Books & Articles

Looking Up: A Birder’s Guide to Hope Through Grief. Newly released from IVP. Foreword by Kay Warren.

Through the painful days of the pandemic, Courtney Ellis found herself looking down in despair. Soon after, her beloved grandfather died unexpectedly.

It was around this same time that Ellis took up watching birds. “Took up” might not be exactly right―as she puts it, “the switch flipped,” and she’s been borderline obsessed with birds ever since.

Looking Up is a meditation on birding as a practice of hope. Weaving together stories from her own life with reflections on birds of many kinds, Ellis invites us to open our eyes to the goodness of God both in the natural world and in our own lives. By “looking up” to the birds, Ellis found the beauty and wonder of these creatures calling her out of her darkness into the light and hope of God’s promises.

Get your copy of Looking Up: A Birder’s Guide to Hope Through Grief today anywhere books are sold.

Present: the Gift of Being All In, Right Where You Are (March 2023, Tyndale House Publishing). Foreword by Aarik Danielsen.

Present was a book that found Courtney. After years of transience (at one point she and her husband Daryl moved six times in six years… She does NOT recommend), they wanted to grow deep roots. When a guest preacher talked about the spiritual practice of stability, her mind lit up like a Christmas tree. Stability was a spiritual practice?! Who knew?

The heart of the Gospel is God’s call to each of us to come home and to find a home with one another in God.

Present is a story of finding God through the blessing of stability, the grace of limits, and the joy of presence. It’s funny in places, because life is funny. It’s soaked in Scripture. But most of all it’s an invitation from Courtney’s heart to yours to bloom where you’re planted for however long God calls you there.

Happy Now: Let Playfulness Lift Your Load and Renew Your Spirit (August 1, 2021, Tyndale House Publishing). Foreword by Marlena Graves.

Happy Now is a rollicking, investigative, and thoughtful invitation to open ourselves to the joy and freedom of play all over again. It is designed to invite readers to let go of their most serious selves and grant them permission to engage in curiosity and wonder of all kinds. It’s a celebration of the transformative effects of delight: creativity, innovation, rest, and—above all—a more trusting relationship with Jesus.

Through wry observations, first-hand experience, Scripture study, and broad research, Courtney addresses questions like: How does God invite us into play? What does it mean that we are created for curiosity? In what ways can wonder help us love our neighbors more fully?

The world can be a serious place. Because of Jesus, Christians don’t need to be. It’s time to get serious about playfulness.

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Almost Holy Mama: Life-Giving Spiritual Practices for Weary Parents (June 3, 2019, Tyndale House Publishing). Foreword by Micha Boyett.

With the honesty of a close friend, the hilarity of a late-night comic, and the humility of a mom up to her eyeballs in diapers and dishes, Courtney invites us on a journey to draw closer God amidst the joyful, mundane, exhausting days of young parenthood. Probing ancient Christian practices for renewal, Almost Holy Mama chronicles one mom’s quest to discover an answer to her most pressing question: can God use the crucible of parenthood to grow us in virtue?

Instead of adding more tasks, Almost Holy Mama will help you integrate spiritual practices into your daily life. From studying Scripture in the shower to listening in prayer at the foot of Laundry Mountain to being forced into the discipline of stillness by a rough pregnancy, Ellis finds that meeting God in sacred disciplines can breathe new life into one of life’s most joy-filled and trying seasons.

Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul (February 2019, Tyndale House Publishing).

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the “too muchness” of it all? Realizing that piles of possessions, an overfilled calendar, and digital addictions threatened not only my happiness but my very soul, Uncluttered chronicles my pursuit of a radical idea: what if less really is more?

If you’ve ever desired a simpler life, one filled with love, laughter, friendship, and worship rather than overflowing closets and overfilled hours, look no further.