Christine D. Johnson

With the heavy emphasis on leadership in the church today, best-selling author Leonard Sweet urges believers to opt for counterculture and focus on following. In I Am a Follower: The Way, Truth, and Life of Following Jesus, Sweet says that following is “the most underrated form of leadership in existence.” He challenges church leaders to invite …

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Author William P. Young’s contract dispute regarding his runaway best-seller, The Shack, has been settled out of court.

Court documents show that a jury trial was scheduled for late September in Ventura, Calif., but on Aug. 12 the case was dismissed without prejudice.

Young filed suit in November 2009 against Brad Cummings and Wayne Jacobsen. Windblown Media countersued for $5 million in federal court and made a claim over the authorship of the book. Cummings and Jacobsen collaborated with Young in writing what became a No. 1 New York Times best-selling novel and founded Windblown Media to publish it after it was rejected by multiple publishers. Cummings did not respond to queries for comment.

Hachette Book Group, which in 2008 began to distribute The Shack, also filed suit against Young and Windblown Media to determine where royalties should be paid and to protect itself from future lawsuits. In the wake of the dismissal, Hachette’s statement to Christian Retailing on the case was: “We’re very pleased that the parties have resolved their differences and we can move forward.”

Retailers and suppliers have welcomed a Christian Retailing initiative to promote support for and unity in the industry.

They have signed rallying point pledges committing to the ministry of Christian bookselling and helping to ensure that it continues. The effort has spread overseas, with store and publisher representatives in the U.K. promoting the pledges there.

The drive was launched in July by Christian Retailing Publisher Steve Strang, as part of a move to help stores in the face of ongoing changes in the industry, “to encourage and equip and support them as they renew their faith and vision.”

After spending the last couple of years pursuing an acting career, Rebecca St. James returns to music this month with the release of I Will Praise You on Beach Street Records. She discusses her new music, her acting career and her fiancé.

It's 20 years since your first release, in Australia; what do you think when you hear it now?

Oh my goodness, most people don’t even know about that one. I think I was 13 years old. I kind of blush a little bit when I hear that album. I sound very, very young and slightly pitchy.

This new release marks a change in label for you. How did that come about?

Well, it was actually a beautiful experience. Mark Miller, who is the head of Beach Street Records and also my producer with this album, he produced Casting Crowns—just an amazing Christian man. We had lunch and talked about doing this album, and he said, 'Rebecca, I’m just praying that if I could be a good steward of your ministry, that God would show me that and show us that we’ll (get a) green light to work together.' So I just loved that this producer was just going to God about this opportunity for us to work together, and both of us had such a sense of peace with the whole team. I really saw God’s hands on the process of this album.

David Platt | Multnomah Books

David Platt—best-selling author of Radical, a call to authentic Christian living for the individual—turns his attention to the church in Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God.

As pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., Platt is in the process of working out the implications of the gospel in the local church. With that in mind, he examines six “essential” ideas, including that the gospel that saves us from working for our salvation in order to show our faith by our works, and that believers should be living—and longing—for the end of the world.