Read Better Waking Up to Who We Could Be Melvin Bray 9780827203082 Books

Product details Paperback 208 pages Publisher Chalice Press (February 14, 2017) Language English ISBN-10 082720308X

Better Waking Up to Who We Could Be Melvin Bray 9780827203082 Books Reviews

• Educator, storyteller, activist, preacher—all of these terms describe elements of Melvin Bray’s work and they certainly converge in this book that is expertly designed for a 10-week exploration with your small group. The overall theme is building healthy, diverse communities by understanding how our “stories”—those we tell and those told about us—can form chasms and barriers between neighbors. Understanding how our stories are told also can form bridges where we may dare to meet others and forge constructive new relationships.
  
  This book is published by Chalice Press, the publishing arm of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), one of America’s oldest Protestant denominations stretching all the way back to the Second Great Awakening more than two centuries ago. The mission embodied in this book recognizes that, just as all were welcome in those camp meetings that transformed America in the early 1800s—our communities, today, should embrace an ever-more-diverse America. The diverse bridges built in this book welcome neighbors who are LGBTQ, African-American, immigrant, impoverished or are part of other vulnerable minorities, these days in America.
  
  Bray has organized this book in helpful ways for small-group discussion leaders. He spells out the overall theme in the opening pages. “What if the world that persists is exactly the world we’ve storied into existence with the hostile faith stories we tell?” he asks readers. Then he promises to help readers see that “there are more beautiful, more just, more virtue-filled ways to tell our stories of faith and possibility” and “doing so gives us more beautiful, more just, more virtue-filled ways of being in the world.”
  
  That’s the point of this book and, if you like that summary—please consider picking up a copy for your small group to consider reading and discussing. On a very practical level, the book contains lots of helpful ideas for discussion leaders. One example is the way Bray and Chalice have designed the book with wide margins that are peppered with additional suggestions from websites you can visit to related movie quotes, songs, scripture references and even images you could grab to show in your small group.
  
  Why publish this review of the book? I'm a lifelong journalist who has covered America's ever-growing diversity. I've also served as a small-group discussion leader in congregations many times over the years. After reading this book, I can tell you The world will be a better place if more readers at least consider what Bray explains in these pages.