I've always been fascinating with Top 10 lists, especially when they involve books. I suppose that comes from being around books all my life: selling them, writing them and now publishing them. Just this week I ran across a Top 10 book list that made me stop and reflect on what makes a book a bestseller. Thanks to a post from Justin Taylor, I found a graphic showing the Top 10 books over the last 50 years (If you can't quite read the graph, click here for a closer look). It's a fascinating and instructive list for one very simple reason: 8 of the Top 10 books are stories.

Number one, of course, is the Bible, the greatest Story of all (and the bestselling book, not just in the last 50 years, but for all time and by a wide margin), followed by Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Alchemist, The Da Vinci Code, The Twilight Saga, Gone With the Wind, and The Diary of Anne Frank. The only exceptions are Quotations from Chairman Mao (otherwise known as The Little Red Book), and Think and Grow Rich (one of the bestselling "self-improvement" books of all time). And if you throw out Quotations from Chairman Mao, mainly because it's probably required reading in Chairman Mao's home country, you're left with just one book in the Top 10 most popular books of the last 50 years that isn't a story.

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ConversantLife is excited to partner with Thomas Nelson, Inc. and World Vision in a unique and biblical campaign called "God's Word in Action." Through this comprehensive campaign, Thomas Nelson's Bible Group is donating at least $100,000 through March 2012 to World Vision to help eradicate poverty and preventable deaths among children.

At ConversantLife, we're all about content that encourages conversations about faith and culture. So when we heard about a leading Bible publisher teaming with the world's largest relief organization, we immediately wanted to be involved. The way we see it, the Bible contains life's most important content, and helping "the least of these" is at the heart of the gospel message.

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Life is noisy. Life is loud. Life is fast. To find solitude, peace and quiet is like trying to find water in the Sahara Desert.   Too often it seems that any ‘down time’ we might have, we fill with internet surfing, social media chatter or any use of our cell phones. We’ve been told these gadgets will help us stay more connected to friends and family and yet, these things and more seem to only isolate individuals, creating little islands of wandering souls constantly seeking connection but never fully attaining it.

This past summer I began reading through entire books of the Old Testament. I was captivated by the stories I read and by the way the Lord was fully active in their lives.

Isaiah experienced the God who completely engages with every one of Isaiah’s senses. First, Isaiah sees God.  He then hears singing unto the Lord on his throne. He felt the ground shake as the glory of God was upon him. He smells and tastes the smoke that filled the temple. Immediately upon seeing and experiencing this, Isaiah confesses his sins before the Lord. And then something incredible happens. The Lord touches Isaiah’s lips with a hot coal, atoning for his sin and making him clean. At this, God reveals his mission and Isaiah accepts the call to follow him. How could you not after an encounter such as that? Isaiah reminded me to be aware of my culture and to pray for my people. (Is. 62:6,7).

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