Why Do We Need MORE >?

Why did you commission the MORE> series?

I found myself having many conversations with people in their twenties and thirties who loved their faith, praying through things, going to church – but who didn’t really read the Bible.

These people knew on some level that they should be, but whether through distraction, intimidation – or just finding the Bible irrelevant to what they were going through in their day to day lives – they didn’t, so that sense that they should be continued to niggle at them like a guilty unticked ‘to do’ list box.

I wanted to create something that would help people engage with the Bible’s wisdom in a way that was easy, attractive and entirely life-applicable. These books are short, quality over quantity and beautifully designed for you to read on the go.

How would you explain the MORE > books?

A brand new series for IVP that helps you carve out more time with God in your full and fast-paced life. They are a gateway (not a replacement for!) the Bible and will show the Bible’s continued relevance to the questions you are actually grappling with today, from direction and calling, to whether anything can be ‘the truth’ in our society of Trump, Brexit and fake news!

Who are you trying to reach?

When I first started pitching this series to my team I would have said ‘Millennials’ – but apparently we are such an ‘individualistic’ generation that we are shrugging off the avocado-obsessed, independent-coffee-shop-drinking stereotype! I’ll now say students and young professionals who prescribe or are interested in the Christian faith. People who are so busy that sitting still for ten minutes is actually pretty hard; those are the people who are on my heart!

Were you inspired by any particular books or authors?

Absolutely, like any Creative I am constantly inspired by other people. Of particular note was the Do Book Co. series, headed up by a wonderful publisher called Miranda West. I brought a couple of her books into the office and I found that instead of wanting to borrow my copies, people wanted to buy their own. They were so reusable and collectable that people wanted their own copy to highlight, turn down pages (unless you’re a perfectionist like my colleague @Julietslibrary!) and read again and again. I wanted to create something that would similarly give our readers a sense of ownership in the series.

Can you tell us a bit about the authors and their topics?

Of course! Ayo and Ruth Afolabi were the first on my radar. As Christians we can often think that ambition and success (especially in business) are at odds with what it means to follow Jesus. These two are great at challenging that notion and do so in their book MORE > Direction, which is all about discerning direction and calling in our lives and work. Calvin Samuel, the author of MORE > Distinct, is someone I’ve wanted to work with for a while. He has this incredible ability of taking complex theology and explaining it in a way that just makes sense. As the Principal of LST he’s been asked to write a lot of big theological books…I tubed the many miles to Northwood to ask whether he’d mind writing a little one! His book dives into what it means to be holy in our sex-saturated society and how so often we have got it wrong. The next two books in the series, MORE > Truth by Kristi Mair and MORE > Real by Jon Brown are equally exciting – great young, first-time authors living out a real and dynamic faith. Their books encourage others to do the same!