With Christ In Service

With Christ in Service (2017)
By Patrick Carberry | Messenger Publications
ISBN: 9781910248706
Condition: Good (devout, gently thumbed, still on active duty)
Offered by: Crappy Old Books

If you’ve ever thought, “I’d quite like to live a more Christ-centred, service-shaped life, but I keep getting distracted by laundry, emails and mild existential dread,” then this little volume is very much your corner of the bookshelf.

With Christ in Service is Patrick Carberry’s quietly serious look at what following Christ actually looks like when you’re not a medieval mystic or a full-time hermit, but a normal human with responsibilities, receipts and people asking what’s for dinner.

So what’s inside?

Think of it as a field manual for everyday discipleship:

• Reflections on what it means to serve with Christ rather than simply for Him, which is a subtle difference but quite a big one in the fine print.

• Thoughts on prayer, action, compassion, community and all the ways we’re gently invited to be less self-absorbed and more useful.

• A tone that is more “let’s walk this together” than “be perfect by Friday or else”.

This isn’t a book of thunderous pronouncements. It’s more like a wise, mildly stubborn friend who refuses to let you give up on becoming a slightly better person.

This particular copy

• Condition: Good – which, in Crappy Old Books terms, means:

  • The cover is decent and presentable, with only light wear.

  • The spine is properly attached and not trying any resurrection tricks of its own.

  • The pages are all there, tidy and readable, with no suspiciously enthusiastic highlighting (or if there is, it’s not at “someone had an argument with the text” level).

In short: it looks like a book that has been read, not abused. Exactly right for something about service.

The vibe

Open this and you are not transported to:

• A cloud

• A megachurch light show

• A terrifying theological debate on the internet

Instead, you’re gently nudged into:

• Kitchens, workplaces, parishes, neighbourhoods—the real places where “service” actually happens

• Honest reflection about motives, actions, and the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually do

• The mildly uncomfortable but ultimately hopeful territory of “Right… so what now?”

It’s practical spirituality, not theoretical holiness: faith with walking shoes on.

Why you might genuinely want this

• You’re tired of either soggy inspiration or relentless guilt-tripping, and would like something in the saner middle.

• You suspect “service” is supposed to be more than just signing up for the rota and occasionally moving chairs.

• You appreciate Christian writing that:

  • Uses real sentences

  • Doesn’t shout

  • And isn’t obsessed with winning arguments online

• You’re quietly aware that “with Christ in service” is probably meant to describe you, not just vaguely admirable people somewhere else.

Condition vs. Calling

This copy is:

• Physically: Good – ready to withstand bags, bedside tables, kitchen tables, and being taken to church and back.

• Spiritually: mildly provocative – the sort of book that may cause you to put it down halfway through a chapter and think, “All right then… what am I actually doing?”

It’s not one of those books you buy to look pious and never open. It’s built to be used, scribbled in, revisited—an actual working companion.

Ideal for:

• People of faith who like their spirituality practical, not performative.

• Readers who are fine with being nudged, challenged and encouraged—but not shouted at.

• Anyone who finds the idea of buying With Christ in Service from a place called Crappy Old Books oddly perfect: grace, meet realism.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where the titles can be holy, the grading is honest, and the books are more interested in changing how you live than how your shelf looks.

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