Robert A Fryling

Review: Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. Expanded edition. Andrew T. LePeau & Linda Doll, edited by Al Hsu. Foreword by Jeff Crosby and Robert A. Fryling. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: A narrative history of this evangelical publishing house, a division of a campus ministry, upon the publishing house’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

I was a high school junior, eager to grow in and share my faith due to the influence of the local version of the Jesus Movement upon my life. One of our leaders, a former InterVarsity student leader, invited a group of us to his home and showed us a table full of books and invited us to buy (very cheaply) anything that interested us. I chose Know Why You Believe by Paul Little and read it from cover to cover as it spoke to the questions both I and the people I shared Christ with were asking. That was my first exposure to the quality publications of InterVarsity Press, over fifty years ago. In later years, my son started asking the same questions and I took him out for Saturday breakfasts to discuss the book–and lots of other things.

It was an utter delight to read this history of InterVarsity Press. I should mention at the outset that I’m hardly an impartial reviewer. I work for the campus ministry of which InterVarsity Press is a part. I’ve had the privilege to know many of the people in this book, both living and with the Lord, and count some as friends. I’ve lived through a number of the organizational events mentioned in the book. I’ve even been a guest at a couple of the sites that the Press called home. And of course, I’ve read most of the books mentioned here, using many of them in ministry with students as well as being spiritually formed by many of them.

The very beginnings of InterVarsity Press are rooted in collegiate ministry as well as InterVarsity’s connection with InterVarsity Fellowship in the UK. Thoughtful literature was considered an indispensable part of work with students, particularly in the early years where students saw a staff worker maybe once a semester. The UK connection was also important, because the earliest books came from IVF’s publishing and the history notes the continued influence of UK authors from John Stott to J.I. Packer to N.T. Wright on InterVarsity’s publications. These were voices that were evangelical, thoughtful, and articulate–addressing the concerns of students–and as it turned out, a wider audience.

One of the key early moments was the first Bible Study guide published in the US on the Gospel of Mark, written by Jane Hollingsworth. It set an early precedent of women being represented and affirmed, not only in InterVarsity’s field ministry but in its publications. The book tells the story behind many of the publications that established InterVarsity Press as a publisher: the transcription of Paul Little’s lectures on evangelism into How To Give Away Your Faith, the work of editor James Sire with Francis Schaeffer, the connection with John White, a psychologist who wrote The Fight and a lengthy list of other books for IVP, the discovery of Calvin Miller’s The Singer and Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction in the “slush” pile, launching the publishing careers of both authors, and the brief stopover in the UK that led to publication of J. I. Packer’s Knowing God.

The account describes the organizational development of the Press, including the move to its own facilities in Downers Grove–first a house, and later a former auto dealership, and finally the move of the offices to join their warehouse in Westmont, Illinois. We are also introduced to the succession of leaders and editors who gave organizational and editorial leadership: directors Joe Bayley, Jim Nyquist, Linda Doll, Ken DeRuiter, Bob Fryling, Jeff Crosby, and Terumi Nichols, the current president of InterVarsity Press, and editors like Jim Sire, Andy LePeau, Jim Hoover and Dan Reid with academic books, and current editors including Al Hsu, Cindy Bunch, and Jon Boyd. One of the great partnerships at IVP was that of Jim Nyquist and Jim Sire (“the two Jims”). It waa during this time that InterVarsity Press really came into its own and became the resource to thoughtful evangelicals that it continues to be to this day.

The book doesn’t gloss over controversies, perhaps the most significant of which was an early “cancelling” effort by Franky Schaeffer of a book titled Brave New People, which advocated a strongly pro-life stance throughout, but in dealing with the most extreme cases of birth fetal abnormalities (like fetuses without a brain) allowed that these were the only cases where an abortion may even be contemplated. The book was labeled pro-abortion for mooting even this rare possible exception and attacked in various articles, leading to the loss of some InterVarsity donors, picketing at the press, and the withdrawal of the book, causing consternation among other authors, wondering if this could happen if the public didn’t like something in their books. The history explores the particular vulnerability exploited in this instance–the connection between the Press and the donor-supported campus ministry of which it is a part that is not the case with many publishers.

The expanded edition includes coverage of the last twenty-five years of the Press’s work, including a major expansion of its academic publishing, and various new lines like Formatio dealing with spiritual formation and Praxis dealing with issues of practical theology. The history also highlights the huge growth as a publisher of numerous authors who are people of color, of women authors, and the recent launch of a new line of IVP Kids books.

The book has something of the feel of a “family history” and one senses the uproarious fun, the high professional and ethical standards, and sense of mission that have characterized this publishing organization. It gives one a sense of the risks and judgments publishers must assess, and the changes in the marketplace that publishers must nimbly negotiate. For those of us whose lives have been touched by InterVarsity Press books, it is a delight to learn the stories behind the books that have spoken into our lives.

And since I’ve already noted how this is a departure from my usual reviews, I will depart one more time to express to my friends at InterVarsity Press how grateful I am to God for you for the commitment to Christian thought, to publishing authors of color and women, to addressing hard issues and not shrinking from taking positions that not all will embrace. I’ve found J. I. Packer’s assessment, quoted in this book, to be amply true:

“Some publishers tell you what to believe. Other publishers tell you what you already believe. But InterVarsity Press helps you believe.”

Thank you, InterVarsity Press, for helping me know why I believe, and for fifty years of helping me believe more deeply.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Interview: Robert A. Fryling, Publisher, InterVarsity Press: Part Two

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Robert Fryling IVPYesterday, I posted the first part of a conversation I had recently with the publisher of InterVarsity Press. As the interview went on we discussed changes in the publishing world and reading habits, and some of the most significant publishing milestones of Bob Fryling’s tenure. Here’s the second part of our interview:

During the time you have been publisher at InterVarsity Press, how have you seen reading habits change, your target audiences, how have you adjusted to some of the changes you are seeing in the market?

That’s a question we are always trying to answer because things are always changing. A good example of this you would be familiar with is Jim Sire’s The Universe Next Door. That used to be a general book that was sold in Christian bookstores and lay people and students would read that. Now it is primarily an academic text, a secondary text, and most Christian bookstores do not carry it.

You can see the effect of people not reading serious non-fiction at the same level they would have twenty years ago. It’s not so much a “dumbing down” as people not having the time or attention span to focus on thoughtful non-fiction. There has been a lot of increase in fictional reading in the general Christian market and inspirational reading.

It takes work to think through well-honed arguments and issues and so our market has changed from more general readers to pastors and people in ministry and parachurch ministries and Christian colleges and seminaries. So now about fifty percent of our books are academic books [IVP has a sub-imprint IVP Academic] or reference books whereas twenty years ago it would have been about twenty percent. There is a very intentional group who read, and read your blogs, but it is a shrinking group of people and it does tend to be more those in ministry or the academy rather than general lay people.

Could we talk a bit about the role of InterVarsity Press as part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and how you’ve seen the role of supporting student and faculty mission continue to develop and change during the years of your tenure?

I think there are two major areas in which IVP is particularly appreciated by staff. One is for the public relations value. Often staff find that pastors and donors know about InterVarsity Press and not InterVarsity and so it can be a nice bridge because the name is the same. In fact, in the publishing world we are often just referred to as InterVarsity. Jim Lundgren [Interim President of InterVarsity/USA] was saying sometimes he has been with donors and they thought he was representing IVP because that was the “brand” that was known. Staff use books a lot with donors and pastors. We are glad we can do that and provide a sense of culture, of who InterVarsity is as a thoughtful engaged ministry.

The other area obviously is in its teaching. We publish books that support the core values of InterVarsity — life of the mind, evangelism, discipleship, world missions, vocational stewardship –all the aspects that are part of InterVarsity’s identity. IVP supports and sometimes leads InterVarsity as staff read some of these books, and then teach and lead students in some of these issues. One of the big differences that you would probably appreciate was that at one time staff would have booktables and buy lots of books and sell them to students. Now staff will get the books and teach them to students. We are getting less sales to students. Many staff are also using IVP books as part of their own education and training.

Looking over the nineteen years of your tenure at InterVarsity Press what are some of the publishing projects that you take the most pride in, that you’ve had a chance to oversee to publication?

Without a doubt, the most significant one was the publication of The Ancient Christian Commentaries on Scripture as a twenty-nine volume enterprise that was started before I came here but was published after I started at IVP. I was involved in choosing the cover design and the latter aspects of that and working with Tom Oden who was the general editor with whom I worked for fifteen years as that project was coming about.

The second thing was the development of the Formatio sub-imprint, focusing on spiritual formation. At the time we started that, spiritual formation wasn’t even used as a term among most evangelicals. Now that obviously is very widespread and I think we’ve had a hand in promoting spiritual formation issues in general evangelicalism, whereas before it was limited to mostly Catholic audiences or mainline audiences. I think that has been a tremendously successful project that I’m very grateful for. We’ve not so much cornered the market, but authors come to us because they realize that for evangelicals looking for spiritual formation books, IVP is the place to go.

The third thing I would say is we have developed a lot of partnerships, for instance with the Apprentice Institute with James Bryan Smith. We’ve done some things with Veritas Forum and Veritas Riff and with Ruth Haley Barton and the Transforming Center. We probably have about twelve or thirteen different partnerships with different organizations. CAPS [Christian Association for Psychological Studies] with psychology is a significant area of partnership. We are grateful for these partnerships as they help us connect with their audiences.

The other thing I might add which is very different is that we have been very intentional in trying to recruit minority authors and women authors and so we’ve had a series of consultations where we pay the full freight for unpublished authors to attend. We had one for African-American authors, for Asian-American authors. This year we are having one for Hispanic leaders. We do one for women in the academy. We bring people together for a few days and tell them about publishing, the editorial process, the marketing process, and really try to encourage them to write for us as their voices need to be heard within evangelicalism. We have published roughly 160 books over the last fifteen years by minority authors.

In wrapping up, I wondered what you could share about your plans after retirement?

Actually, I don’t have any right now. It feels like a time to wait on the Lord. I plan my life, I am a planner and I’ve been doing that for all of my life. It just seems that this is a time that I’m not to be anxious about that but to see what might come about. I have about another eight months or so before I retire. I’m not trying to find another job or do things but just see what might come about. I feel very open-handed about that right now.

Any writing plans that you might have?

That would be a category of things I might pursue. Right now I am so busy with our business as such that I haven’t had much time to think about that but after Urbana [InterVarsity’s triennial conference on world mission at which InterVarsity Press has a significant presence] I will probably start thinking about those things. I might indeed write something after retirement but at this time have no specific plans to do so.

****************************************************

Postscript: I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bob Fryling, not only for the time he took for this interview, but also for all those books that have been part of my own “education and training.”

Interview: Robert A Fryling, Publisher, InterVarsity Press: Part One

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Robert Fryling IVP

Robert A. Fryling, Publisher, InterVarsity Press

Recently, Robert (Bob) Fryling announced he will be retiring as publisher of InterVarsity Press (IVP) in June 2016. Bob Fryling also serves as a Vice President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Out of his leadership experiences, he published The Leadership Ellipse in 2009. Recently we sat down via Skype for an interview in which we discussed his career, his tenure at InterVarsity Press, how IVP relates to its parent organization, changes he has seen in publishing, and what publishing accomplishments he thought most significant during his time at InterVarsity Press.

This interview has a bit of a flavor of an “inside conversation” due to the fact that Bob Fryling and I are both employed with InterVarsity/USA and have had a long association, Bob Fryling in the publishing division and I in Collegiate Ministries. I have inserted clarifications in a few places where a reference might be particularly unclear to an outsider. Otherwise, this is a very lightly edited transcript of the conversation. I should also mention that Bob on Books is a private endeavor, and not an official social media outlet of InterVarsity Press or InterVarsity/USA. With that, here is the first part of the interview:

You’ve had a pretty interesting career before you came to the publishing world. Could you recap for us your career before you came to InterVarsity Press?

I started off as a Campus Staff Worker in New England responsible for thirteen campuses in New Hampshire and Maine. I spent a lot of time driving on the turnpike. That was a great experience. I had large state schools like the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire and smaller schools like Colby and Bates. It was a great way to learn about ministry and to be involved with InterVarsity. I became a team leader and then Area Director in New England and then Regional Director for the Northeast.  In 1980 I moved to Madison and was national Director of Campus Ministries. I lived in Madison for seventeen years with two stints as Director of Campus Ministries and with a stint as Director of Human Resources in between. I started our NISET [National Institute of Staff Education and Training] program and led a lot of our management training. I came back to Campus Ministries when asked by Gordon MacDonald when he became President. I served in that role for a total of 14 years. I moved to the Press in 1997. It will be nineteen years by the end of June of 2016 as IVP publisher.

What was the biggest change or transition in moving from the collegiate ministry world to the publishing world?

A number of interesting things. I wasn’t asked to speak as much! As Director of Campus Ministries I spoke often at student and regional staff conferences. Somehow the publisher’s role was not seen as a ministerial role in the same sense. I had a lot to learn about the publishing industry. The publisher role was more of a CEO role. I was able to be in more of a leadership role without having to process things through three or four levels of people spread across the country. We have a lot of process at IVP but having most of the people in the building makes the process easier and the pace of decision-making was much, much faster because we have to get books out on time and sign authors. It was figuring out how to marry a ministry and a business. With Collegiate Ministries you don’t have the sense of the business aspect in the sense of time or urgency or money, although there is fund-raising, but it is not the same thing as making financial decisions every day as to how your business is going to turn out. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of bringing together both parts and that business is a ministry, too.

One of the things I’ve heard about InterVarsity Press is that you’ve won some awards for being a great place to work. I wonder if you could talk about that and what makes it such a good place to work?

I can answer the second part first. We have a lot of great people here. People come because they appreciate the books that we publish. We have been recognized by the Best Christian Workplaces Survey, I believe it is six straight times, and one of the questions that is asked is, “what do you most appreciate about IVP?” Usually the top answer to that across the whole company are the books that we publish. People are attracted to that. People are affected by the books. You can’t edit books and mark up books that don’t affect you as to its content. So that’s a big piece.

We have a strong leadership working team. Five of us have been together for eighteen years and so we’ve been able to benefit from each other’s gifts. We are fairly transparent in our leadership. We have a daily sales record so everyone in the company knows where we are on our sales on a day to day basis. We give quarterly financial reports and we share everything about what’s going on. I think people feel a high sense of ownership for IVP, a great deal of loyalty, great communication, and fine people. It sort of all comes together.

One of the things that may be indicative of this is that we have office meetings on a regular basis but we only have them when we need them. So we try to avoid perfunctory meetings but when we get together, everyone is expected to be there, so there is this sense of real community. We celebrate anniversaries, we share announcements, there may be times when we have authors that visit and usually those meetings are a morale boosting time and celebration time when we are together.  We have special Christmas parties, we honor people when they leave, when people get married, when they have children. We try to celebrate each other, we try to celebrate our authors and our books and that creates a very positive environment.

****************************************************************************************

In Part Two of the interview, which will appear tomorrow, we will discuss how InterVarsity Press has responded to trends in reading and publishing, how IVP continues to support the collegiate ministry of InterVarsity, what Bob Fryling sees as IVP’s most significant accomplishments under his tenure, and his plans for retirement.