Introducing the Work B.e.n.c.h. Book Club!

Start now! Save your pennies. Put it on your Christmas list!

Artistic and Creative Christians, you are not alone!

We encourage you to study the Bible first and foremost. But, we also want you to educate yourselves and get inspired by some of the great thoughts great thinkers think. Really! Or, perhaps you will be repelled by those very same thoughts and thinkers.

That's why we're starting the Work B.e.n.c.h. Book Club.

• We will choose a book quarterly, starting with the first quarter of 2009 (January-March).
• We will encourage discussion on the Web.
• We will also strive to provide places in the Inland Empire where people can meet face-to-face and discuss the books.
• Participants will obtain and read the books during the first two months of the quarter, and the discussion will take place during the third month of the quarter (discussion questions will be posted). For instance, this first quarter, you have January and February to get the book and read it. All discussion will take place in March.
• All books will have something to do with Christians and the fine arts.
• Suggestions for upcoming books for the book club can be sent to epistrophy@aol.com. No promises, but we do take your suggestions seriously.

Now, are you ready? Drumroll please!
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The first book is Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts by Steve Turner.

You can get the book at

• Berean.com for $11.44 plus shipping (free shipping for orders over $40)
• familychristian.com $13.99 plus $0.99 shipping (yes, 99 cents on any order, any size)
• christianbook.com for $9.99 plus shipping
• amazon.com for $10.40 plus shipping (free shipping for orders over $25)
• and many other stores, both actual physical stores and online.

Artists Work B.e.n.c.h. is not affiliated with, nor do we promote any bookstores. If you purchase online, you purchase at your own risk.

Worshipmusic.com plugs the book this way:

Imagine art that is risky, complex and subtle!

Imagine music, movies, books and paintings of the highest quality!

Imagine art that permeates society, challenging conventional thinking and standard morals to their core!

Imagine that it is all created by Christians!

This is the bold vision of Steve Turner, someone who has worked among artists--many Christian and many not--for three decades. He believes Christians should confront society and the church with the powerful impact art can convey. He believes art can faithfully chronicle the lives of ordinary people and equally express the transcendence of God. He believes that Christians should be involved in every level of the art world and in every media

Yet art and artists have not always been held in high esteem by conservative Christians. Art rarely seems to communicate clear propositional truth, rarely deals with certainties and absolutes. And the lifestyles of artists too frequently seem at odds with the gospel. So the arts have often been discouraged among Christians.

Throughout this stimulating book, however, Turner builds a compelling case against such a perspective. He shows that if Jesus is Lord of all of life and creation, then art is not out of bounds for Christians. Rather it can and should be a way of expressing faith in creatively, beautifully, truthfully arranged words, sounds and sights.

This stirring call is must reading for every Christian who has been drawn to the arts or been influenced by them.