Writing

Heaven All Around Us: Discovering God in Everyday Life (Cascade Books, 2018)

You can order it here, here, or here.

“Simon Carey Holt hallows the everyday, revealing God’s presence in our homes and neighborhoods, in pubs and offices and sports stadiums, and supplying us with wisdom and practices for sensing God when we wake, when we sleep, when we eat, when we play, and when we work.” Michael Frost, writer and speaker, Sydney

“For every person seeking to move beyond a Sunday faith, for every busy worker and parent for whom spirituality feels out-of-reach, Simon Carey Holt is an invaluable guide. Drawing from Christian tradition and personal story, he points to God’s presence in the smallest routines, and explores how we might honor the sacred in ordinary things.” Alison Sampson, pastor and columnist, Warrnambool

“Heaven All Around Us will bust your ideas of spirituality wide open. It is a must read for everyone who has ever thought, ‘I’m just not that spiritual.’ Holt will make you think again as he peels back the surface of ordinary things to expose the thrill of God’s presence everywhere. This is a book that will enlarge your soul.” Allan Demond, pastor and writer, Melbourne

“At the same time as our dislocated and dispirited society is looking to find connection in the near and the neighborhood, so this book invites us to find God in the ‘local’ of our lives. The author enticingly encourages us to experiment with seeing matters as routine as the laundry, the making of a meal, sports, and everyday conversation as ways to nurture our spirituality. It will be freeing and stretching for many who want to grow in love and goodness.” Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, Head of Mission, Baptist Union of Victoria

“Simon Carey Holt has been at this for a very long time. From the start, his eyes have been shaped by the local and his life has been lived in the everyday. In this scurrying around for new fixes for the churches I urge you to sit quietly in your own place of living and absorb the practices Simon is proposing.” Al Roxburgh, writer and consultant, The Missional Network, Canada

Eating Heaven: Spirituality at the Table (Acorn Press, 2013)

You can order it here or here.

“In a highly readable blend of the anecdotal and the scholarly, Simon Carey Holt has demonstrated why ‘grazing with the herd’ is such a universal human practice. Our nature is relentlessly, essentially social, and the table – whether in cafe, home or church – is the place where our need of each other is most poignantly expressed.” Hugh Mackay, social researcher and author

“Eating Heaven is a soulful reflection by a man who savours Melbourne as a city. He explores it through the way people share food and table together. Through stories, reflections and recipes, this book warms the heart, feeds the body and nourishes the soul.” Tim Costello, CEO World Vision Australia

“Who doesn’t have a chequered relationship with food? Buying it, eating it, cleaning up after it. We live in a culture increasingly obsessed with ‘food porn’ but divorced from an awareness of food as a daily ritual of connection and meaning. Simon Holt cuts through the froth and bubble to sit us down at a series of tables in which the gathered experience of sharing a meal is the key to reflecting on the good life. Family, culture, community, and place are  illuminated through the lens of a coffee, a meal, a feast. Eating Heaven manages to simultaneously ground and elevate, bringing the sacred back into the everyday. Its  book for everyone who eats and wants to think a little about this daily, often unexamined, activity.  Eating Heaven will restore your faith in food and feed your faith.” Lin Hatfield Dodds, National Director, UnitingCare Australia

“This easy-to-read commentary on the everyday ritual of eating has evoked memories I’d long forgotten and simultaneously allowed me to sit at others’ tables for a while.  I’ve pondered the relationship between food and community, questioned my approach to the tables at which I sit, felt the warmth of each eating experience leap out from the pages, and reveled in the ‘realness’ of it all.” Kate Bracks, Masterchef Australia 2011

God Next Door: Spirituality and Mission in the Neighbourhood (Acorn Press, 2007)

Awarded Australian Christian Book of the Year (2008)

You can order it here or here.

“Beautifully written, easily read and full of real stories, God Next Door reminds us of how the local neighbourhood can be a place of ministry and of God’s presence.” Brian Edgar, Australian Evangelical Alliance

“… a quiet plea for churches to rediscover neighborhood not as objects of outreach programs or social service good deeds but as the real, flesh-and-bone place were God takes up residence and meets us all.” Alan Roxburgh, Allelon

“… refreshing, timely and challenging … an important book.” David Jeans, Colloquium

“A thought-provoking book that requires an immediate and practical response. … Mission isn’t just something for the sandal-and-socks-wearing missionaries that traipse halfway across the globe to take the gospel to the remote tribes of Africa. We are all called to be Christ’s hands and feet where we live.” Soul Survivor 

The Bible and the Business of Life (ATF, 2004), edited by Simon Carey Holt and Gordon Preece.

An anthology of essays celebrating the 65th birthday of Australian biblical scholar and theologian Professor Robert Banks.

“a welcome and timely contribution to Christian studies.” Midwest Book Review