Believe for It

September 12, 2022
In this melodious manual, Grammy Award–winning gospel singer Winans (Throne Room) aims to foster intergenerational conversations about faith. “The rising generation is meant to follow the faithful example of the generations who have gone before,” Winans contends, and to that end she offers personal anecdotes and advice on how to pass on Christianity to younger generations. She emphasizes prioritizing church, recounting the community it provided for her while growing up and warning that making church “optional” risks signaling that it’s not important. “Planting seeds of faith” in the next generation requires close relationships characterized by fun, longevity, meekness, and warmth, Winans posits, telling how her parents modeled meekness by asking her for forgiveness if they erred. Encouraging readers to remember to tend to their own faith, Winans shares how her brother’s death at age 48 devastated her and how she kept her faith even as she struggled to understand God’s intentions. She quotes from Ephesians and the Gospel of John to argue that the Holy Spirit “guides the believer into truth” and helps Christians act in accordance with God. Winans’s fans will appreciate the bounty of autobiographical material, and the advice benefits from her optimistic tone. This hits the right notes.

October 1, 2022

This book by Grammy-winning Winans (On a Positive Note), the most awarded woman gospel artist of all time, is earnest in its concern for the next generation of Christians. She is laser-focused on capturing and keeping those who draw away from Christianity in adolescence or young adulthood, never to darken a church's doors again. Peppered with biblical verses and personal anecdotes, this book has little patience for the recalcitrant: she charges Christian parents and grandparents to aggressively teach the religion to their children. Beyond sharing her own experiences as a lifelong Pentecostal Christian, preacher's wife, mother, and gospel singer, Winans offers a guide to intergenerational conversations about faith, with sample questiopns at the end of each chapter. This book is part of Winan's larger project, which includes an audio CD of gospel songs and the "Believe for It" social-media challenge on her website. Winans has a palpable enthusiasm for spiritual mentorship but her book doesn't touch on how to discuss more controversial subjects with young Christians, like the corrosive effects of gender discrimination, poverty, and institutional racism. VERDICT This is a sunny Christian conversation primer.--Sandra Collins

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