Sometimes, Church HurtsThe Church, the Bride of Christ. That description conjures up images of radiant white bride, eyes sparkling with peace and harmony, right? Maybe that’s why it’s such a gut-punch when that Bride behaves more like a grade school bully or a hot tempered drill sergeant.What do you do with that reality, a reality that sometime hurts? Ted Kluck and Ronnie Martin aren’t interested in 140 characters of tweetable comfort. They’d rather share t...

In 1987 the players of the National Football League went on strike, demanding better pay and the right to seek free agency. Determined to keep the league going, team owners pulled replacements from wherever they could be found, from the semi-pro leagues to bar stools, in order to create makeshift teams. For three weeks, “regular” men—truck drivers, school teachers, stockbrokers—were able to put on NFL helmets and jerseys, play in professional stadiums, and live their dreams. The replacemen...

The long snapper is perhaps the most overlooked and underappreciated position in football. He spends a great deal of his career bent over a football, with a guy either kneeling seven yards behind him or standing back at 15 yards. In a sense, the long snapper has one job—to go unnoticed. If he is noticed, it probably means he’s flubbed a snap—and for a long snapper, a single mistake can mean instant unemployment.In Upside Down Football: An Inside Look at Long Snapping in the NFL, Te...

This book presents the case for loving the local church. It paints a picture of the local church in all its biblical and real life guts, gaffes, and glory in an effort to edify local congregations and entice the disaffected back to the fold. It also provides a solid biblical mandate to love and be part of the body of Christ and counteract the "leave church" books that trumpet rebellion and individual felt needs.Why We Love the Church is written for four kinds of people - t...

"You can be young, passionate about Jesus Christ, surrounded by diversity, engaged in a postmodern world, reared in evangelicalism and not be an emergent Christian. In fact, I want to argue that it would be better if you weren't."The Emergent Church is a strong voice in today's Christian community. And they're talking about good things: caring for the poor, peace for all men, loving Jesus. They're doing church a new way, not content to fit the mold. Again, all good. But there's mor...

Recent cultural interest in evangelicalism has led to considerable confusion about what the term actually means. Many young Christians are tempted to discard the label altogether. But evangelicalism is not merely a political movement in decline or a sociological phenomenon on the rise, as it has sometimes been portrayed. It is, in fact, a helpful theological profile that manifests itself in beliefs, ethics, and church life.DeYoung and other key twenty- and thirty-something evangeli...

Author Ted Kluck found, online, a community of computer nerds and football enthusiasts so rooted in the past and so uninterested in the future that they have created algorithms and computer software that can accurately simulate football games, seasons, and careers using fields of data that already exist on the thousands of players who have suited up in the National Football League. All of these players are now old. Some of them are now dead. But they became the object of Ted Kluck’s fascin...

Facing Tyson gives a ringside view of the world's most dangerous and notorious boxer. Brutal, controversial, and always newsworthy both inside and outside the ring, Mike Tyson remains a cultural icon to this day. Despite the personal, legal, and mental problems that have overshadowed his celebrated boxing career, he continues to make headlines as a fascinating, yet extremely flawed character. Several of the era's biggest names in boxing, including Pinklon Thomas, Tyrell Bi...

Can Flex Deal with the Drama?Flex is a football player, not an actor. But he can fake it if it means getting to see KK, the girl he’s dating (sort of—it’s complicated), every day after school for about a month.This play isn’t for the weak, though. First, Flex has to deal with his nemesis, Actor Boy, the guy who greets girls with kisses on either cheek. C’mon, dude. Really?!?Then there’s the whole Shakespeare thing. What was “Bill” thinking when he w...

From the creators of the popular Happy Rant podcast comes this collection of thought-provoking and often humorous discussions of Christian culture to help you gain valuable insight and clarity into the issues that frequently divide the church.Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin and Barnabas Piper, hosts of the Happy Rant podcast, take their signature faith-based back-and-forth from the recording booth to the book page as they explore pastor trends, personality tests, politica...

Join Flex on His Quest to Be CoolLike most middle schoolers, Flex's mind is on a million different things—school, sports, friends, girls (of course), and yeah, he's thinking about God too. More than any of these thoughts, Flex is obsessed with one thing—being cool.But how can Flex attain awesomeness when he's so amazingly average at, well...EVERYTHING?!?Football could be his ticket out of seventh-grade obscurity, but then Coach sticks him with a bor...

Robert Griffin III exploded onto the NFL scene with a style and flair anything but typical. With a Heisman Trophy on his mantel, RG3 entered professional football in 2012 under a spotlight that glowed beyond his own team, the Washington Redskins. Could the Baylor graduate electrify the NFL as he had the college game? Could he return a fabled franchise to the realm of elite Super Bowl contenders?Author Ted Kluck deepens the reader’s connection to a man who became the face of a rever...