I first read By Searching—the story of Isobel Kuhn’s faith journey—during my first year at university. It grabbed me as few other books have done. I couldn’t find it when I searched my bookshelves the other day – no doubt I’ve lent it to someone. So I Googled.

Amazingly, this book, written over half a century ago, is still in print. Amazon assures me that a new copy is on its way. Isobel Kuhn and I had similar experiences during our first weeks at uni. Her English professor dismissed Christianity as fairy tales.Isobel decided to reject her parents’ faith and head down the deceptively easy path to the “Misty Flats”.

My zoology tutor introduced his subject by stating that there was no evidence for a god who is intimately involved with his creation.  He asked us to indicate if we believed in such a god. Only a trainee Catholic priest and I raised our hands. It’s not easy being part of such a minority. Julia Gillard’s Year 12 report from Unley High noted that she was the secretary of the Inter School Christian Fellowship. The next year she began studying Arts at Adelaide University and left her faith behind. Would the course of history have changed if Julia had read By Searching? Who knows – but Isobel’s story was a great encouragement to me.

Roslyn Phillips works with Family Voice Australia

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Community and Growth by Jean Vanier Reviewed Bronwen Elliott

When I first read Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth I didn’t realise how significant this book would be to me. As a young woman escaping from a suburban church where the odour of narrowness was stifling, I was drawn to the idea of Christian community.

Vanier inspired me to stop trying to find community but rather to get on with living and allow community to happen by doing what God put in front of me. What I didn’t realise when I read this book was how much Vanier’s deceptively simple ideas would prepare me to stay joyfully in one church, set in a culturally diverse, constantly changing locality, where I have run playgroups at church, welcoming local children, parents and grandparents for close to twenty years.

Vanier’s book, along with the work of Henri Nouwen, helped me to grow into my role as a parent challenged by my children’s very different pathways, and embracing a range of unexpected relationships. I continue to move towards what Vanier describes as the shift from the community for myself, to myself for the community. Vanier writes beautifully of the challenges of living with brokenness. I often recall his concept of the anti-gift when I need to find a way to reframe difficult experiences with others and to move past them with forgiveness.

Bronwen Elliott is a Social Work consultant.

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Knowing God by J.I. Packer Reviewed by Joshua Maule

Jim Packer took my middle-school understanding of Jesus and showed me his majesty as revealed in the pages of Scripture. Packer told me what it means to walk through life in the power of the Holy Spirit. He convinced me the disciplines of prayer and Bible reading are privileges beyond what words can express. And he showed me theology is far from an endurance event and is in fact the “queen of the sciences” – something deeply felt and lived daily.

Sadly, his most significant book is often seen as dry or too dense. Yet to the reader who takes time not only to scan but absorb the rich meditations on the deep things of the triune God—as well as the many corrections directed at modern evangelicals—awaiting them is a gateway leading to a hunger for more fruits from the meadows of God’s kingdom and more water from the deep well that is the word of God. Knowing God is probably best suited to university students—which is the time I first read it—however some senior high school students will be ready to swallow its sentences before their HSC.

For the person unafraid to understand God’s plan for his universe, including his decision to invite a portion of mankind in his blessing, Packer will not disappoint. Nor —because of his constant beckoning of us to come near the cross of Christ—does his writing leave us unaltered.

Joshua Maule writes for Eternity

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The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee Reviewed by Erica Bartle

My father-in-law, Robert Bartle, is a pastor, painter and a proponent of my Christian education, which began in earnest seven years ago. Watchman Nee’s seminal The Normal Christian Life was the first of many books we have shared.

Nee’s emphasis on the finality of Christ’s work on the cross, our acceptance of it, and our appropriation of his blood in the present, is at the heart of “the normal Christian life”. For fledgling Christians, navigating the cross, the resurrection, consecration, justification by faith, sin, repentance, forgiveness, walking in the Holy Spirit and progressive sanctification, Nee’s work—a compilation of his lectures and notes, and based for the main on Romans—is a good starting point.

Though, of course, God is the author behind one’s personal revelation of his truth, Nee’s simplistic yet convincing language (knowing, reckoning, presenting), his easy metaphors (sit, walk, stand), his lively illustrations and his anecdotes, entreat us to offer up more praise and bask in the light of God. Nee urging us to spend less time lamenting and praying away one’s sins in desperate introspection (what Nee calls “the barren path of self-analysis”) has aided my Christian walk, in all its uncomfortable and magnificent phases.

Erica Bartle is the founder and editor of Girl with a Satchel blog.