This issue of the Christian Educators Journal again offers reviews of a range of books that may be of interest to educators in Christian schools. They range from fiction that you would personally enjoy and can share with your students, to analyses of the ways in which Christians can be in the world in transformative ways. It is our hope that these books will serve to stimulate conversations in your staff rooms and that they will help you shape both the craft and the content of your teaching.  In this way, we hope to encourage all Christian educators to continue to grow in their understanding of how they, with their students, can best serve God in their classrooms and in the world outside of their classrooms.

We would also invite you to visit the new CEJ website at https://www.cejonline.com/. Here you will find back issues, links to sites and events of interest to Christian educators, a place to subscribe if you do not currently receive the CEJ, and a place to comment on what you have read in CEJ or to share thoughts that you might want others to consider. We hope that this website becomes a place of conversation and sharing between Christian educators. We would appreciate your thoughts on how to improve the website and on what topics you would like to see considered in future issues of the CEJ.

Beginning with the October 2011 issue of CEJ, we will be making some changes to the content. One of those changes will be the introduction of a new occasional column, titled, “New to the Trenches: Reflections of Beginning Educators.” In this column, educators new to the classroom, or students in faculties of education will reflect on their experiences as they stand at the beginning of their careers. Some possible issues that they might address include:

• their hopes and dreams as they enter the profession
• the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of their teacher training in relation to what they actually experienced in the classroom
• their greatest surprises, challenges and joys
• what they need in order to stay in the profession
• suggestions they would like to make to their more and less experienced colleagues

Educators who would like to contribute to this column are invited to contact the editor (editorCEJ@bell.net) for more information.

As always, this issue of CEJ comes to you with the hope and prayer that God may fill all of us with wisdom, patience, and hope and we serve God’s children in our classrooms.  Enjoy your summer reading!!