Soup Kitchen for the Soul or How I Learn from Authors
I am frequently amazed by our authors at Energion Publications. I suppose that other editors and owners are likewise amazed, but I think we have a very special group. Just the other day I received notice from an author that he had signed his contract, but that he wanted to donate his royalties to our literature fund, a fund we use to send books overseas or to people who can’t afford them. I hadn’t asked. In fact, I don’t ask for funds to support that project. We’re not a non-profit. It’s just one of the ways we try to give back.
The thing that impresses me most about our authors, however, is the way they live what they believe. I don’t know of any of our authors who doesn’t in some way embody the books they have written. When I hear what they are actually doing, it’s what I would expect based on what they wrote in their books. And that’s a great thing.
Way back when … well, actually in 2010 … we were contacted by a potential new author who had a story to tell. I like books that tell a story, particularly when that story is a testimony. This was Renee Crosby and her life and vision had been changed by a seminary assignment. She had been asked to serve a certain number of hours in the community as part of an assignment. She spent that time in a soup kitchen. Now as the book will tell you, Renee had become extremely busy in church. She was an active Christian. But that activity was generally in church. When she reluctantly went out to complete her assignment, she encountered Jesus in a new way, right there in the soup kitchen.
So she wrote her book Soup Kitchen for the Soul to invite other people to this same discovery. I was hooked immediately. I have frequently visited churches that are busy, filled with active members. But if you review their church bulletin or newsletter, the vast majority of what they do is designed to serve the members. It’s people in the church doing things for people in the church. Now there’s nothing wrong with that. People in the church should be doing things for one another, caring for one another, building one another up. But we should also be “provoking one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24), and those good deeds should serve those outside the church as well.
This is a book with a great message. It deserves to be read much more than it has. It deserves to be studied.
But Renee is now experiencing the next phase of her testimony. As she explains in the video below, she is in treatment for breast cancer. But she’s not taking it lying down. Instead, she’s trying even more to provoke others to love and good deeds.
We’re also going to donate 5% of our proceeds in addition to what Renee donates as our way of supporting her in this endeavor. In addition, the book is now 30% off with the use of the pink30 coupon. To use that coupon, you need to enter the coupon code on your shopping cart on checkout from Energion Direct. If you need some more help with the coupon, you’ll find it here.
