"Book Club"

the first initiative of Gospel Coffee Club

It is my pleasure to introduce to you the first initiative of Gospel Coffee Club:

Let me explain.

The world is full of great books. Literature teeming with profound and beautiful reflections of the human heart. Works just waiting to offer us insight we could have never dreamed of finding elsewhere. But here’s the catch.

You have to read them!

I don’t know about you, but for me, reading is hard. Likely due to some undiagnosed ADHD. Ha. But I’m not here to make excuses, I’m here to tell you about this book club. And whether you share my undiagnosed ADHD or not, there are many barriers and challenges to even picking up that book you know you should read, let alone starting and finishing it. That is where the book club comes in.

First, we all know doing something with someone else is easier than doing it alone. We call this accountability. Whether it’s going to the gym or eating right or quitting that bad habit we know is eating away at our soul, accountability is a useful tool to set and keep us on the right path. It helps us to do the difficult things that we not only should do, but truly want to do. Knowing someone is counting on you to be consistent and accomplish whatever task you have agreed to, serves as a powerful impetus to progress. Accountability is a gift from God to assist in walking the straight and narrow with everyone else who shares that aim. I have personally found reading a book with other people, instead of by myself, to be invaluable in knocking titles off of my ever growing to-read list. Being a part of this book club provides some accountability we probably all need some of.

Second, we all know doing something with someone else is easier simply because it is with someone else. There is an element of fellowship to it that speaks deeply to the core of our being. We were made relational beings in the Image of the Trinitarian God, who has existed eternally in relationship to each Person of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Spirit loving and being loved by one another from eternity past into eternity future. And within eternity, as an overflow of His love, God created us to share in this fellowship. This book club is a call to community, a call to connection, a call to embrace the design of our Designer. And we believe that even if a person participated in this book club without learning a single thing from the book, but shared in fellowship, developed friendships and experienced real community, that would still be a win.

However, dialogue and insight are a major part of our aim.

Dialogue

Wisdom comes from outside of ourselves, not from within. We are limited. Limited by our life experience, our education, our perspectives, our intelligence. When we read a book, we are reading it through our own lens. But there are times when our lens is deficient or we can’t see clearly through it. We miss things or misinterpret them. And this is where dialogue shines. Dialogue takes the minds, experiences, and perspectives of every person participating, and weaves them all together. Where one lens is deficient, another is proficient. Where you may have gone wrong in your thinking or been stopped altogether, another with the necessary information keeps the train of thought you are all riding, going. Through dialogue you learn far more than you ever could have alone. The book club provides a context for this dialogue, through which you will hopefully gain insight.

Insight

Insight, a deeper understanding of Truth, is an idea that has captured me for a long time. Truth is unchanging, but often hidden. “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.”¹ We have the privilege of, and the responsibility to, search out and discover Truth - to desire the wisdom Solomon rightly requested. This is part of the great adventure of our lives, seeking and discovering new and wonderful Truths revealed by the Concealer. And the greatest of these discoveries is the unveiling of the Concealer, Himself.

Paul tells the men of Athens that God has placed people within certain times and places, “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.”² The “finding” of God that Paul references is what I believe Jesus is talking about when he says, “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”³ To find and come to know God is the highest of all knowledge. And once we have found Him, gaining deeper insight into His infinite well of Being is our highest joy.

This is our primary goal with the book club - to know God. And in knowing Him, be further conformed to His Image, our destiny.⁴ We will do that together. We will read together and share ideas and questions. We will play a part in the development of one another, as we seek God both individually and collectively.

We have picked a very fitting book to begin with: C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”. This is truly a Christian classic and a celebrated introduction to the basics of the faith. Lewis is gifted in simply expressing complex truths, and we wanted to make this first book especially accessible for anyone that might feel intimidated by theological books. And the truth is, no matter how seasoned and educated you are, there is great benefit to going back to examine the foundation again. This foundation is made with stones that are deep beyond searching out, but sweet beyond what we thought possible. So, if you’ve read this before, read it again with us and see what you didn’t see before. And if you haven’t read it before, join us as we gaze upon the beauty of our faith through the lens of C.S. Lewis!

How it will work

We will officially begin on August 2nd, 2025. This will be the date of the first post and discussion, so have the first chapter read by then!

Which brings us to the books. We will have a bunch of copies of Mere Christianity at the shop for you to pick up at your convenience, if you are local. If you aren’t local, we still want you to participate! You will just have to get your own copy from a book store or online. But this is part of why we are starting in a month, so everyone has time to get their copies picked up or delivered. If you are local and interested in participating, would you let us know in the comments here or message us directly? That way we can determine approximately how many copies to have on hand.

This will be an online book club. There won’t be any official in-person meetings. We felt this would be the best way to accommodate the most amount of people participating.

We will each read a chapter a week at our convenience.

Every Saturday, a post will be made here at gospelcoffeeclub.com with some general reflections on the chapter, some questions, and maybe some prompts for discussion.

Once the post is up, the comments will be open for dialogue! Share your personal insights, ask the questions you had, engage with the responses of the other participants.

Then do the same thing the next week and the next and the next, until we finish the book!

Pretty simple, right? But simple is good. Simple is sustainable. And we wanted to create something for you that is both edifying and sustainable.

One last thing: while this is an online book club and you can fully participate in all aspects of it here on Substack, we would highly encourage you to invite a friend or two or seven into this with you, and meet in person! Seeing a person face to face and having a discussion in the same room is something even Apple Vision Pro and the most sophisticated AI blah, blah, blah can’t truly capture. There is some magic in real, embodied human connection that can’t be matched by an online community. We would love for you to still share your insights with us here on the Substack; but if you can swing it, we think the ideal is to participate in this with people you are close to and to find the time to meet for reflection and dialogue “in real life”.

A final note: participation in this book club is completely free, you do not have to be a paid subscriber.

Join the club and spread the word, friend!

1. Proverbs 25:2

2. Acts 17:27

3. John 17:3

4. Romans 8:29