A Gathering in Hope

A bestselling author offers a humorous novel about a small town pastor who confronts the forces of nature in his quest to renovate the town meetinghouse.

Thanks to an unexpected windfall, Sam Gardner's congregation (with the exception of a few malcontents) is eager to expand their meetinghouse. But before building can commence, the County Environmental Board and the Department of Natural Resources put the quietus on the plan. A colony of endangered Indiana bats have made the tree beside the meetinghouse, and the meetinghouse attic, their place of hanging, mating, and living, which poses a big problem for the congregation. Aside from the fact that their fanged visitors are engaging in sinful acts on church property, until these bats leave for hibernation, Hope Friends Meeting is left without a gathering place. And when an over-zealous Leonard Fink takes matters into his own hands, he may even land himself—and Sam—in jail.

Praise for Philip Gulley

"Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor from Indiana with a charming sense of small-town life-and a shrewd sense of life in general . . . A self-deprecating narrator . . . he knows how to exaggerate in a witty way." ―The Wall Street Journal

"Gulley's work is comparable to Gail Godwin's fiction, Garrison Keillor's storytelling, and Christopher Guest's filmmaking . . . in a league with Jan Karon's Mitford series." —Publishers Weekly

"Philip Gulley is a beautiful writer." ―Charles Osgood, CBS Sunday Morning

"Gulley's stories get at the heart of the simple joys, stranger-than-fiction humor, and day-to-day drama of small-town life." ―American Profile Magazine