Blue-Collar Jesus is a daily devotional written by Pastor Jay Loucks. Jay serves as a teaching pastor for Good Shepherd Community Church in northwest Indiana. He has had the honor of shepherding a flock just one mile south of the farm he grew up on and just a half mile north of where he lives with his wife Lynn. Together they have three grown children, Megan, Mara and R.J.For the past 20 years Jay has balanced the responsibility of pastoring a growing church and taking classes at Bethel College and the Appalachian Local Pastor's School in Corbin, Kentucky, while also working his day job as a plumbing and heating contractor.His unique blue-collar approach to the study and application of Scripture has enabled him to make a special connection with folks like him who get up every morning and go to work and do their job as they raise their children and find the time to be alone with Jesus.You can email Jay at [email protected].

To be faithful to the gospel, all ministry must be indigenous; it must participate in the distinctive practices and perspectives of the people among whom ministry is taking place. Because our society tends to ignore or deny the reality of class divisions and prejudice, too many congregational leaders know too little about the world of working class whites. Continuing his groundbreaking work on class and American religion, Sample opens up the lives and lifestyles of working class whites in order to engage with them in authentic and transformational ministry.From the Circuit Rider review: "Tex Sample has written one of the most fun books to read on ministry that you will ever come across. Weaving philosophy, theology, country western lyrics, and stories throughout the book Sample at once delights and provokes us to think about the way in which we live out church in this day and age." (Click here to read the whole review.)

Blue Collar Jesus is a daily devotional written by Pastor Jay Loucks. Jay serves as a local pastor for a small rural United Methodist congregation in Northwest Indiana. He has had the honor of shepherding a flock just one mile south of the farm he grew up on and just a half mile north of where he lives with his wife Lynn. Together they have three grown children, Megan and Mara and R.J. For the past 20 years Jay has balanced the responsibility of pastoring a growing church and taking classes at Bethel College and the Appalachian Local Pastor's School in Corbin, Kentucky, while also working his day job as a plumbing and heating contractor. His unique blue-collar approach to the study and application of Scripture has enabled him to make a special connection with folks like him who get up every morning and go to work and do their job as they raise their children and find the time to be alone with Jesus. Find Jay on the website for his church, Lambs Chapel United Methodist Church, at www.lambschapel.org. And you can email him at [email protected]. Or give him a call at (219) 380-7477. Hermits Hope Publications, LaPorte, Indiana

This book is written from a personal coming of age perspective. It shares the many years and stages of a non-believer and the radical transformation to a believer. Though many of the stories can be quite embarrassing for the author at times, he feels it is imperative to share his memories, leaving nothing out, with a no holds barred approach revealing a lifestyle worth of much shame. The transformation is the key to the story, as he is led by the Holy Spirit. As his story develops, life then takes on new meaning and he admires how God works His providence, trusting in His will to be done. Lives can change, as you will see, but that does not mean there wont be opposition. As you will come to learn through Blue Collar Believer, sometimes the biggest obstacles come with the ones you love the most. It takes the reality of life, which is death, and this is the only tool to give the afterlife serious thought. Though we can appeal to the intellect, it is up to the Holy Spirt to convict the heart. As an ambassadors for Christ, we must always be ready for opportunities to defend the gospel, showing love and compassion. We live in a lost and dying world, and if only it were easy to share the Gospel and get a positive response 100% of the time, but as you will see, this just not is the case. Jesus said, He who has ears, let him hear. Unfortunately most ears who hear are deaf, but that does not mean we give up. Persistence and love for the lost can do wonders and all things are possible with God. Journey with Blue Collar Believer, from beginning to end and be guided on a tour with a testimony that will not soon be forgotten. It is an emotional roller coaster, filled with many ups and downs. You will laugh, you will cry, but more importantly, it will get you to think. If you have to see it to believe it, get ready to experience it for yourself through the words of a Blue Collar Believer.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

What Can Blue-Collar Business Teach Us About Work and Faith? The faith and work conversation is alive and well, but most resources focus on white-collar jobs, neglecting the majority of the workforce. When Dave Hataj realized he needed to go home and take over the family gear shop, he didn’t expect it to become a spiritually transformative season of his life. Yet as he began to think about what it meant to be a Christian in business, he discovered just how much our work matters to God and how blue-collar business can change people, communities, and even the world. Drawing on the stories of his business, Edgerton Gears, Dave teaches you how to cultivate true inner goodness, meaning, and mission at work—no matter what you do. Your workplace can and should be a place of significance.

David Crisp uses humor and everyday life experiences to effectively communicate timeless scriptural truths that challenge and inspire both the believer and the seeker. Drawing from time he spent growing up on a farm in western Kansas, a season as a Deputy Sheriff, 15 years serving as the pastor of a growing suburban church, and lessons learned from 27 years of marriage and raising two sons, David Crisp weaves together home-spun humor, common sense and Biblical truth into a comfortable patch-work quilt of a devotional book that sometimes evokes a grin, sometimes a tear, but always interesting and introspective thoughts about life while keeping a consistent focus on Christ.