As freelance advertising copywriters, Tina Rabb and Deborah Davies were selling supersonic subwoofers and touting Tijuana getaways on everything from billboards to fast food tray lines when it hit them: They were using their expertise to persuade people to buy things they may not really need -- so why not use that knowledge to help churches get the most mileage from their billboards? Why not promote something people truly need in their daily lives -- the love of God? There are probably more than a million church signs and marquees in the United States, each offering an unparalleled chance to promote the kingdom of Christ. Yet passersby are often greeted with muddled and ungrammatical messages. The Proverbial Marquee is the cure for what ails many church marquees today. It's a complete collection of proven proverbs and original wisdom, all especially suited to signage. And it couldn't be more practical: - Maxims are categorized for easy reference - Each message is formatted line by line for easy drive-by reading - Line lengths are calculated to fall well within the average church sign's width - Best of all, a convenient letter count is provided So while this book may have started out as atonement for their advertising sins, Rabb and Davies discovered that The Proverbial Marquee became a labor of love that was too gratifying (not to mention too much fun) to count as penance. But isn't that how a wise Father often works? A proverbial plethora of inspiration! What a great idea: a portable book of drive-by encouragement. I found it impossible to put down once I started reading. A great gift and super resource. Enjoy! Becky Freeman National speaker and author of several best-selling books (Worms in My Tea, Real Magnolias, Chocolate Chili Pepper Love) In this very interesting collection of messages, Rabb and Davies have given us a wide selection of thought-provoking, humorous, and catchy sayings. They offer churches of all types many options for communicating brief but significant messages to the world. Scott Jones McCreless Chair of Evangelism Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University Tina Rabb and Deborah Davies are freelance advertising copywriters from Greenville, Texas. They have worked for national advertising agencies and for such clients as Southwest Airlines, Cellular One, GTE, and the American Heart Association. In addition to their copywriting, they have been published in several Texas newspapers, including the Houston Post and the Dallas Morning News. Rabb and Davies have been the recipient of numerous awards from advertising associations, the Southwestern Journalism Congress, and the National Press Women's Association, among others. They are both journalism graduates of East Texas State University.

THE MARQUEE MURDERS In Woodland Park, lazy nights and weekly movie mysteries build a new audience. When film plots link themselves to homicides in the Rivoli parking lot, Lt. Chester Devlin is perplexed. Jonas Kirk is curious. They, along with local attorney, Roger Blaisdell, and newbie cop, Oliver Grant, search for connections. An athletic couple, the Gordons, grapple with their crumbling marriage while Kirk and his romantic partner, Sharon Cunningham, speculate on likely motives for a series of violent deaths. Suspects surface. Devlin’s observations produce muddled evidence and doubt, but in an intense group conversation, Kirk identifies the serial killer. Is it the right script?

Pastors are schooled in theology and ministry, but few receive training in the fine points of church administration. Learning how to handle a congregation's finances "on the job" can be a harrowing experience. Yet efficiently managing your church's business affairs is a key element in keeping current members satisfied with their pastoral leadership -- and in attracting the new members you need for your church to grow in size and influence. In Basic Business Principles For Growing Churches, Arnold Cirtin shares expertise gained from more than four decades of corporate and academic experience. He provides a clear and helpful primer for pastors with limited training in business administration on such practical topics as accounting, fiscal management, and marketing. This is an indispensable book for pastors of small- and medium-sized churches (who typically are also their congregations' principal financial officers), as well as for church treasurers, trustees, and other financial board members. When you follow the guidelines in Basic Business Principles For Growing Churches, your church will be fiscally responsible, managed efficiently, and able to maximize its growing stewardship of God's resources. Arnold Cirtin is professor emeritus of accounting at Ball State University, and is a certified public accountant (CPA) in the states of Indiana and California. Cirtin is the author of Principles of Accounting Study Guide, as well as numerous articles in professional journals.

Branding, says James Twitchell, is nothing more than commercial storytelling; brands are the stories that are associated with products. (For example, the special taste of Evian, says Twitchell, is in the brand, not the water.) Branding has become so successful, so ubiquitous that even institutions that we thought were above branding, antithetical to branding, have succumbed. Such cultural institutions as religion, higher education, and the art world have learned to love Madison Avenue or lose market share. Of course, most ministers, university presidents, and museum directors will insist that branding has nothing to do with them, but as Twitchell brilliantly demonstrates in this witty, insightful examination of three of our most important cultural institutions, wherever supply exceeds demand branding follows. The rise of the megachurch epitomizes branding in religion. From its inception the megachurch was designed not to compete with other churches but to bring in the "unchurched," especially men, worshippers who might otherwise be home watching television or strolling through the mall on a Sunday morning. The megachurches have been phenomenally popular, none more so than Willow Creek Community Church, just south of Chicago, one of the oldest megachurches, which Twitchell analyzes in Branded Nation. Colleges and universities have embraced branding as they have grown more alike. Especially among the top schools in the country, the student bodies, the faculties, often even the campuses themselves are practically interchangeable. What distinguishes each school is the story it tells about itself. Now every institution of higher learning has its image organizers, its brand managers, usually in the admissions or development offices, whose job it is to make their institution seem different from all the rest. Even museums, with their multimillion-dollar Monets, have seen the advantages of branding. The blockbuster exhibitions often put familiar paintings in a new context, that is, they provide a new narrative, branding the art. Museums keep expanding their stores, placing them not just near the entrance on the ground floor but throughout the museum, in the galleries themselves. Some museums, such as the Guggenheim, even franchise themselves, turning the institution itself into a brand. In short, high culture is beginning to look more and more like the rest of our culture. In perhaps his most subversive observation, Twitchell doesn't condemn the branding of cultural institutions. On the contrary, he believes that branding may be invigorating our high culture, bringing it to new audiences, making it a more integral part of our lives. Not since Bobos in Paradise has there been such a trenchant, provocative analysis of our world.

Wild animal removal specialist Elmo Simpson has another murder on his hands. It’s starting to become a habit… When a body is found on the beach near the Paradise Springs marina in the sleepy panhandle of Florida, Elmo’s disinclined to weigh in on it. But the victim is Desiree LaFontaine, former first mate of Elmo’s girlfriend, Nic, who apparently was the last person to see Gigi alive. Which makes Nicola suspect number one. But there are other suspects. Like Craig Abbott, owner of Craig’s Cruises, who’s been taking a slice of Nic’s tour boat customers ever since he set up shop. Or could it be Desiree’s old boyfriend Bobby Darrin, who just plain doesn’t want to be found? And why is Drunk Paul, who’s rarely drunk but hangs around the marina, acting so squirrelly? Elmo doesn’t believe for a minute Nic’s a murderer, so he dives headlong into the seamy underbelly of Paradise Springs’ tourism industry to try to clear her name. But time is short, and Elmo must reel the murderer in before Nic is put away and Elmo ends up under water–for good.

Attention Spans' chronological review of Garrett Stewart's critical approach tracks and maps the evolution of intersecting disciplines from late New Criticism through structuralism, deconstruction, narrative theory (by way of narratography), poetics, and media studies, in which Stewart's has been so persistent and so eloquent a voice. Excerpts from his twenty books are framed by editorial retrospect, then linked by Stewart's own commentary on the variety – and underlying vectors – of his interpretive career across aesthetic forms, from Victorian narrative to recent American fiction, classic celluloid cinema to postfilmic digital effects, inert book sculpture and literary wordplay to the soundscape of singing on screen. Accompanied by a glossary of his many influential coinages, this cornucopia of analyses is also a chronicle of evolving paradigms in the work of intensive reading.

In this riveting book, acclaimed journalist Kathy Sawyer reveals the deepest mysteries of space and some of the most disturbing truths on Earth. The Rock from Mars is the story of how two planets and the spheres of politics and science all collided at the end of the twentieth century. It began sixteen million years ago. An asteroid crashing into Mars sent fragments flying into space and, eons later, one was pulled by the Earth’s gravity onto an icy wilderness near the southern pole. There, in 1984, a geologist named Roberta Score spotted it, launching it on a roundabout path to fame and controversy. In its new home at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the rock languished on a shelf for nine years, a victim of mistaken identity. Then, in 1993, the geochemist Donald “Duck” Mittlefehldt, unmasked the rock as a Martian meteorite. Before long, specialist Chris Romanek detected signs of once-living organisms on the meteorite. And the obscure rock became a rock star. But how did nine respected investigators come to make such startling claims about the rock that they triggered one of the most venomous scientific battles in modern memory? The narrative traces the steps that led to this risky move and follows the rippling impact on the scientists’ lives, the future of space exploration, the search for life on Mars, and the struggle to understand the origins of life on Earth. From the second the story broke in Science magazine in 1996, it spawned waves of excitement, envy, competitive zeal, and calculation. In academia, in government agencies, in laboratories around the world, and even in the Oval Office–where an inquisitive President Clinton had received the news in secret– players of all kinds plotted their next moves. Among them: David McKay, the dynamic geologist associated with the first moon landing, who labored to achieve at long last a second success; Bill Schopf of UCLA, a researcher determined to remain at the top of his field and the first to challenge McKay’s claims; Dan Goldin, the boss of NASA; and Dick Morris, the controversial presidential adviser who wanted to use the story for Clinton’s reelection and unfortunately made sure it ended up in the diary of a $200-an-hour call girl. Impeccably researched and thrillingly involving, Kathy Sawyer’s The Rock from Mars is an exemplary work of modern nonfiction, a vivid account of the all-too-human high-stakes drive to learn our true place in the cosmic scheme.

Some issues include separately paged sections: Better management, Physical theatre, extra profits; Review; Servisection.