Is it sport or is it entertainment? As presented by World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., the most well-known promoter of professional wrestling, it is hard for the uninitiated to tell. A refuge for the very athletic, and often a breeding ground for the highly dysfunctional, professional wrestling is, in the truest sense, life on the fringes.
Headlocks and Dropkicks: A Butt-Kicking Ride through the World of Professional Wrestling chronicles sportswriter Ted A. Kluck's effort to become a professional wrestler at a popular wrestling school in the suburbs of Chicago. In training to become a wrestler, Kluck was able to delve into the traveling-circus elements of the sport and talk to the people who make it work―promoters, bookers, and the wrestlers themselves.
Wrestling has weathered manifold changes in American taste to survive and thrive as it does today. Kluck examines the tension between the good vs. evil tales that permeated wrestling in the early to mid 1980s, along with the seamy soap opera storylines that seem to drive it today. He also takes time to catch up with the biggest stars the sport has produced―some of whom have parlayed their fame into financial security and others who are currently looking to reclaim their past glory.
 • 15 illustrations

Headlocks and Dropkicks: A Butt-Kicking Ride through the World of Professional Wrestling

Politics & Social Sciences

Kluck, Ted

Social Sciences

Praeger

Join Flex on His Quest to Be Cool
Like most middle schoolers, Flex's mind is on a million different things—school, sports, friends, girls (of course), and yeah, he's thinking about God too. More than any of these thoughts, Flex is obsessed with one thing—being cool.
But how can Flex attain awesomeness when he's so amazingly average at, well...EVERYTHING?!?
Football could be his ticket out of seventh-grade obscurity, but then Coach sticks him with a boring jersey number and reassigns him to the most unglamorous position on the entire team.
His parents aren't helping, either. They won't even let him bring his iPod to school like the other kids do. At least, his parents love him and love the Lord. That's HUGE.
And just when Flex thinks life couldn't any more complicated, he finds himself suddenly drawn to KK, the mysterious drama girl. She's homeschooled and in ninth grade. KK is totally different...and a little exciting.
Will Flex ever be considered cool? In God's eyes, maybe he already is.

The Extraordinary Life of a Mediocre Jock: God, I’ll Do Anything – Just Make Me Awesome (Adventures with Flex)

Children's Books

Literature & Fiction

Harvest Kids

Can Flex Deal with the Drama? Flex is a football player, not an actor. But he can fake it if it means getting to see KK, the girl he’s dating (sort of—it’s complicated), every day after school for about a month. This play isn’t for the weak, though. First, Flex has to deal with his nemesis, Actor Boy, the guy who greets girls with kisses on either cheek. C’mon, dude. Really?!? Then there’s the whole Shakespeare thing. What was “Bill” thinking when he wrote this gobbledygook? Thou dost protest…seriously. Meanwhile KK is hanging out with Watson, the King of the Youth Group, and no amount of video game playing is going to make Flex feel okay about that. He’d better get his jealousy in check before KK checks out on him for good. But with some encouragement from Mimi and Pops (his mom and dad), a little advice from an unlikely ally, and a whole lot of truth from God’s awesome book, Flex might just turn his fear of failure into a performance befitting of the bard himself. Or at the very least, get KK to return his texts.

The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid: God, I’ll Do Anything―Just Don’t Let Me Fail (Adventures with Flex)

From the creators of the popular Happy Rant podcast comes this collection of thought-provoking and often humorous discussions of Christian culture to help you gain valuable insight and clarity into the issues that frequently divide the church.\nTed Kluck, Ronnie Martin and Barnabas Piper, hosts of the Happy Rant podcast, take their signature faith-based back-and-forth from the recording booth to the book page as they explore pastor trends, personality tests, political engagement, and more.\nThe Happy Rant crew have a lot of strong opinions, and occasionally, they even agree with one another! Candid and compelling, Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas tackle everything from the divisive issues within the church to more lighthearted fare that reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.\nAs entertaining as it is engaging, The Happy Rant will help you approach the world around you more thoughtfully and enjoy a laugh or two (or maybe three) along the way.

The Happy Rant: Wandering To and Fro Through Some Things That Don't Matter All That Much (and a Few That Really Do)

Martin, Ronnie

Piper, Barnabas

Humor & Satire

Harvest House Publishers

A Suburban Dad and an Ex Con Show What Discipleship Looks Like Ted is an educated thirty-something father of two who's been going to church his whole life. Dallas is a twenty-one-year-old former cocaine addict with a prison record who has recently become a Christian. When they agree to meet regularly for "discipleship," they know that chatting once a week in a coffee shop just won't cut it. Instead, they decide to get to know each other while restoring an old Triumph Spitfire. Filled with surprises and humor, Dallas and the Spitfire tells a gripping story of two lives changed, and along the way gives readers a new model for men's ministry.

Dallas and the Spitfire: An Old Car, an Ex-Con, and an Unlikely Friendship

Religion & Spirituality

Jahncke, Dallas

Christian Books & Bibles

Bethany House Publishers

An Honest, Hopeful Look at Christian Doubt and Disappointment Doubt often has less to do with the head than the heart. When Christians go through trials--from unmet personal expectations to the death of a loved one--they often feel like God has abandoned them, or maybe he never cared at all. Kluck and Martin walk readers through dark times in their own lives to reveal a God of love who never forsakes his children. Here is grace and hope for any believer struggling to believe.

Finding God in the Dark: Faith, Disappointment, and the Struggle to Believe

Brian Ivie was filled with compassion as he read an LA Times article about Pastor Lee’s solution to unwanted newborns in South Korea—a baby drop box. Brian traveled halfway around the world to film the documentary The Drop Box. But God had even bigger plans. For in the midst of filming the plight of these abandoned and forgotten children, Brian realized his own spiritual brokenness. At its heart, this is a story of spiritual orphans—young and old—discovering their true identity as children of God.

The Drop Box: How 500 Abandoned Babies, an Act of Compassion, and a Movie Changed My Life Forever

Ivie, Brian

David C. Cook

There’s nothing like adoption to make a grown man cry. Repeatedly. 
In this humorous and honest memoir, Ted Kluck—father, writer, and sports fan—details his adoption of his two sons from Ukraine. While not always self-flattering, his complaints and struggles will provoke laughter, some fear, and self-examination.
In the first part of his memoir, Ted reveals the chaos the Kluck’s first international adoption, the adoption of his son Tristan. He includes stories of: 
<ul>
<li>Loads of paperwork, inspections, and prayer in the United States</li>
<li>Traveling to Ukraine with tens of thousands of dollars in cash tucked in his belt </li>
<li>Unexpected waits </li>
<li>Consuming uncountable numbers of Snickers bars and soda </li>
<li>Sickness while still in Ukraine </li>
<li>Letters written to his soon-to-be son</li>
<li>God’s unending faithfulness and reflections on His adoption of believers</li>
</ul>
In the second part of his memoir—the story of Kluck’s second international adoption—new struggles arise, causing Ted to process with his readers: 
<ul>
<li>Infertility—in a church full of pregnant women and large families</li>
<li>Struggling in silence</li>
<li>Travel, again</li>
<li>Missing the comfort of the United States</li>
<li>A small amount of electrocution—the result of foreign electrical engineering</li>
<li>Spiritual depression and struggle to provide for his family </li>
<li>Complaint and trusting that God’s provision is sufficient </li>
<li>The blessing of the body of Christ</li>
</ul>
In each section of Ted’s memoir, you will feel deeply, laugh out loud, and learn. Whether you’re an adoptive parent, seeking to be an adoptive parent, or unmarried, you will enjoy and appreciate Ted’s humorous and honest stories of his adventures in adoptive fatherhood. 
“While Hello, I Love You is about the stories of two adoptions,in reality, the stories serve to show the trustworthiness of God despite impossible circumstances and the need to find contentment in his providential care.”
-Book review by John Starke on The Gospel Coalition 
An Excerpt from the Book’s Introduction:
 This book began as a journal—some spiral-bound notebooks that came with me to Ukraine the first time, and which contained letters that I wrote to Tristan during the experience. In the first half of the book, it reads like I’m addressing Tristan directly, while the second half is a more straightforward narrative of Dima’s adoption. They’re both love letters to my boys, and the whole thing is a love letter to Kristin, my wife. 
 You’ll also notice lots of frank, often sarcastic prose about cultural differences—usually with the author as the punch line, as it was my inability to deal with these differences that provided a lot of humor (in retrospect) and anger (at the time). 
 There’s also some tough content regarding infertility. If this is something you’ve struggled with in your marriage, I hope this chapter encourages you, and I hope you feel less alone in your struggle. If you’ve been blessed with biological children, please don’t feel guilty for having them, or in any way judged or made fun of by the observations in that chapter (see also: It not being you, but me). 
 Finally, the book contains lots of stories of God’s faithfulness—stories that we thought were too meaningful not to be told. Little “piles of stones” along the way that remind us of God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness. We hope that you’ll read them and not only be entertained, but be motivated to think of Christ and our adoption as His sons and daughters. It is only the love of Christ, and our hope in Him, that got us through the first, the most difficult adoption in the history of our agency’s work with Ukraine, then infertility, and finally a second adoption. And it was these adoptions, more than any other events or events in our lives, that truly taught us to find our peace, comfort, and identity in Christ.

Hello, I Love You: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood

Parenting & Relationships

Adoption

Moody Publishers

Three cheers for . . . cheating, pride, and greed? 
This book is for the avid sports fan who loves Jesus. Let’s face it: Sports—with the scandals, cheating, arrogance, and more that often accompany them—are complicated to watch. How should Christian sports fans enjoy the good in the game amidst all the bad? 
There are books on how to worship God with our marriages, our money, and our sex lives. Books on how to “think biblically” about movies, television, and the arts. Books on how to vote and how not to vote as a Christian. But there is little thoughtful, Christ-centered writing on the subject that drives most of men’s banter with each other and consumes the bulk of their free time: sports.
Learn from a Pro.
Author Ted Kluck understands these complications with being a Christian sports fan—and a Christian athlete. He played professional indoor football, coached high school football, and trained as a professional wrestler. 
He knows how to write well about sports because of these experiences and also because he watches them (dedicatedly), and has written about them. Ted’s award-winning writing has appeared in ESPN The Magazine, Sports Spectrum magazine, and on ESPN.com’s Page 2. 
Written in the vein of Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated), Chuck Klosterman (Spin, Esquire), and David Foster Wallace (A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again), The Reason for Sports will both entertain and shed light on some of today’s most pertinent sports issues (race, drugs, hero worship, and more) all through a biblical lens. 
Enjoy His Expert and Humorous Articles.
In twelve articles, Ted humorously and honestly investigates the world of sports from a Christian perspective. Through a Biblical lens, he examines topics such as: 
<ul>
<li>Jock Apologies</li>
<li>Steroids</li>
<li>Stories about famous athletes such as Mike Tyson and Tom Brady</li>
<li>Fantasy Football</li>
<li>Sports, film, sexuality, and humility</li>
<li>Racial reconciliation </li>
</ul>
Not only will you be entertained as you read this book, but also you will be trained to think Christianly about many of today’s most pertinent issues in sports. 
“There are plenty of books about Christian athletes, and plenty of books by Christian superstars. But there is precious little writing on sports from a Christian perspective. It’s amazing really. Americans are obsessed with sports, especially men, and yet Christians haven’t done much to reflect on the good and bad of sports. That’s why I love Ted’s writing. He knows sports. He’s played sports. He’s done real sports reporting. And he’s a strong Christian who knows how to write.”
Book review by Kevin DeYoung on TheGospelCoalition.com
A Short Excerpt from Ted’s Introduction: 
Sports are a huge part of the lives of American men, including church men. Our churches have informal basketball, golf, and softball leagues. Guys talk about sports in the church lobby. Yet with all the books teaching us how to worship with our marriage, our money, our “quiet times,” and our sex lives, little is written about the subject that drives most of our banter with each other and around which much of our free time revolves. 
How do we worship God with this part of our lives? How do sports help us to grow in sanctification? How do we think theologically about the myriad of moral dilemmas in sports? 
On the pages that follow, hopefully, you’ll be able to enjoy sports with me as I try to find the good in a sports world that at times has gone bad. I’m not going to try to convince you that Mike Tyson or Ricky Williams should be your spiritual guide, or that you shouldn’t cheer for Mike Vick because he drowns puppies, or that you should cheer for all American QB Tim Tebow because he etches a Bible verse on his eye-black before every game. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about all of these people. But I’ll invite you to begin formulating your own theology of sports with me.

The Reason For Sports: A Christian Fanifesto

Sports & Outdoors

Just how reformed do you think you are? With clarity of insight that comes only from firsthand experience, the authors of Kinda Christianity take on their own cultural-theological movement, offering tips and tricks for all you New Calvinists. From what to wear to who to marry (and how to court them) to what to read, Ted Kluck and Zach Bartels help you work out your reformedness with fear and trembling. “Kluck and Bartels don’t wanna talk, they wanna scream at people, but they don’t wanna listen or problem solve and that’s what’s frustrating about the dynamic of the group.”—Richard Slade, M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary “This is one of those seminal works that embodies a significant portion of our Reformed theological heritage. We all should rejoice to see this material finally available in English!”—Cory Hartman, age 12 “Demonstrates an indirect relationship and similarity between the perichoretic ‘intra divine’ communion and the complementary ‘divine-human’ relation.”—Robert Rusigliano, professional boxer; mason

Younger, Restlesser, Reformeder: A Good-Natured Roast

Humor & Entertainment

Bartels, Zach

Humor

Gut Check Press

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Books by Kluck, Ted