Church Forsaken: Practicing Presence in Neglected Neighborhoods

What We have read

2024 

• September - The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time  by Bob Harris
• May - Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life  by Kristen Ghodsee
• March - American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World by David Baron
• January - Poverty, by America by Michael Desmond

2023

• January - Freedom Colonies: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow by Thad Sitton and James Conrad

• March - Wildland: The Making of America's Fury by Evan Osnos

• May - The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks
• September - Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder
• November - Restoring the Kinship Worldview by by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows), Darcia Narváez PhD, et al.

2022

• November - Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith by Eric O. Jacobsen
• September - Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
• May - Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One by Majora Carter
• March - The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop

2021

• November - High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley
• September - Commonwealth: Transformation through Christian Community Development by Jimmy Dorrell
• May - Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen  by Dan Heath
• March - See No Stranger: A memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur
• January  - Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

2020

• November - The Art of Relevance by Nina Simon
• September - The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
• January - Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America by Peter Edelman

2019

• November - The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
• September - White Fragility: Why it's so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• July - The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America
• May - Hearing Beethoven: A Story of Musical Loss and Discovery by Robin Wallace
• March - We Could not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program by Steven Moss and Richard Paul
• January - Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

2018

• November - The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
• September - Saving the School: The True Story of a Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education by Michael Brick
• July - No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City by Katherine Newman
• May - What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities - One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time by Dar Williams
• March - Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit
• January - The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist

2017

• November - Health Care Will Not Reform Itself: A User's Guide to Refocusing and Reforming American Health Care by George C. Halvorson.
• September - If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities by Benjamin R. Barber
• July - Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir
• May - Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
• March - Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
• January - Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

2016

• November - The End of White Christian America by Robert P. Jones
• September - Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
• July - The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer
• May - Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle
• March - The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence by Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros
• January - The Road to Character by David Brooks

2015

• November - Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• September - Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery
• July - Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. - How the Working Poor Became Big Business by Gary Rivlin
• May - The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber
• March - Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado
• January - Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 by Charles Murray

2014

• November - Living "Illegal": The Human Face of Unauthorized Immigration by Marie Friedmann Marquardt, Timothy J Steigenga, Philip J. Williams, Manuel A. Vasquez
• September - Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough
• July - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
• May - David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
• March - Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy by David Sheff
• January - Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do by Claude M. Steele

2013

• November - Why Don't They Just Get a Job?: One Couple's Mission to End Poverty in Their Community  by Liane Philips, Echo Montgomery Garrett
• September - Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
• July - Generous Justice by Timothy Keller
• May - The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch
• March - Promises I can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin and Maria J. Kefalas
• January - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

2012

• November - Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard by Chip & Dan Heath
• September - American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare by Jason DeParle
• July - Bridges to Sustainable Communities by Philip E. DeVol