A panel on Faith in Film will be held at the Sundance Festival on January 29. Moderated by Tim Gray, founder and president of Gray Media, the panel opens with an interview of Devon Franklin, president/CEO of Franklin Entertainment. At MGM and as senior v-p of Columbia Pictures, Franklin produced The Pursuit of Happyness, Karate Kid 2, Heaven is for Real, and Annie. Franklin is the author of Produced by Faith: Enjoy Real Success without Losing Your True Self (Howard Books, 2010). Also featured on the panel are Adam Hastings, Pure Flix Entertainment director of marketing and operations, whose 2014 God’s Not Dead took in more than $60 million in domestic box office; Bill Reeves, founder of Working Title Agency, worked on the faith-based films Fireproof, Courageous, Soul Surfer, and Heaven is for Real; and Julie Fairchild of PR firm Lovell-Fairchild Communications, whose film projects have included Fireproof, Get Low, 20 Feet from Stardom, and Heaven is for Real.
Leadership Journal, a Christianity Today publication, has selected its Best Books for Church Leaders. Among the honored books published in 2014 are two Baker Publishing Group titles and several from InterVarsity Press. Hearts & Minds Books, a bookstore based in Dallastown, Penn., also has named its selections for best books of 2014. Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good by Steven Garber (IVP) made both lists, as the 2014 Book of the Year by Hearts & Minds and as one of four books to receive the Leadership Journal award in the Leader’s Outer Life category. Visions of Vocation also was honored with Christianity Today’s 2015 Award of Merit in the Christian Living category. Books from Tyndale, Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, David C. Cook, and B&H Publishing Group also were recognized by Leadership Journal.
Barbour Publishing authors Josh McDowell and David R. Smith have been named to Vyrso’s Top 15 Authors to Watch in 2015 list. Vyrso, a Christian e-book platform, offers Christian books on any mobile device. Smith’s Christianity. . .It’s Like This, will be published by Barbour in February; McDowell’s God-Breathed: The Undeniable Power of Reliability of Scripture releases in April.
Bonnie Gray, author of Finding Spiritual Whitespace: Awakening Your Soul to Rest (Revell, 2014), has launched the online Spiritual Whitespace Book Club. Readers can join the free club on Gray’s Facebook page, where members can interact with her and with other members. Artist Dee Kasberger of Red Letter Words created a five-piece collection called Whispers of Rest, art prints based on quotes from the book Finding Spiritual Whitespace. Copies of the prints were given away for the club’s January 22 launch.
The New International Version of the Bible (NIV) was commissioned 50 years ago, and in January 2015 Biblica, Zondervan, and Tecarta have launched a year-long campaign to mark the anniversary. A free NIV 50th Anniversary mobile app, available on iOS and Android, provides free access to the NIV for the 2015 calendar year. In addition to the NIV text, the mobile app offers additional quarterly anniversary content and a number of study and devotional Bibles for a trial period. According to Biblica and Zondervan, the NIV is the world’s most-read modern English Bible translation, with over 450 million copies distributed worldwide. Biblica and Zondervan also are releasing videos and articles on the history of the translation.
