The mission of ZOOMAE will initially happen through a publishing experiment. The idea of this experiment is to empower local Grand Rapids leaders and practitioners to speak prophetically into their city through the use of words, to articulate moral truth by pen and paper. While national religious publishing powerhouses publish broadly and nationally, we think there is an incredible opportunity to publish narrowly and hyper-locally in an effort to stimulate spiritual renewal and life transformation in our city. Many things nowadays are trending locally. Farmers markets, coffeeshops, news sources, and even water are attracting new attention and devotion from locals like never before. We think this hyper-local trend is priming our own city to receive the voices of local dreamers.

Each book will be targeted towards addressing the underlying stories, tensions, and problems that affect our city, Grand Rapids. They are designed to be read in two to four sittings by addressing specific topics in 80-100 pages. The books are meant to equip Christians to transform their city by being the continuing presence of Christ, while also resourcing churches to create necessary conversations that relate to our city.

These shorts will cover topic that fit into three broad categories: practical, theological, and biblical. The three categories will include topics such as:

Practical: HIV/AIDS, the poverty industry, addiction, creation care.
Theological: nature of salvation; doctrine of God; nature of the church.
Biblical: Jesus and Judaism, Kingdom of Heaven, development of the Bible.

The authors will be pastors, teachers, and practitioners who have a special burden for the city in these areas of interest, while providing insightful commentary and instruction out of their academic and practical expertise. All authors will be from and in the Grand Rapids area. Grand Rapids doesn’t need the voices from LA, Seattle, or Atlanta; Grand Rapids needs Grand Rapids voices. Additionally, all endorsers of each individual title will be from the area. Both requirements will ensure each title hyper-locally addresses the pressing topics each book addresses.

Each year ZOOMAE will focus on one broadly themed conversation. These books will help provoke that yearlong conversation through the actual books themselves, but also speaking gigs, local conferences, book signings, etc… We think our authors should have a voice. They do have a powerful voice and will speak powerful things into the life of the Church as She exists in Grand Rapids and we want to do everything possible to empower them to breath new life into it. In a few more posts we’ll announce the theme for 2010. So far we have 4 committed authors for 2010 with 2 more in the wings.

If you are from the Grand Rapids area and would be interested in submitting a writing project, contact us.