Renovaré | Book Club

Read to be

Text

.

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

Runs through May 2023

Final book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, starts March 27.

Membership Includes

Notebook Reading schedule, email reminders, podcasts, and essays.
Lighthouse Exclusive content from the author or seasoned guide.
Discussion Thoughtful discussion with other members.
Map Optionally join—or start!—a small group online or in-person (where available).

Books for 2022-23

Chosen by the Renovaré Book Club Selection Committee

Book 1 ·  October 3–November 18
Seeking God
by Trevor Hudson
Facilitated by Trevor Hudson
Book 2 ·  November 28–January 27
Orthodoxy
by G.K. Chesterton
Facilitated by Justine Olawsky
Book 3 ·  January 30–March 24
Learning Humility
by Richard J. Foster
Facilitated by Richard J. Foster, Brenda Quinn, Bob Fryling
Book 4 ·  March 27–May 26
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
by Sojourner Truth
Facilitated by Tina Dyer, Grace Pouch

Looking for book purchase links?

Meet the Facilitators

Facilitators provide exclusive audio and written content and participate in a members-only Q&A webinar.

  Carolyn Arends

Carolyn Arends

Overall Facilitator

Open bio
  Trevor Hudson

Trevor Hudson

Seeking God

Open bio
  Justine Olawsky

Justine Olawsky

Orthodoxy

Open bio
  Richard J. Foster

Richard J. Foster

Learning Humility

Open bio
  Brenda Quinn

Brenda Quinn

Learning Humility

Open bio
  Bob Fryling

Bob Fryling

Learning Humility

Open bio
  Tina Dyer

Tina Dyer

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Open bio
  Grace Pouch

Grace Pouch

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Open bio

Past participants say

The most meaningful thing about the Renovaré Book Club was...

We’re seek­ing God hard and at a lev­el pre­vi­ous­ly unknown. The bond­ing and love that [the Book Club] facil­i­tat­ed as we put our heads togeth­er and work out our sal­va­tion… Priceless.”
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.”

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 private online community, 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 meetings are hosted by volunteer coordinators. Renovaré connects coordinators with members but does not oversee groups.

View Times & Locations

Join the 2022-23 Renovaré Book Club

FAQ

General

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.

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 — in select areas.

Timing (Start Date, Ship Dates)

Our 2022 – 23 sea­son offi­cial­ly began on Octo­ber 3, 2022. 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.

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

We have two mem­ber­ship options:

  • With-Book Mem­ber­ship (avail­able through Oct 2022): Ren­o­varé sends you the first book of the sea­son, Seek­ing God by Trevor Hud­son; mem­bers must then pur­chase or oth­er­wise obtain the oth­er three books of the 2022 – 23 season.
  • Mem­ber­ship Only: Mem­bers must pur­chase or oth­er­wise obtain all four books of the 2022 – 23 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). 

Read­ers often find it eas­i­er to use the rec­om­mend­ed edi­tions, as page num­bers and oth­er details can be edi­tion-spe­cif­ic. The week­ly read­ing assign­ments them­selves do tend to match with chap­ter breaks. Also, as none of the books for the 2022 – 23 sea­son is a trans­lat­ed work, the edi­tion will not mat­ter as much. 

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.

With-book mem­ber­ships only include the first book, Seek­ing God. You will receive an email noti­fi­ca­tion when your book ships, which will begin after Sep­tem­ber 19th.

We will ship the books via USPS media mail and mem­bers will receive a track­ing num­ber in their email noti­fi­ca­tion. Most US address­es will receive their books with­in 7 – 10 days.

All oth­er books of the sea­son must be sourced by mem­bers
. Please vis­it your local book­seller or library to obtain them or see our books page to learn more about order­ing books online.

Local Meet Ups

**UPDAT­ED INFOR­MA­TION FOR 2022 – 23 COM­ING SOON**

We have been great­ly encour­aged by the local com­mu­ni­ties, led by our won­der­ful member-volunteers.

In 2022 – 23, our vol­un­teer hosts will have the option of host­ing an online-only meet-up (open to mem­bers across the globe) or a local in-per­son meet-up. 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 the 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!

A map is avail­able at ren​o​vare​.org/​b​o​o​k​c​l​u​b​/​l​o​c​a​tions. You must be a mem­ber of the Book Club to con­tact local vol­un­teer hosts about meet-up times and loca­tions. You will receive a spe­cial link that has host con­tact infor­ma­tion in your wel­come email once you join the Club. Thanks!

How The Book Club Works

Each year the Ren­o­varé Book Club Selec­tion Com­mit­tee, which includes Car­olyn Arends, Richard Fos­ter, and oth­er Ren­o­varé team mem­bers, meets and choos­es the titles for the Book Club. Dozens of new and clas­sic books are con­sid­ered and care­ful­ly nar­rowed down to four choic­es. This is an inde­pen­dent selec­tion process — no pub­lish­er can pay to have its book included.

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 works togeth­er to mod­er­ate the dis­cus­sion board and engages as they are able. 

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

All resources and dis­cus­sion are through a spe­cial Book Club mem­bers web­site. Mem­bers receive their login infor­ma­tion via email with­in a half an hour of join­ing the Book Club.

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. 

We do not have a flat-fee licens­ing sys­tem for our cur­rent Book Club. We do offer an expand­ing col­lec­tion of Book Club mate­ri­als from pre­vi­ous Book Club books that you may pur­chase for your group. You may find them here: Inter­ac­tive Book Study Guides

Other Questions

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

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