tish 69 copy Facilitated by Tish Harrison Warren
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
Members get a discount coupon from publisher.
Session 4 April 12–June 5
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
by William Law
james-catford Facilitated by James Catford

Meet the Facilitators

Pete Greig

Pete Greig

Pete Greig is a best-selling author, pastor and founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement which has reached more than half the nations on earth. He is also the Senior Pastor
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Walter Fluker 600x600

Walter Earl Fluker

Rev. Dr. Walter Fluker was born in Vaiden, Mississippi and raised in Chicago, Illinois where he attended public schools. He served in the United States Army as a Chaplain’s Assistant
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Tish 69 copy

Tish Harrison Warren

Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She has worked in ministry settings for over a decade as a campus minister with InterVarsity Graduate
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james-catford

James Catford

James Catford is Chair of Renovaré and a longstanding member of our Ministry Team. During a career in commercial publishing James worked with many of the authors most closely
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Pete Greig

Pete Greig

Pete Greig is a best-sell­ing author, pas­tor and founder of the 24 – 7 Prayer move­ment which has reached more than half the nations on earth. He is also the Senior Pas­tor of Emmaus Rd, Guild­ford, Eng­land, an Ambas­sador for the NGO Tear­fund, and teach­es at St Mel­li­tus The­o­log­i­cal Col­lege in Lon­don. For 7 years Pete served with the senior lead­er­ship team at HTB and Alpha Inter­na­tion­al. Pete’s pub­li­ca­tions include ​‘Red Moon Ris­ing’, ​‘God on Mute’, ​‘The Prayer Course’, and ​‘Dirty Glo­ry’. He loves art gal­leries, live music and knock­ing down walls. He tweets reg­u­lar­ly @petegreig.

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Walter Fluker 600x600

Walter Earl Fluker

Rev. Dr. Wal­ter Fluk­er was born in Vaiden, Mis­sis­sip­pi and raised in Chica­go, Illi­nois where he attend­ed pub­lic schools. He served in the Unit­ed States Army as a Chaplain’s Assis­tant from 1971 – 1973. He received his BA degree in phi­los­o­phy and bib­li­cal stud­ies from Trin­i­ty Col­lege in 1977, and an MDiv degree in 1980 from Gar­rett-Evan­gel­i­cal The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary. Fluk­er com­plet­ed his PhD degree in social ethics at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, in 1988. He retired from the Boston Uni­ver­si­ty School of The­ol­o­gy in June 2020.

He served as pas­tor of the his­toric St. John’s Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church, UCC in Spring­field, Mass­a­chu­setts from 1981 – 1986. In 1986, Fluk­er was uni­ver­si­ty chap­lain and assis­tant pro­fes­sor of reli­gion at Dil­lard Uni­ver­si­ty. He became assis­tant pro­fes­sor of Chris­t­ian ethics at Van­der­bilt Divin­i­ty School, and assis­tant pas­tor at First Bap­tist Church. He became assis­tant pro­fes­sor of Chris­t­ian ethics at Van­der­bilt Divin­i­ty School, and assis­tant pas­tor at First Bap­tist Church in Capi­tol Hill, in 1987. In 1991, Fluk­er was named dean of black church stud­ies and Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. memo­r­i­al pro­fes­sor of the­ol­o­gy and black church stud­ies at the Col­gate Rochester Croz­er Divin­i­ty School. In 1992, Fluk­er became edi­tor of the Howard Thur­man Papers Project. He served as direc­tor, Nation­al Resource Cen­ter for the Devel­op­ment of Eth­i­cal Lead­er­ship from the Black Church Tra­di­tion from CRCD in 1993 – 1998. In 1998, Fluk­er joined More­house Col­lege as exec­u­tive direc­tor of The Lead­er­ship Cen­ter (renamed the Andrew Young Cen­ter for Glob­al Lead­er­ship), The Coca Cola pro­fes­sor of lead­er­ship stud­ies and pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy and religion.

In 2004, Fluk­er served as vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Capetown Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, Dis­tin­guished Lec­tur­er in the Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Exchange Pro­gram and fac­ul­ty at The Salzburg Glob­al Sem­i­nar, Salzburg, Aus­tria. Fluk­er was a dis­tin­guished speak­er for the US Embassy in Abu­ja and Lagos, Nige­ria; Cape Town, Pre­to­ria and Dur­ban, South Africa, Chi­na; and India. Hav­ing served vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor­ships at the Har­vard Col­lege and Divin­i­ty School and Can­dler School of The­ol­o­gy; and vis­it­ing schol­ar at Prince­ton The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, and Colum­bia The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary. Fluk­er joined the Boston Uni­ver­si­ty School of The­ol­o­gy fac­ul­ty as the Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. pro­fes­sor of eth­i­cal lead­er­ship and direc­tor of the Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Ini­tia­tive for the Devel­op­ment of Eth­i­cal Lead­er­ship in 2010. He con­sult­ed for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Lead­er­ship Coun­cil Nation­al Con­ver­sa­tion, Gold­man Sachs Glob­al Lead­ers Pro­gram, the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, the Depart­ment of State, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Amer­i­ca, the Geor­gia State Super­in­ten­dents’ Asso­ci­a­tion, and the Con­gres­sion­al Black Cau­cus Foundation.

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Tish 69 copy

Tish Harrison Warren

Tish Har­ri­son War­ren is a priest in the Angli­can Church in North Amer­i­ca. She has worked in min­istry set­tings for over a decade as a cam­pus min­is­ter with Inter­Var­si­ty Grad­u­ate and Fac­ul­ty Min­istries, as an asso­ciate rec­tor, as an out­reach work­er to addicts and those in pover­ty through var­i­ous church­es and non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and, most recent­ly, as the Writer in Res­i­dence at Church of the Ascen­sion in Pitts­burgh, PA. 

She is the author of Litur­gy of the Ordi­nary: Sacred Prac­tices in Every­day Life, which won Chris­tian­i­ty Today’s 2018 Book of the Year. Her arti­cles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Reli­gion News Ser­vice, Chris­tian­i­ty Today, Com­ment Mag­a­zine, The Point Mag­a­zine, and else­where. She is a found­ing mem­ber of The Pel­i­can Project and a Senior Fel­low with the Trin­i­ty Forum. She lives with her hus­band and three chil­dren in Pitts­burgh, PA. 

Find her at tish​har​rison​war​ren​.com.

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james-catford

James Catford

Forty years ago, when Cel­e­bra­tion of Dis­ci­pline was just hot off the press, James Cat­ford was study­ing eco­nom­ics and the­ol­o­gy in Britain. Spir­i­tu­al for­ma­tion soon became part of his stu­dent min­istry with the equiv­a­lent of Inter­Var­si­ty and he tran­si­tioned into a career in pub­lish­ing through IVP UK. He was orig­i­nal­ly intro­duced to Richard Fos­ter and Dal­las Willard when he was pub­lish­ing direc­tor at Hod­der­Head­line in London. 

At Harper­Collins James pub­lished Streams of Liv­ing Water and The Divine Con­spir­a­cy as well as C.S. Lewis and a list of high pro­file trade books. These years severe­ly test­ed his ​“with-God life” and he start­ed attend­ing the Ren­o­varé Min­istry Team in 1996. Renovaré’s six streams helped shape his four­teen years lead­ing Bible Soci­ety (BFBS) and Richard Fos­ter asked him to chair Ren­o­varé Britain & Ire­land, which he did until 2018. As of 2020, he is the board chair of Ren­o­varé USA.

For­mer­ly chair of the Appren­tice Insti­tute at Friends Uni­ver­si­ty and vice-chair of the Ami­ty Print­ing Com­pa­ny in Chi­na (the largest pro­duc­er of Bibles in the world), James now serves on the board of the Mar­tin Insti­tute and Dal­las Willard Research Cen­ter at West­mont Col­lege. He also sup­ports Chris­tians in lead­er­ship around the world with Amer­i­can Bible Soci­ety and is chair of the third old­est pub­lish­er in the UK called SPCK. 

James is mar­ried to Sue who runs a the­ater in cen­tral London. 

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“The most meaningful thing was...”

Past Renovaré Book Club participants finish that statement

“Expo­sure to diverse thoughts and opin­ions. Incred­i­ble depth of some respondents.”
“Being intro­duced to books that I nor­mal­ly would not read. It stretched me spir­i­tu­al­ly. It was a grow­ing and great experience.”
“It broad­ened my diver­si­ty expe­ri­ence in the Church.”
“Find­ing like-mind­ed Chris­tians try­ing to thrive in a con­sumer-dri­ven environment”
“Insights I gained into love, per­se­ver­ance thru suf­fer­ing, thank­ful­ness, non-vio­lence, under­stand­ing the think­ing of ancient times…”
“How these books helped me to more ful­ly under­stand the pres­ence of God in my life and begin to include Him more in my dai­ly experiences.”
“Per­son­al growth and that of oth­ers in the club. Our group mem­bers’ rela­tion­ship to Jesus went into overdrive!”
“Being chal­lenged to rethink my walk with the Lord and draw clos­er to him through more mean­ing­ful prayer and trans­for­ma­tion of my mind.”
“In addi­tion to read­ing four books (yay!), I have noticed my shift in think­ing.… becom­ing clos­er to Jesus. It was very beneficial.”
“Meet­ing with a group of peo­ple who were read­ing and wrestling with the mate­r­i­al along­side me. It made for rich con­ver­sa­tions. Oth­ers took notice of things that I missed.”
Person Posting Online

A Safe Space to Go Deeper

The Internet can be a scary place sometimes, especially when it comes to discussing close-to-the-heart topics. The Renovaré Book Club strives to create a space where people ask without fear, seek understanding, and honor one another even if there is disagreement.

You can choose to participate in a members-only forum, a members-only Facebook group, an in-person or online small group, or no group at all and simply follow along and enjoy the resources. It's up to you.

Meaningful Small Group Discussions

Members may optionally join a small discussion group run by a volunteer coordinator. These video or in-person groups typically meet once a month at different times.

(In-person meeting protocols are decided by the volunteer coordinators and members, who are encouraged to abide by local health recommendations. Renovaré connects coordinators with members but does not oversee groups.)

View Times & Locations

Join the 2020-21 Renovaré Book Club

Questions & Answers

General

What is Renovaré?

Found­ed by Cel­e­bra­tion of Dis­ci­pline author Richard J. Fos­ter, Ren­o­varé is a Chris­t­ian non­prof­it that cre­ates resources and kin­dles com­mu­ni­ties which help peo­ple become more like Jesus. Learn more about Ren­o­varé.

What are the benefits of Membership?

Mem­ber­ship includes read­ing sched­ule with email reminders, study guides, pod­casts, essays and a mem­bers-only dis­cus­sion forum where you can inter­act with oth­er mem­bers and the Ren­o­varé team mem­bers lead­ing the ses­sions. Mem­ber­ship also includes access to vol­un­teer-led meet-up groups — vir­tu­al or in-per­son (when safe) — in select areas.

Timing (Start Date, Ship Dates)

When does the Book Club begin? Can I join anytime?

Reg­is­tra­tion is cur­rent­ly open.

Our 2020 – 21 sea­son began on Sep­tem­ber 21, 2020. You may join any time dur­ing the sea­son and have access to the bonus fea­tures of all four books (arti­cles and pod­casts, as well as dis­cus­sion board conversations). 

Due to the event-like nature of the Book Club, mem­ber­ships are not returnable/​refundable. Thanks for your under­stand­ing and for your sup­port of the work of Renovaré.

I purchased a "with-book" membership before September 14. When will my book come?

Thank you for your order. Books are ship­ping out as we receive them. You should receive an email noti­fi­ca­tion with track­ing infor­ma­tion once your book ships, and it should arrive with­in a 2‑week win­dow. If you’ve been wait­ing longer than 2 weeks after your email noti­fi­ca­tion, please con­tact [email protected]​renovare.​org so that Jus­tine can investigate.

How long will I have access to the Book Club resources and discussions?

Once you join, you will have per­pet­u­al access to this sea­son’s resources and access to the dis­cus­sion forums through­out the sum­mer. We leave every­thing acces­si­ble on the Book Club dash­board through ear­ly September. 

Once we archive all of the resources, we send mem­bers a link to access them going for­ward. We do not pre­serve the dis­cus­sion boards past the summer.

Books

Are books included with Membership?

Mem­ber­ships that include the first book are no longer avail­able. Mem­bers who chose this option must still pur­chase or oth­er­wise obtain the final three books of the season.

Books may be bor­rowed from your local library, pur­chased at your local book­seller, or pur­chased using Ama­zon or CBD links on the Book Club pur­chase page (links sup­port Ren­o­varé). All of this sea­son’s books are avail­able in e‑book for­mat through online retail­ers as well.

Does it matter which editions of the books I use?

Yes, read­ers often find it eas­i­er to use the rec­om­mend­ed edi­tions, as page num­bers and oth­er details can be edi­tion-spe­cif­ic. If you use an edi­tion oth­er than the one rec­om­mend­ed, you may need to do some adap­ta­tion. Note: We are also aware that our read­ers are increas­ing­ly using eBook ver­sions of the texts, and we will do our best to make the read­ing assign­ments make sense for the dig­i­tal ver­sions of our cho­sen edi­tions as well.

Tell me more about shipping books ...

With-book mem­ber­ships only include the first book. All copies of Pete Greig’s How to Pray have been shipped for the sea­son. You will receive an email noti­fi­ca­tion with a track­ing num­ber enclosed when your book ships and a con­fir­ma­tion email from [email protected]​renovare.​org once it is deliv­ered.

Your book, espe­cial­ly to inter­na­tion­al address­es, can take 14+ busi­ness days to arrive. Most US address­es will receive their books with­in 7 – 10 days. We ship via USPS. We have noticed that ship­ping times seem to have increased dur­ing this COVID-19 sea­son, so we appre­ci­ate your patience.

All oth­er books of the sea­son must be sourced by mem­bers. Please vis­it your local book­seller or library to obtain Jesus and the Dis­in­her­it­ed, Prayer in the Night, and A Seri­ous Call to a Devout and Holy Life or see our books page to learn more about order­ing books online: https://​ren​o​vare​.org/​b​o​o​k​c​l​u​b​-​g​e​t​books Thanks!

Local Meet Ups

Virtual and in-person groups: How do they work? When do they meet? Does Renovaré facilitate them?

We have been great­ly encour­aged by the local com­mu­ni­ties, led by our won­der­ful, ded­i­cat­ed mem­ber-vol­un­teers, that have formed with­in our larg­er Book Club uni­verse over the past three seasons. 

This year, due to Covid-19 and the restric­tions and guide­lines many local­i­ties have put into place regard­ing in-per­son gath­er­ings, we are offer­ing our vol­un­teer hosts the option of host­ing an online-only meet-up (open to mem­bers across the globe) or a local in-per­son meet-up (these may begin online and move to in-per­son once it is safe to do so). Ren­o­varé pub­lish­es the list of vol­un­teers and the meet-up times and days but does not have a direct role in host­ing the groups.

That said, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Your mem­ber­ship fee cov­ers the study guide, pod­casts, essays, week­ly reminders, and access to a online com­mu­ni­ty. Meet-ups, whether vir­tu­al or in-per­son, are a free bonus to the Book Club made pos­si­ble by vol­un­teers. Because of that, Ren­o­varé can­not accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for indi­vid­u­als’ expe­ri­ences — whether as host or par­tic­i­pant — in a Book Club group.

• You must be a mem­ber of the Book Club to con­nect with a local host. We have assured our hosts that their infor­ma­tion will only be made avail­able to those who belong to the Book Club. Once you join, you will receive a spe­cial link to the coor­di­na­tors’ names and email address­es so you can con­nect with them.

• Dates and times of meet-ups are set by hosts and are pub­lished on the Book Club web­site for your convenience.

New vol­un­teers are sign­ing up to lead all the time, so do con­tin­ue to check the list­ings as we draw near­er to the start date. If you would like to vol­un­teer to lead a group online or in-per­son, please use this Group Coor­di­na­tor Appli­ca­tion Form.

We expect our Book Club mem­bers to treat one anoth­er as Jesus would, with the high­est lev­el of hon­or and respect. Any sort of abuse or harass­ment will not be tol­er­at­ed — whether in-per­son or online.

Thank you!

How The Book Club Works

Who are the moderators of the Book Club? Can I interact with them online?

Each ses­sion has a facil­i­ta­tor (either the author or an expert on the book) who will help you grow as you read each title. They pro­vide bonus arti­cles and pod­cast mes­sages about the book, but they do not engage on the dis­cus­sion forums. You will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to post a ques­tion for the facil­i­ta­tor that might be includ­ed in each ses­sion’s third and final podcast/​webcast, which is dri­ven by mem­bers’ questions.

Our Ren­o­varé staff work togeth­er to mod­er­ate the dis­cus­sion board and engage as they are able. Ren­o­varé team mem­bers will be host­ing one mem­ber-wide video meet-up for each book. Infor­ma­tion on these will be post­ed once we launch the Club offi­cial­ly in September.

Final­ly, our region­al vir­tu­al and in-per­son meet-up groups are coor­di­nat­ed by vol­un­teer Book Club members.

How do I access downloads and participate in the discussions?

All resources and dis­cus­sion are through a spe­cial Book Club mem­bers web­site. Mem­bers receive their login infor­ma­tion via email a few days pri­or to the open­ing day of the Book Club (date com­ing soon).

Who chooses the books?

The lead­er­ship at Ren­o­varé meets every spring and maps out the sched­ule for the year.

What is the time commitment when I join the Book Club? Do I have to participate at a certain time or day of the week?

The Ren­o­varé Book Club can fit just about any sched­ule. We read each book over six weeks but include a prep week at the start and a wrap-up week at the end, so there is plen­ty of cush­ion. The read­ing ​“assign­ments” are not more than 50 pages per week.

At the begin­ning of each book, our mem­bers receive an out­line of the pro­posed read­ing sched­ule. Every Mon­day, we send out an update that includes: 

  • A reminder of that week’s read­ing assignment 
  • A sup­ple­men­tary resource (usu­al­ly an arti­cle or a pod­cast) from that book’s facilitator 
  • (Some­times) option­al bonus resources for mem­bers who want to go deeper 
  • A dis­cus­sion ques­tion for those who wish to engage in online discussion.

All of the resources, once post­ed, are avail­able all sea­son. There are no ​“live” online dis­cus­sions (mem­bers can post at any time), and you may engage as much or as lit­tle as you would like online.

Mem­bers who par­tic­i­pate in a vir­tu­al or in-per­son meet-up led by a vol­un­teer coor­di­na­tor will gath­er once-a-month at a time and day deter­mined by the vol­un­teer. See the list of vol­un­teer times here.

Can I use the Club for my pre-existing book club or small group?

We do not have a flat-fee licens­ing sys­tem for our cur­rent Book Club. We will soon be offer­ing Book Club mate­ri­als for pre­vi­ous Book Club books that you may pur­chase for your group. We will post more infor­ma­tion when that is available.

That said, we’d also love it if any or all of your group were to join the 2020 – 21 sea­son, and we can cer­tain­ly set up your own online dis­cus­sion forum group if you do.

Other Questions

Can I purchase a Book Club Membership as a gift for someone else?

Yes. Thank you for want­i­ng to give a mem­ber­ship to the Ren­o­varé Book Club!

In the mean­time, if you would like to give a gift mem­ber­ship to the Book Club, please use the reg­u­lar ​“Join” link at ren​o​vare​.org/​b​o​o​kclub and enter their infor­ma­tion (name and email) with your infor­ma­tion for billing. 

I have another question.

Jus­tine Olawsky is glad to help. Email her at [email protected]​renovare.​org.

Journey through four soul-shaping, Christ-centered books.

Join Book Club$45 Membership