April's Selection

April's Selection is "Battlefield of the mind" by Joyce Meyer.  Join us on Saturday, April 28th at 11:00 a.m. at Books-A-Million at Morgantown's Glenmark Centre.

Winning the Battle in your Mind. There's a War Going On And Your Mind Is The Battlefield. If you're one of millions who suffer from worry, doubt, confusion, depression, anger or condemnation, you are experiencing an attack in your mind. Overcoming negative thoughts that come against your mind brings freedom and peace. Find out how to recognize damaging thought patterns and stop them from influencing your life. In this powerful book, best-selling author and conference host, Joyce Meyer, guides you through an honest self-appraisal by sharing the trials, tragedies and ultimate victories of her own marriage, family and ministry- including the truth she learned about what she was thinking and feeling every step of the way. You'll gain insight into how Joyce won the battle in her own mind- and how you can as well. You'll also discover how to: -Find peace and stop brain-storm of mental activity. -See the truth by thinking correctly. -Use spiritual weapons effectively. -Overcome the 10 wilderness mentalities that hold you in harmful circumstances. Don't surrender to misery another day. Find out today what you can do to ensure your victory in the Battlefield of the Mind!

This book is April's Faithpoint selection at Books-A-Million, if you can't join our group in April, see if you can join the Faithpoint group discussion.  Plus, there's a coupon in the April brochure for this book!

March Selection

The selection for March is Andy Stanley's "Enemies of the Heart."  We will meet at 11:00 a.m. at Books-A-Million at Morgantown's Glenmark Centre on Saturday, March 31st.

Break free from the destructive power of guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy.

Divorce. Job loss. Estrangement from family members. Broken friendships.
The difficult circumstances you are dealing with today are likely being fed by one of four emotional forces that compels you to act in undesirable ways, sometimes even against your will.
Andy Stanley explores each of these destructive forces—guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy—and how they infiltrate your life and damage your relationships. He says that, left unchallenged they have the power to destroy your home, your career, and your friendships.
In Enemies of the Heart, Andy offers practical, biblical direction to help you fight back, to take charge of those feelings that mysteriously control you, and to restore your broken relationships.

February's Selection

February's discussion will be held at Books-A-Million at Morgantown's Glenmark Centre at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25.  Hope to see you there!

Courageous by Randy Alcorn

From the creators of Fireproof comes an inspiring new story about everyday heroes who long to be the kinds of dads that make a lifelong impact on their children. As law enforcement officers, Adam Mitchell, Nathan Hayes, and their partners willingly stand up to the worst the world can offer. Yet at the end of the day, they face a challenge that none of them are truly prepared to tackle: fatherhood. While they consistently give their best on the job, good enough seems to be all they can muster as dads. But they’re quickly discovering that their standard is missing the mark.


They know that God desires to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, but their children are beginning to drift farther and farther away from them. Will they be able to find a way to serve and protect those who are most dear to them? When tragedy hits home, these men are left wrestling with their hopes, their fears, their faith, and their fathering. Can a newfound urgency help these dads draw closer to God . . . and to their children?

January's Selection

The Well by Mark Hall
Why are so many so close to the Well and still so thirsty? Mark Hall takes the powerful story of the Woman at the Well and her encounter with Jesus to help readers understand that the 'wells' we go to for life and sustenance, the 'wells' of success, talent, control, favor, religion, etc., are keeping us from relying on Jesus and his abundant life, and we will never be truly satisfied until we realize that and go to Him for our needs.
Mark Hall is the lead singer for the Christian band Casting Crowns.  If you enjoy contemporary Christian music, check out their newest album: The Well to enjoy while you read January's selection.
 
May God Bless Your 2012!
 
11 a.m. Saturday, January 21 at Books-A-Million at the Morgantown Glenmark Centre.

August Selection

Involved in a tragic accident under suspicious circumstances, award-winning journalist Jake Woods teams with detective Ollie Chandler to uncover the truth. This Randy Alcorn bestseller finds Jake drawing upon all his resources in an ever-intensifying, dangerous murder investigation. Unaware of the imminent threat to his own life, Jake struggles for answers to the mystery at hand and is plunged into a deeper search for the meaning of his own existence.


Our group previously read Randy Alcorn's "Heaven".

Meeting:
Books-A-Million at Morgantown's Glenmark Centre
11 a.m. Saturday, August 27th

July Selection Different Day, Time and Location!!!

Dan Woolley---who spent 65 hrs trapped beneath the rubble of Haiti's Hotel Montana---recounts his experience living through the 7.0 Haiti earthquake in Unshaken: Rising from the rubble of Haiti's Hotel Montana. After a last-minute hotel switch, no one, not even Dan's wife, knew where he was staying while in Haiti. Trapped in total darkness for nearly three days, with a broken foot, his leg ripped open and a head injury, Dan battled despair, dehydration, anger with God and doubt over whether he would live to see his wife and two young sons again. Woolley had allowed his faith and marriage to weaken in the busyness of life. His entrapment forced him to think about what really mattered. Unshaken includes color photographs and the heartrending reflections from Woolley's wife. Readers will learn new truths from Woolley's themes of spiritual and marital renewal, his key insights into poverty through Compassion International, and his hard-won reminder to embrace every opportunity God gives.

We will be trying SKYPE with the New Zealand Book Club, so we have changed our day, time and location to accommodate the time change and cut down on noise.

FRIDAY, JULY 29 AT 7 P.M.  Location: PANERA on Patteson Drive.

No June Bookclub

With vacations and summer finally here, we are taking June off from bookclub.  Hope you are still reading HIS word, though!  Happy summer!

Summer Women's Bible Study

Thursday Morning Women's Bible Study at Suncrest UMC on Van Voorhis Rd, Morgantown
Join us Thursdays, from 10:30 a.m. until noon as we study Psalms 120-134.
"Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent" by Beth Moore will begin on Thursday, June 30th and last six weeks (7 sessions) through August 11th.
Cost $15, includes member study book.
Contact Jenny at missourylytle@yahoo.com or 304-692-6351 to register.

May 28 Selection

The 5 Love Languages
by Dr. Gary Chapman

Please choose the version you'd like to learn more about and matches your current situation: Couples, Singles, Children or Teenagers -- All versions are excellent resources and will make for great discussion!

DESCRIPTION:
Unhappiness in relationships often has a simple root cause: we speak different love languages, believes Dr. Gary Chapman. While working as a marriage counselor for more than 30 years, he identified five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. In a friendly, often humorous style, he unpacks each one. Some people may crave focused attention; another needs regular praise. Gifts are highly important to one person, while another sees fixing a leaky faucet, ironing a shirt, or cooking a meal as filling their "love tank." Some partners might find physical touch makes them feel valued: holding hands, giving back rubs, and sexual contact. Chapman illustrates each love language with real-life examples from his counseling practice.

April Selection

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
The Story of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand


Eight years ago, an old man told me a story that took my breath away. His name was Louie Zamperini, and from the day I first spoke to him, his almost incomprehensibly dramatic life was my obsession.

It was a horse--the subject of my first book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend--who led me to Louie. As I researched the Depression-era racehorse, I kept coming across stories about Louie, a 1930s track star who endured an amazing odyssey in World War II. I knew only a little about him then, but I couldn’t shake him from my mind. After I finished Seabiscuit, I tracked Louie down, called him and asked about his life. For the next hour, he had me transfixed.

Growing up in California in the 1920s, Louie was a hellraiser, stealing everything edible that he could carry, staging elaborate pranks, getting in fistfights, and bedeviling the local police. But as a teenager, he emerged as one of the greatest runners America had ever seen, competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he put on a sensational performance, crossed paths with Hitler, and stole a German flag right off the Reich Chancellery. He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics, and closing in on the fabled four-minute mile, when World War II began. Louie joined the Army Air Corps, becoming a bombardier. Stationed on Oahu, he survived harrowing combat, including an epic air battle that ended when his plane crash-landed, some six hundred holes in its fuselage and half the crew seriously wounded.

On a May afternoon in 1943, Louie took off on a search mission for a lost plane. Somewhere over the Pacific, the engines on his bomber failed. The plane plummeted into the sea, leaving Louie and two other men stranded on a tiny raft. Drifting for weeks and thousands of miles, they endured starvation and desperate thirst, sharks that leapt aboard the raft, trying to drag them off, a machine-gun attack from a Japanese bomber, and a typhoon with waves some forty feet high. At last, they spotted an island. As they rowed toward it, unbeknownst to them, a Japanese military boat was lurking nearby. Louie’s journey had only just begun.

That first conversation with Louie was a pivot point in my life. Fascinated by his experiences, and the mystery of how a man could overcome so much, I began a seven-year journey through his story. I found it in diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs; in the memories of his family and friends, fellow Olympians, former American airmen and Japanese veterans; in forgotten papers in archives as far-flung as Oslo and Canberra. Along the way, there were staggering surprises, and Louie’s unlikely, inspiring story came alive for me. It is a tale of daring, defiance, persistence, ingenuity, and the ferocious will of a man who refused to be broken.

The culmination of my journey is my new book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. I hope you are as spellbound by Louie’s life as I am.

March 26 Selection

Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo

A young boy emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven.
Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.
Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us.
Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.

February 26th Selection

Peace Child by Don Richardson

In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals who valued treachery through "fattening" victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology. The "peace child" became the secret to unlocking a value system that existed through generations over centuries, possibly millenniums, of time. This analogy became a stepping-stone by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within. With an epilogue updating how the gospel has impacted the Sawi people, Peace Child will inspire a new generation of readers who need to hear this unforgettable story and the lessons it teaches us about communicating Christ in a meaningful way to those around us.