There’s been so much going on over at Gracepoint Berkeley church these days that the official end to the Heroes of Faith Spring Reading Challenge came and went yesterday and I didn’t even realize it!

Several lessons learned, the most important one being that when a challenge is too long, people lose momentum. I thought that having a longer time period to read the requisite books would translate to more people completing the challenge, but the opposite happened. Perhaps procrastination has something to do with it too!

Lesson #2 is that the hype man exists for a reason. I didn’t want to keep beating people on the head with the challenge, but because I didn’t hype it up everywhere I went, people kind of lost steam, and most just…forgot about it.

Don’t worry! I’ve learned and have some ideas for the summer reading challenge. So stay tuned!

With regards to the Heroes of Faith challenge, *EVERYONE* gets an extension until Friday, May 19th to complete your reading and to post a mini-review of your favorite amongst the books you read. So it’s not too late! You can fill out the challenge completion form and post a comment on the main page of the challenge. (If you already posted on the Alas post or elsewhere, that’s ok! You don’t have to repost.)

***by the way, all the people who have completed the challenge thus far have been women. Just sayin’!***

Even though no one took me up on guessing what our next reading challenge at Gracepoint Berkeley church would be, I’ll tell you!

So many of us were challenged and inspired by the many Christian heroes of faith we learned about at our respective winter retreats, and I’ve noticed biographies flying off the bookstore shelves! To keep up the momentum, our spring reading challenge is going to be the Heroes of Faith Reading Challenge.

If you click on the link above, you can find the details on what you need to do in order to complete the challenge. In short, you only need to read 5 new books on any Christian heroes of faith. They don’t have to be about 5 different people. If you want to get super deep into one hero’s life, that’s totally fine.

My hope is that you’ll be inspired to greater faith as you read about these real people living out their commitments to love and serve God…and grow as a reader, too! 🙂

If you don’t know where to start, here is a short list of books you definitely can’t go wrong with!:

• George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans (Christian Heroes Then & Now)
• Give Me a Mountain & He Gave Us a Valley by Helen Roseveare
• The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
• The Little Woman by Gladys Aylward
• Mary Slessor: Forward Into Calabar (Christian Heroes Then & Now)
• The Shadow of the Almighty by Elisabeth Elliot (about the life of Jim Elliot)

Our key quote for the reading challenge. (You can find it on your bookmark!)

Excited for all of us to continue being inspired through this challenge.

Oh, and yes, for those of you who are highly motivated by the prize, you can win multiple times. The more biographies you read the better for your soul, so it’s a win-win for you. 🙂

If you remember, I’m working on my goal to read all of the Christian Heroes series this year. I’m starting with all the women’s biographies, and I’m currently reading about Isobel Kuhn.

Which hero of faith are *you* going to read about first?