Manager of tours for Casting Crowns and TobyMac ‘left an indelible mark’ on gospel music

Christian music pioneer Norman Miller died of cancer Dec. 3. He was 69.

Founder of Nashville-based Proper Management, Miller worked in Christian music for 50 years, founding the groups ZOEgirl, Avalon, Jump5 and PureNRG, and managing tours for Casting Crowns, Nichole Nordeman, TobyMac, Michael W. Smith, Newsboys, Sandi Patty, Steven Curtis Chapman and many other artists. 

On Casting Crowns’ Facebook page, the band said Miller “was a hero for Christian music and us.” 

“Norman lived a life fueled by his passion for his faith, his deep love for his family and his care for his friends,” the group said. “He also was renowned for his indelible impact on the Christian music industry. Norman was a creative visionary who was constantly focused on increasing the quality of compelling and engaging ministry. His legacy will continue to effect countless lives through the eternal message of the artists he dearly loved and faithfully served.

“Norman’s loss is immeasurable and we are all humbled, honored and blessed to have known him as a respected leader and a loyal friend,” Casting Crowns added. “We ask that you lift Norman’s wife and children in your prayers during this difficult time. Norman was our close friend and manager for 10 years. We will miss him dearly.”

Gospel Music Association (GMA) Executive Director Jackie Patillo told Christian Retailing that Miller “left an indelible mark on the Christian music industry in ways that will never be forgotten.” 

GMA recognized him and Proper Management with the Lifetime Achievement Award last year. 

“Norman will be greatly missed, but his legacy will continue to light a path for all who are called to share the gospel through music,” Patillo said. 

Greg Bays, senior vice president, sales and marketing for EMI CMG Distribution, agreed. 

“I met Norman shortly after joining the company in 1992 and worked with him more closely during my time in our label group—2000-2004—through today,” he said. “Norman left an indelible mark on our industry and on all of us who had the chance to work alongside him and call him our friend. 

“I will always remember him for his leadership, creativity and innovation, as well as his humor, integrity and faith,” Bays added. “I will miss his welcoming smile, genuine kindness and passion for helping to grow the platform for his artists and for our industry to spread the gospel through music.”

A native of the U.K., Miller played in Christian bands there during his teens and early 20s, starting his own label in 1970. It was later acquired by Word Records. 

Miller became executive director of the Word Europe label from 1973 to 1983, promoting and producing tours throughout Europe featuring pioneering Christian artists such as Larry Norman, Andrae Crouch and 2nd Chapter of Acts.

In 1983, Miller moved to the United States, and started managing artists and producing tours. he is survived by his wife, Debbie, and two children. A memorial service was held Dec. 10 at Brentwood Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tenn.

Christian radio host and former Major League Baseball pitcher ‘pointed people to Jesus Christ’

Frank Pastore, a Christian radio host and author of the 2010 memoir Shattered: Struck Down, But Not Destroyed (Tyndale House Publishers), died Dec. 17—nearly a month after suffering serious head injuries from a motorcycle crash in Duarte, Calif. Pastore, 55, had been in a coma since the Nov. 19 accident.

“I lost my beautiful husband,” Pastore’s wife, Gina Pastore, told the Inland Daily Bulletin. “But it’s comforting to know he’s home with the Lord now. People are calling in [to his radio show] and crying and mourning with us. 

“I want to thank so many people for their outpouring of love and support,” she added. “That’s really helped to sustain our family during this difficult time.”

Pastore sustained his injuries when his motorcycle was sideswiped by a car in the carpool lane on the 210 freeway, California Highway Patrol officials said.

A former Major League Baseball pitcher, Pastore was on his way home after his “The Frank Pastore Show” on Glendale, Calif.-based Christian radio station KKLA when the crash occurred, family members said.

His wife said he spoke about the fragility of life during a segment on his radio show the night he was in the crash.

On the air, “he said that ‘if I were to be killed on the freeway tonight and my body parts are all over the freeway, I’m not on the freeway because my soul and I would be with the Lord,’ ” she said. “He actually said that the night that it happened, not knowing that he would be hit on his motorcycle. Frank would want people to know that.”

The driver of the car involved was not arrested or cited, said investigators, who concluded that the crash was an accident.

In Shattered, Pastore describes how an elbow injury ended his dream of getting “rich and famous” as a Cincinnati Reds pitcher. He also shares how the incident was part of his Christian testimony.

Pastore is survived by his wife; son, Frank Jr.; and daughter, Christina.

Promotion offering half-off discount on all Bibles attracted ‘quite a number of new customers’ to the store

Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, Mich., hit a home run with its 2012 Bible Sale, continuing its annual tradition.

Held Nov. 17, the promotion offered by the recently renovated independent store offered a 50% discount on all in-stock Bibles. The sale also included 50% off Bible covers and accessories. 

“We sold 219 Bibles along with many other things,” Sue Smith, store manager of Baker Book House, told Christian Retailing. “Best of all, quite a number of new customers walked through our doors. To me, that’s the best part.”

Louis McBride, Bible and academic book buyer for Baker Book House, said the store started receiving calls a week from people before asking, “When is your Bible sale?” 

“This is a sale that we have really come to enjoy,” McBride said. “As I expected, the top translations shopped were NIV (New International Version) and ESV (English Standard Version). I saw one lady with four ESV Study Bibles along with some other Bibles. A surprising number of people were interested in the New American Standard. I usually sell quite a few copies of The Message, but there wasn’t that much interest in it. The NLT (New Living Translation) seemed to do fairly well, too.”

McBride added that it was “a great sale” overall. 

“We had just slightly lower sales than last year, which is not bad, given we just moved into our new space,” he said. “There were a few times when you couldn’t fit another person down the aisle. … It seemed as soon as one group of people was done browsing, another group would take their place.”

The store sold 96 NIV and 39 ESV Bibles during the sale. Interestingly, Baker Book House’s annual Bible sales by translation in 2012 followed the same trend with its top five sellers the day of the sale. Last year, the store sold 4,152 NIV (including sales of The Story), 893 ESV, 576 KJV (King James Version) Bibles, 555 NLT and 321 The Message Bibles.

Second-largest independent Christian chain saw ‘quite a few customers directed’ to its stores

More than 20 Christian retailers were able to increase their in-store traffic in the fourth quarter of 2012 by using the Covenant Group website program, company officials said. 

Utilizing the “pick-me-up” options from Covenant’s website program and companion phone apps, the retailers saw more than 1,000 items reserved for in-store pick-up during the fall months.

“With just over 20 retailers utilizing these services, that averages out to about 50 customers pointed to each of these retailers during the October-November time frame,” said Chuck Wallington, Covenant Group founder and president. “In actuality, about 80% of the pick-me-up orders generated fell between early November and Christmas, so stores on our program saw quite a few customers directed to their stores from their branded sites.”

Acknowledging that the measurement only captures customers that placed an order for pick-up in-store, he added: “We have no way of knowing how many other customers shopped our stores’ sites before their trip to the store for their purchase.”

Overall, Covenant Group reported more than 100,000 unique visitors at one of the 21 retailers’ sites in December. 

“This points to a huge amount of information relayed through these stores’ websites, [which is] far beyond what we can track through online or pick-me-up order purchases,” said Wallington, also the owner of Christian Supply in Spartanburg, S.C.

Covenant provides marketing and support services to stores with a standard program for retailers with annual income of more than $1 million and an affiliate program for stores under $1 million in annual sales. The country’s second-largest independent Christian chain also launched its first mobile phone apps for iPhone and Droid for member stores last summer.

Non-member stores can also take advantage of Covenant’s website program and phone apps.

Cincinnati-based Christian chain ‘to look at’ adding new stores

Berean Christian Stores has contracted for a chain-wide operating systems upgrade for improved business performance and store growth.

“We are making a very significant investment in replacing all of our current operating systems, including store P.O.S. systems, home office merchandise system and financial operating systems, as we see this as a foundational part of our strategic plans to grow our ministry and business as we serve both today’s and tomorrow’s customer,” said Bill Nielsen, chief operating officer of Berean.

Berean has selected Radiant/Counterpoint and Great Plains as its software providers for the project, which is due for completion in March. 

“The project will enable us to look at store growth in the summer and fall of 2013,” Nielsen said. “In addition to opening additional stores, we will also be relocating some of our stores to ensure we are in the optimum location to reach our customers.”

Berean’s first relocation will be its Temecula, Calif., store.

“California is a strong market for us and we are in the process of finalizing a new location for this store,” Nielsen said. “The current [shopping] center we are in recently went into receivership, so we are being forced to move out on Jan. 30, which is sooner than we had hoped. 

“Unfortunately, this means this store will be closed for a month or two before it can re-open in its new location,” he added. “By the end of 2013, we anticipate having a net single-digit increase in the number of stores in our chain.”

Based in Cincinnati, the 18-outlet chain—which dates back to 1934—joined Covenant Group last June.

Number of entries in the sixth annual program topped previous years with submissions

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) has announced the winners of the ECPA/dp Book Cover Award program. The publishers’ group reported its best year with 101 submissions from 19 publishers for the sixth annual program, which is sponsored by Dickinson Press. 

Launched in 2007, the awards aim to educate, promote and recognize superior cover design in Christian publishing. This year, the program presented two awards, one for design and one for research-based marketability.

“We were very pleased to continue the valuable component matching design to consumer behavior—while adding more criteria related to design merits,” said ECPA President and CEO Mark Kuyper. “The industry responded enthusiastically and we saw a record number of entries from a record number of publishers this year.”

Managed by Faceout Studio and highlighting the art aspect of book covers, the ECPA Book Cover Design Award was introduced last year and focused on the design merits of a cover, including the level of conceptual thinking, the quality of the execution and appropriateness for the market.

Announced Dec. 12, Design winners were: Love Does by Bob Goff and designed by Connie Gabbert (Thomas Nelson) in the Large Publisher category; Daddy, Is That Story True or Were You Just Preaching? by James W. Moore and designed by David Carlson (Abingdon Press) in the Mid-Sized Publisher category; and The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung and designed by Josh Dennis (Crossway) in the Small Publisher category.

Managed by RISC AmeriScan and highlighting the science aspect of covers, the Consumer Research award is based on the consumer-buying research of the Research Institute for Social Change (RISC), which measures consumer motivations as it relates to cover design and book sales. Covers were judged and analyzed on how well their design elements match characteristics of their intended audience.

Consumer Research winners were: Soul Detox by Craig Groeschel and designed by Curt Diepenhorst (Zondervan) in the Large Publisher category; What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him by Byron Forrest Yawn and designed by Koechel Peterson & Associates (Harvest House Publishers) in the Mid-Sized Publisher category; and Spark by Jason Jaggard and designed by Kristopher Orr (WaterBrook Press) in the Small Publisher category.

“The book cover is advertising what the book is all about,” said Rick Hamm, director of RISC AmeriScan Research, who pointed out that the judges looked at the full book cover, not just the front. 

The art and science aspects of the awards were judged separately and operated independently from each other.

The winners received a black glass plaque with a metal plate exhibiting the colors of the book cover winners.

Publisher recognized with awards in the Apologetics/Evangelism, Missions/Global Affairs and Theology/Ethics categories

Oxford University Press books has topped the Christianity Today Book Awards, the magazine announced.

Sixty-eight publishers nominated 455 titles published last year for the publication’s annual list of best books. Christianity Today selected the top books in each category, with panels of judges then choosing 10 winners and selecting nine awards of merit.

Oxford University Press was recognized three times, with awards in the Apologetics/Evangelism category for Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga; the Missions/Global Affairs category for Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation by Daniel Philpott; and the Theology/Ethics category for The Theology of Jonathan Edwards by Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott.

Other winners in the 24th annual listing were: A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New by G. K. Beale (Baker Academic/Baker Publishing Group) in Biblical Studies; Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat (Free Press) in Christianity and Culture; Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good by Amy L. Sherman (InterVarsity Press) in Christian Living; Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry In Your City by Timothy Keller (Zondervan) in Church/Pastoral Leadership; Evangellyfish by Douglas Wilson (Canon Press) in Fiction; Summoned from the Margin: Homecoming of an African by Lamin Sanneh in History/Biography; and Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren F. Winner (HarperOne) in Spirituality.