“This is the most provocative and profound book I’ve read in a long time. I plan to buy a box and give it to my friends so they can laugh, cry, repent, and soul-search as much as I did. Deeply moving–and necessary–for the faith community.”
Joel Salatin, renegade farmer (featured on Food, Inc.) and author of The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God’s Creation
“The Year of Small Things is the best kind of spiritual formation book: serious and funny, smart and vulnerable—and, most useful of all—practical. If you want to live the way of Jesus and struggle to know how in the midst of family busyness, financial struggle, even depression, Sarah Arthur and Erin Wasinger can be trusted to help you and your community re-imagine and engage practices of spiritual wholeness and social justice. Honestly, this is one of my favorite books this year.”
Jen Pollock Michel, author of Teach Us to Want and Keeping Place (2017).
“The challenge in all this is to — just as [Sarah and Erin] do — see these as small things and relationships that we build with people that are marginalized.”
Shane Claiborne, from the Small Things podcast
“What a wonderful story of two ordinary families dealing with the normal struggles of life, coming together to grow deeper in life with God. Written with grace, authenticity, and wit, Arthur and Wasinger’s book made me excited to follow their path–the mark of a truly great work.”
Nathan Foster, director of community life, Renovaré; author of The Making of an Ordinary Saint
“Sarah and Erin get it. They cut grapes for tiny fingers, they wipe runny little noses, they bandage skinned knees, and they love the world that God loves. If you want to practice your faith right where you are, these women are the reliable guides you need.”
Margot Starbuck, author of Small Things with Great Love: Adventures in Loving Your Neighbor
Online exclusive: “Sarah and Erin’s story of participatory vulnerability leaves me feeling like a dirty daisy struggling in an asphalt crack on the edge of a highway that’s suddenly transplanted to a watered, compost-mulched daisy garden, listening to God speaking sweet grace into my petals.”
Bonus blurb from Joel Salatin, self-described “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer” (We love this blurb so, so much!!)
About the authors
Sarah Arthur (MTS, Duke University Divinity School) is the award-winning author/compiler of eleven books, including the bestseller Walking with Frodo: A Devotional Journey through The Lord of the Rings and At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time. She has written for such publications as Christianity Today and Image Journal online, and regularly serves as a fiction judge for the Christianity Today Book Awards. For nearly twenty years she has been a public speaker for such varied gigs as youth ministry events, writing conferences, women’s retreats, guest preaching, seminary forums, webinars, and podcasts. She lives in Lansing, Michigan with her husband Tom, pastor of Sycamore Creek Church, and their two little boys. Follow her on Twitter @HolyDreaming & visit her website at www.saraharthur.com.
Erin F. Wasinger is a freelance writer, speaker, and journalist, having worked as a newspaper editor and columnist before moving to Lansing, Michigan. A voracious reader as well as a storyteller and lay theologian, she serves on the teaching team for the multi-site congregation Sycamore Creek Church, where preaching can happen anywhere from diners to bowling alleys to laundromats and pubs. She and her husband Dave have three young girls. You can finding her tweeting @SomeWonderland & writing at www.erinwasinger.com.