Since his award-winning debut collection of stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson has been expanding the literary traditions of the South, in work as melancholy, witty, strange, and lovely as any in America.

Now, drawing on the story of his own great-aunt, Watson explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central "uses" for a woman in that time and place: sex and marriage. From the highly erotic world of nature around her to the hard tactile labor of farm...

Missional communities are sending agencies into our neighborhoods, cities, and nations. To be clear, it is not that communities grow in numbers and need to split, or that communities have a pyramid growth chart. Multiplication is a function of a gospel work and empowerment of the Spirit. Leaders and communities are sent out of existing gospel communities because the gospel is advancing and sending us into maturity. Not only that, but multiplication is communal. It is done as a community, with leaders and coaches. How do you equip leaders? How do you send them well? How do you support and...