Hometown: Flower Mound, Texas

Currently reading: Panic!: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity by Michael Lewis

How does your book for church staff differ from writing for business audiences? “The first part of the book is similar to business books. I speak about three primary things—preparation, confidence and engagement. Those are three really strong components of a good presentation. Then I picked nine common scenarios that Christians would find themselves in, like sharing your testimony, teaching a Sunday school class, holding a small group or greeting someone when they walk into a church. We overlaid into some of those stories and examples so the book could be used as a reference, not just a read-through. When you find yourself in that situation, you could go back to the book—that’s what makes the book different.”

A songwriter and one of the founding members of Desperation Band, based out of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., Packiam urges readers to a passionate pursuit of a personal relationship with Jesus.

In The Wholehearted Marriage: Fully Engaging Your Most Important Relationship, authors Greg Smalley (The DNA of Relationships) and Shawn Stoever discuss the traits of marriages that go beyond “good” and become “great.” They coined the term “wholehearted” to describe a marriage in which “both spouses have two fully open and engaged hearts.”

The authors write that “we look around and don’t see many people up at ‘great.’ There are few role models. Not many people to hang out with in the Great Marriage category. So we settle.”

Critical Care

Candace Calvert

Tyndale House Publishers

Softcover, 304 pages, $12.99

978-1414325439

In the vein of TV medical dramas like ER and Grey’s Anatomy, Calvert's Critical Care is the story of Claire Avery, a former emergency room nurse-turned-hospital educator after her brother died of severe burns while she was on duty.

Crossing the Lines

Richard Doster

David C. Cook

softcover, 416 pages, $14.99

978-1-434-79984-5

Richard Doster evokes memories of the civil rights movement of the 1950s in his second novel set in the South. Crossing the Lines continues the story of newspaper reporter Jack Hall, who's sent to Montgomery, Ala., to report on a minor incident involving a woman who refused give up her seat in a “whites only” section of a city bus.

Once there, Jack forms a friendship with a young Martin Luther King Jr. and is witness to some of the civil rights movement’s most dramatic events. As he sees and learns more about the struggle for justice, Jack also confronts the long-held racial stereotypes of Christians of whom he goes to church with, including his wife Rose Marie who can’t understand why people are making such a fuss.

Doster weaves his fictional characters into stories of actual events so seamlessly that it is difficult to know where reality ends and fiction begins. The dialogue given King and others is historically accurate based on the author’s exhaustive research. Crossing The Lines is a good read that provides an insider's view of a part of history they may have missed.

Written by Jim Seybert

California pastor Francis Chan challenges Christians to live out their faith with radical abandon in Loco amor: Asombrado por un Dios incesante ( Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, 978-1-599-79551-5, $9.99), released this month by Casa Creación.

The English edition has been a top seller for David C. Cook, from which the translation has been licensed, since its May 2008 release.