Bill Reimer’s Official Retirement: Photos

Wednesday, March 1st marked the official retirement of Bill Reimer from his position as manager of the Regent College Bookstore in Vancouver, B.C. after over three decades of faithful work. On its Facebook page, the store announced:

For 34 years the Regent College Bookstore has been faithfully stewarded by bookstore manager Bill Reimer. He has carefully curated the bookstore’s collection, recommended countless books, and been a prayerful and pastoral presence to other staff and customers… He’ll always been part of the Regent community

Bill is a veteran of our industry bringing equal parts knowledge and passion to his career with Regent. The college sent him off with a rather moving public event that featured many tributes from the Regent staff, faculty and students.

I got to finally meet Bill in the summer of 2019, when the photo at right was taken.  For more on that visit, click here. There’s another picture in the article where I asked Bill which shelf section he’d like to be photographed with, and without hesitation, he took me to the History section.

Event Photos: Nathan Douglas; with files from Nathan Douglas and Alex Strohschein. Lower photo: Paul Wilkinson.

If you have more photos from Wednesday night, send them and we’ll update this piece.

Vancouver Author Offers 3 Phrases That Can Change the World

What if learning to have three phrases always at the ready could make a gigantic relationship in our interactions and inter-personal relationships? A new title — releasing this week — from a Vancouver author may provide the key.

A lifetime ago, I remember years ago hearing some friends speak very highly about Rod Wilson when he was involved with the counseling program at Ontario Theological Seminary (now Tyndale Seminary) in Toronto. I’m sure people at the seminary were disappointed when he was suddenly off to Vancouver, where he became President of Regent College from 2000-2015. His bio states,

Rod currently works with Lumara Grief and Bereavement Care Society, A Rocha, the Society of Christian Schools in BC, and In Trust Center for Theological Schools, and maintains an international teaching and mentoring ministry. He is also a Senior Writer for Faith Today.

I wanted to share this book release information with readers here, so in the absence of a review copy, here’s the publisher information from NavPress.

Thank You. I’m Sorry. Tell Me More: How to Change the World with 3 Sacred Sayings

We all believe that saying, “Thank you,” “I’m sorry,” and “Tell me more” will help us become better people, friends, partners, employees, neighbors, and global citizens. And yet, having been brought up on rugged individualism, we often slip into self-centeredness and a corresponding sense of entitlement. We have lost the ability to speak with gentleness toward one another. We have replaced kind words that connect us to one another with ones that divide, isolate, and hurt. Everywhere we turn there is deep conflict.

In this simple yet profound book, clinical psychologist Rod Wilson introduces us to the sacredness of these familiar but forgotten sayings. What impact do these sayings have on our relationships?

■ When we say, “Thank you,” we acknowledge the way others impact us.
■ When we say, “I’m sorry,” we acknowledge the way we impact others.
■ When we say, “Tell me more,” we acknowledge the way we impact each other.

As you engage with these three phrases more thoughtfully and speak them more frequently, you will enjoy a life full of deeper friendships and joy.

9781641584470 | 208 pages paperback | 12.99 USD / 17.49 CDN

 

Remembering J. I. Packer

Today Christians around the world are remembering the man Wikipedia describes as an “English-born Canadian theologian;” J. I. Packer. His books — numbering over 50 — have been staples in Christian bookstores for decades. But his name appears elsewhere in our stores, as John Stackhouse noted a few years ago, “Perhaps no one in history has written more endorsements and prefaces to the books of others than Packer did.”

Packer died on Friday at age 93. While we were at Regent College last year we frequently drove by what some called “J. I. Packer’s church,” a church on the campus that he could easily walk to.” And back in the day, as an employee for IVP Canada, I packed and shipped many copies of Knowing God.

Though he surprised many with his decision to move from an important role with the Church of England to settle in Vancouver, his career continued to span the entire world.

Just over two years ago, we featured this fun picture at Thinking Out Loud:

At age 91, J. I. Packer isn’t too old to cruise the J. I. Packer section in the Regent College Bookstore, making sure his bestsellers are properly displayed! [June, 2018]

Much more information is available at this tribute at Christianity Today.

Longtime booksellers will also want to walk down memory lane through this list of his titles at Wikipedia. (People newer to Christian publishing are strongly encouraged to do the same.)

Memorial gifts may be made to the J. I. Packer Scholarship at Regent College.

Bill Reimer on the Regent College Bookstore

If he shall not lose his reward who gives a cup of cold water to his thirsty neighbor, what will not be the reward of those who by putting good books into the hands of those neighbours, open to them the fountains of eternal life? – Thomas a Kempis

Earlier this year, at a celebration of Bill Reimer’s 65th birthday, Loren Wilkinson noted,

“For over a quarter of a century, Bill has done his best to make available, to a steadily growing public, books that explore every facet of the Christian belief that the incarnation of the Creator God in Jesus is an essential guide to living in and understanding our increasingly complex world.”

A former Regent College student sent us this article which appeared in the Regent College Bookstore Blog. I’ve shortened it slightly on the one hand, but on the other, I’ve reiterated the quotation which appears above since it deserves to be posted somewhere in all our stores. (Under the circumstances, we had to steal the picture as well!)

Click the title below to read in its entirety:

Theology’s Last (book)Stand?

For 29 years I have worked in the back corner at my desk on the floor of the Regent College Bookstore, surrounded by volumes of biblical studies and commentaries. We have 272 linear feet devoted to biblical studies and 120 feet to theology. Additional footage is devoted to a broad range of Christian studies: poetry, literature, history, biography and of course a good selection of bibles; even 40 feet for CS Lewis and friends. If you have traveled this continent or been abroad then you know that there are literally only a handful of theological bookstores that remain…

How has bookselling changed people often ask me? I once wrote a blog about this … Since then the world of bookselling has changed forever. In some ways books have become more accessible in remote places. But much has been lost.

Here are a few of few of my observations from back in 2005:

• Regent Bookstore remains one of the few stores in the world, on a public university campus, that sells a wide selection of books in the area of Christian Studies.
• Regent Bookstore is non-profit and is owned and operated by Regent College. All proceeds go towards the operation of Regent College programs.
• Regent Bookstore is an employment centre for Regent students and their spouses.
• Regent Bookstore sponsors lectures by authors and speakers.

All of these observations still apply to Regent Bookstore in 2018. We remain on the UBC campus and have regular customers who are agnostics or atheists but they tend to like this place even though as a religious institution there is an invisible barrier around it in the eyes of many…

The store began in the early 1970s. The 1960s and 1970s saw a renaissance of Christian book publishing.

It is not surprising that Regent College sprang up during this time. Klaus Bockmuehl, late professor of theology at Regent, writing out of this period commented:

The printed word remains also today an ideal tool of Christian proclamation facing a powerful spirit of secularism and Godlessness: it may well again prove a sling of David for a giant doomed to destruction.

Maybe this sounds a bit grandiose today but those were the days when there was a battle for “truth.” Klaus ended his essay on books by retrieving the words of Thomas a Kempis, written 700 years before:

If he shall not lose his reward who gives a cup of cold water to his thirsty neighbor, what will not be the reward of those who by putting good books into the hands of those neighbours, open to them the fountains of eternal life?

This is a collective challenge to the Church. Many bookstores have survived by “crowd sourcing”. Thus far Regent Bookstore has not needed a fundraising campaign in order to continue on. You enable us to exist by buying books for your edification. Consider buying a book, reading it, and then passing it on to a friend. Finally, if you live afield then consider supporting us by purchasing downloads of Regent lectures at regentaudio.com. **

 

---

*Quotation source: Celebrating Bill Reimer, Regent website.
**Now through November 30th the site is offering free audio in honour of Eugene Peterson.