Pastoral Helps
Showing 2401–2500 of 3814 resultsSorted by latest
-
This Way To Youth Ministry Companion Guide
$24.99Add to cart“Duffy Robbins’s book This Way to Youth Ministry is a foundational Introduction to youth ministry. This companion text, Embarking on the Grace Adventure, is filled with supplemental material, primarily case studies, but other resources as well. It is written by Dr Leonard Kageler, professor at Nyack College in New York, with Duffy Robbins. This companion booklet gives Robbins’s main book “legs’ and is a resource that professors and students can use to implement concepts and applications. It will assist youth ministry professors in teaching from the Robbins text and to help students engage with the text’s contents in ways that are experiential, participatory, image based, and connective. Many youth ministry professors lack contemporary and relevant youth ministry illustrations. Many have not been youth workers themselves, or, in some cases, are decades past in-the-trenches experience. Embarking on the Grace Adventure is a vital resource for educators who don’t have the time or opportunity to be practicing youth workers. Embarking on the Grace Adventure supplies case studies, discussion questions, simulations, websites, applications, relational activities and “homework assignments” in order to facilitate student involvement and engagement. At the end of every chapter, several options for processing the material are offered–a modular, user-friendly menu of choices for the instructor. The best use of Embarking on the Grace Adventure will be every student to have, and use, his/her own copies, and therefore the design includes spaces in the text to note their own responses for later sharing in class, to take note of instructors’ points, and to process discussion items. Embarking on the Grace Adventure includes a preface by Duffy Robbins; an Introduction by Len Kageler including a word to professors about how to use the book and to students about maximizing their use of it; and 10-12 pages of material for each of the 12 chapters in the Robbins text. And in each instance 8-10 pages of case studies/short examples, and 2-4 pages of discussion questions, activities, simulations, reflection exercises, etc. Embarking on the Grace Adventure “closees the circle” and form a perfect companion-piece for the foundational This Way to Youth Ministry. “
-
Practicing Congregation : Imagining A New Old Church
$29.00Add to cartDiana Butler Bass’ groundbreaking project to explore encouraging signs of vitality among mainline Protestant churches is now gaining the momentum of a movement. The author’s cover story in Sojourners magazine offers a compelling overview of what characterizes these healthy, vital, and inspiring congregations. The Practicing Congregation is a central text on the road to envisioning a new way of being a church. From Nomads to Pilgrims, its follow-up companion book, contains reflections on practices by the pastors of some of the vibrant congregations that were studied in the writing of The Practicing Congregation.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The conventional wisdom about mainline Protestantism maintains that it is a dying tradition, irrelevant to a postmodern society, unresponsive to change, and increasingly disconnected from its core faith tenets. In her provocative new book, historian and researcher Diana Butler Bass argues that there are signs that mainline Protestant churches are indeed changing, finding a new vitality intentionally grounded in Christian practices and laying the groundwork for a new type of congregation.
The Practicing Congregation tracks these changes by looking at the overall history of American congregations, noting the cultural trends that have sparked change, and providing evidence of how mainline churches are reappropriating traditional Christian practices. The signs of life that Butler Bass identifies lead the reader beyond the crumbling “liberal vs. conservative” dualities to a more nuanced and fluid understanding of the shape of contemporary ecclesiology and faithfulness. In so doing, she helps readers understand tradition in new ways and creates an alternative path through the culture wars that today arrest the energies of most denominations.
Invigorated by stories from Bass’s own experience, The Practicing Congregation provides a hopeful and exciting vision of “the once and future church” that Alban founder Loren Mead first named over 10 years ago. The imaginative “retraditioning” the author identifies and celebrates will guide pastors and other leaders on this “pilgrimage of creating church,” and convincingly counter the naysayers that long ago gave up on the viability of the mainline church.
-
Playing With Fire
$16.95Add to cartThe discipline of homiletics can be undertaken via many approaches. In Playing with Fire, David J. Schlafer offers an invitation to the art of preaching by way of metaphor. Metaphors are perhaps the best teaching techniques at our disposal, and two–fire and play–dance together across the pages of this book. Fire is multisensory and mysterious, life nurturing and life threatening, and the history of preaching is a story of sacred fire sharing. How can those called to proclaim the Gospel tend and transmit this fire? Perhaps by playing with it, by participating in God’s own sacred play.
-
Informed By Faith
$15.95Add to cartAll of us educate, teach, and form others; as Christians, the place in which this formation takes place is our community. Every waking moment offers opportunities for education, and the home especially is a place for ongoing Christian formation. At home, we equip the family to know that God is a mystery and a God of life and love, and our families can be much-needed examples of how best to struggle with what it means to know God in everyday life experiences of love, suffering, and death.
In Informed by Faith, Mark Francisco Bozzuti-Jones creates a dialogue between religious educators and parents that is designed to lead to meditation, prayer, reflection, and a new perspective on the ministry of teaching. Through examination of the history of education, education as life, and the meaning of being a Christian, Bozzuti-Jones offers those who teach a sense of refreshment in soul, mind, and body, leading to a new commitment to teaching and proclaiming God’s life and love.
-
Hidden Lives Of Congregations
$30.00Add to cartFaced with crisis, lack of direction, or just plain “stuckness,” many congregations and their leaders are content to deal only with surface issues and symptoms-only to discover that the same problems keep recurring, often in different, and more serious, ways. In The Hidden Lives of Congregations, Christian educator and consultant Israel Galindo takes leaders below the surface of congregational life to provide a comprehensive, holistic look at the corporate nature of church relationships and the invisible dynamics at play.
Informed by family systems theory and grounded in a wide-ranging ecclesiological understanding, Galindo unpacks clearly the factors of congregational lifespan, size, spirituality, and identity and shows how these work together to form the congregation’s hidden life. He provides useful tools for diagnosing and understanding how one’s congregation fits into the various categories he names and suggests what leadership skills are necessary to get beyond the impasse of surface issues and help the congregation achieve its mission.
The Hidden Lives of Congregations provides one of the most far-reaching looks into the invisible nature of faith communities written in recent years. For seminaries and divinity schools, it provides a standard text for getting a solid start in congregational practices; for experienced pastors, it provides support for renewing ministry; for lay leaders and committees, it offers insight to deepening mutual ministry. Israel Galindo has written an indispensable manual that leaders will return to repeatedly for new wisdom and guidance on the unseen mechanisms that drive congregational life.
-
Becoming Barnabas : The Ministry Of Encouragement
$28.00Add to cartWestern culture has made a cult of success, and the church has accepted the larger culture’s definition, focusing on success as growth in membership and budget, rather growth in faithfulness as disciples of Jesus. When we do not measure up, we become discouraged, disillusioned, and perhaps even envious.
Paul Moots offers a welcome antidote: a vision for the ministry of encouragement. Based on his study of the book of Acts, Moots has identified five incidents from the ministry of Barnabas, an easily overlooked character, that provide a starting point to explore encouragement and how it can work in a congregation. Moots then examines five components of this ministry: partnership, hospitality, courage, reconciliation, and authenticity.
Moots details numerous examples to show how the ministry of encouragement offers a workable, effective pattern for church leadership. “I am convinced,” he writes, “that accepting Barnabas as my model has changed my ministry for the better and that Barnabas’s example can benefit any pastor and congregation who take his lessons seriously.”
Barnabas and his ministry of encouragement offer us a focus for the vital, messy, and exhilarating work required of us as faith communities. Foreword by Robert Reber
“At last! Here is a leadership book that provides practical help for congregations of every size and setting and pastors with a variety of gifts. Drawing from his own experience as a pastor, Moots shares a model of faithful ministry that is within the reach of every pastor, layperson, and congregation.”-Rueben P. Job
“In an age when so many pastors and leaders are discouraged, no work of the Spirit is more needed or more welcome than encouragement. Moots’s book moves beyond diagnosis and actually shows readers how to ‘become Barnabas’ in ministries of partnership, hospitality, courage, and reconciliation.”-Donna Duensing
Paul Moots has served as pastor in a variety of settings in his 22 years of ministry: associate pastor, campus ministry, pastor of an urban congregation, and his current position in the village church of First United Methodist in Mount Sterling, Ohio.
-
When Better Isnt Enough
$28.00Add to cartMany sociologists and a growing number of church scholars have noted that we live in a time of transition-from the modern era to the postmodern. Whenever a shift of this magnitude occurs, it leaves all of life, including the church, in flux. We instinctively strive to stabilize the situation by re-establishing what has worked in the past. Increasingly, however, congregations are finding that the same old things done harder or better don’t seem to make a difference.
Author Jill Hudson argues, “We must identify new criteria for success, and perhaps even for faithfulness, and hold ourselves accountable to them.” Approaching the postmodern era as a tremendous opportunity, Hudson identifies 12 characteristics by which we can measure effective ministry for the early 21st century.
Based on those 12 criteria, Hudson has created evaluation tools, “an early measuring stick” to help congregations evaluate their work in this new era. Not everything of the past is ineffective and best discarded, she says, nor will everything we try in the future be successful. But by faithfully listening for God’s guidance and carefully evaluating progress using Hudson’s tools, looking at the ministry of the whole people of God as well as that of the professional staff, congregations can improve their ministry, help members and staff grow in effectiveness, deepen a sense of partnership, and add new richness to the dialogue about the congregation’s future.
Jill Hudson makes us face the hard reality that the world has changed, but the church hasn’t. This gap can create a problem when assessing the effectiveness of church leadership. Practical and easy to read and understand, this book will prove an effective new tool in assisting pastors to lead today.-Mike Regele
Our kicking and screaming aside, the postmodern church beckons, and Jill Hudson provides guidance and information to equip us for this enormous ministry challenge.-The Rev. Christine Shiber
-
Jazz Of Preaching
$20.99Add to cartWhat if preachers were as contagiously joyful in their preaching as Louis Armstrong was in his playing and singing? As rich in their sermonic renderings as Sarah Vaughan was in her musical vocals? As honest about heartache as Billie Holiday was every time she sang about the blues of life? As alluringly clear as the angelic voice of Ella Fitzgerald? As tenaciously uninhibited in the action of creating as Duke Ellington?
Of course, this is too much to ask of people, even those called by God. However, it is not too much to ask this question: Can preaching be enhanced through the metaphor of jazz? Can an understanding of the inner dynamics of jazz–its particular forms, rules, and styles–inform one’s practice of preaching as well? Can jazz’s simultaneous structure and spontaneity help preachers better understand their own art? The answer to these questions, says Jones, is an unqualified yes. He explains how one can dramatically improve one’s preaching through understanding and applying key elements of the musical art form known as jazz. No musical background is necessary; all examples are well explained and tied in with preaching.
The key elements include innovation (what one commentator refers to as “the experimental disposition of jazz”), improvisation, rhythm, call and response, honesty about heartaches, and delight. After discussing the reality and role of each of these elements in jazz, and how they can be important for preaching as well, each chapter concludes with five exercises for applying the jazz element to preaching preparation and performance.
Drawing on a deep love of jazz and enlivening the discussion with insights drawn from the realities of African American preaching, Jones introduces readers to rich and rewarding possibilities for constructing and delivering the sermon.
-
Creative Bible Lessons In 1-2 Timothy And Titus (Student/Study Guide)
$16.99Add to cartThis newest installment of the bestselling Creative Bible Lessons series provides practical faith-sustaining principles for Christian teenagers from every walk of life. These “pastoral epistles,” written by the Apostle Paul at the end of his life, give sound instruction on how to lead the young church in a world of oppression, danger, and difficulty. In twelve chapters this book covers leadership, worship, getting in shape, walking the talk, knowing your enemy, money, overcoming opposition, and the Bible.
-
Teaching That Makes A Difference
$34.99Add to cartThis comprehensive, research-informed textbook reviews all aspects of traditional and contemporary theories and experience in youth ministry, but also points to the future by analyzing youth culture and charting innovative paradigms in the art and craft of teaching. The book is fueled by the urgent need in youth ministry to better reach students, to inform them about God’s will for their lives, and to encourage change in their lives beyond the youth group setting. Features include: * Website dedicated to the book, including chats hosted by the author * Scriptural instruction on reaching the minds, hearts, and souls of students * Cultural analysis of adolescents in ministry contexts and in the larger community * Explanation of learning styles: auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic * Explanation of multiple intelligences: imaginative, analytic, common sense, dynamic * Tips on creativity: where to find ideas, list of teaching methods
-
Prayer (Student/Study Guide)
$9.99Add to cartThis book will explore and define biblical and contemporary images of prayer. All the sessions exploring prayer will be based upon God’s relationship with humans as the ground of all prayer and the essential human need to reach toward God that leads to prayer. Readers will explore definitions of prayer, a variety of scriptures that show Jesus’ teachings and practices related to prayer, methods of prayer, aids to prayer, the varieties of individual and communal words, needs, and emotions that form the content of prayer, ways people interpret answered or unanswered prayer, and the unity between prayer and human action. The book will invite readers to reflect upon questions like: Why do we pray? What is God’s role in prayer? the human role? How is God’s grace involved in prayer? What is prayer? What did Jesus teach about prayer? How do we pray? What do we pray? What is an attitude of prayer? How does God answer prayer? What difference does prayer make in our lives? Have I been praying all along? What happens in the quiet times of my week? in the busy times?
Is prayer possible in both quiet and busy times? Why do I feel like I don’t have
time to pray? Do I need to make time for prayer? How? The book will affirm
persons and groups who struggle with an understanding of prayer or with
a style of prayer. It will provide opportunities for transforming encounters with
God. -
Lifetime Of Blessing
$20.99Add to cartIn the same successful formula as ‘World of Blessing’, Geoffrey Duncan has compiled blessings from a great variety of resources to commemorate every conceivable stage of life from planning and praying for a child to bidding loved ones farewell. aaIn between there are a wide range of thanksgiving and blessing prayers for pregnancy, the birth of a baby, adoption and fostering, christening or naming ceremonies,godparents, growing up, starting school, birthdays, confirmation or church membership,friendship, love, work, leaving home, engagement, marriage, moving house, anniversaries, the big’O’s(!)and all important occasions in life-joyful or sad. aaA unique pastoral and personal resource that will be used over and over again.
-
Postmodern Childrens Ministry
$19.99Add to cartThis practical, thought-provoking book presents a new paradigm for children’s ministry in the emerging 21st century and explores how churches are currently putting that vision into practice. Advocating the need to regard children as full participants in their faith communities, the book provides strategies for building intergenerational community where children feel they belong and have the opportunity to serve.
-
Divine Distinction : The Ministry Of The Apostle The Office Of The Bishop
$10.99Add to cartIt’s very important that we use utmost sensitivity as we embrace the significant subject of apostles and bishops in the New Testament and attempt to present a biblically sound position statement. Approaching this kind of discussion with preconceived notions and closed minds could put at risk those who trust our input for divine direction. Correct interpretation of the Scriptures, not history, must be what we trust as the order of God. Church history has not always demonstrated the will of God. Where it does, it can be used as a divine pattern; where it does not, it must be replaced with the truth of God, even if it presents the challenge of accepting something different from our traditions.
-
Keys To Becoming An Effective Associate Minister And Church Leader
$14.95Add to cartJoshua Ministry Title
Hopewell shares the truths that he has discovered in his journey that will strengthen the relationship between the pastor and associate minister, and create an atmosphere that allows both to work together as a team, fulfilling God’s purpose.
-
Pastoral Protocol : A Guide To Ministerial Ethics
$15.49Add to cartEvery profession and vocation has rules that govern its operation and dictates the behaviour and conduct of its professors, so also is the church world. The ministry has ethics of behaviour different from all other professions. In this book, the minister’s relation with his church, community, opposite sex and colleagues are all spelt out. Dealing with finances, the family and denomination amongst others have also been dealt with by Dr. Agyin-Asare. Pastoral Protocol emphasises the fact that people’s opinion about God and Christianity and your own church are shaped by the ethical standards the minister maintains. Ministers of the gospel, ministers in training, aspiring Church leaders, lay church workers and in fact every individual believer who sees himself herself as part of the “universal priesthood of the believer” would benefit by this book to prevent spiritual disaster and ministry suicide. Apostle Dr. Michael Ntumy M.Th President of the Ghanna Pentecostal Council, Chairman of the Church of Pentecost I thorougly enjoyed this book “Pastoral Protocol”. It is one of the best I have ever read on this subject. Every minister should read it. Bishop Paul E. Paino D.D., Th.D, D.Lt. Carol Road Christian Fellowship Fort Wayne, Indiana
-
Postmodern Life Cycle
$24.99Add to cart“Friedrich Schweitzer is knowledgeable of both European and American cultural shifts into postmodernity. This well-written account of the impacts of media saturation, the relativization of religious authority, and the rapid global emergence of varieties of spiritual orientations and practices, is the first of its kind. Schweitzer’s knowledge of practices of faith and his mastery of the available research literature on posmodern conditions make this work indispensable for religious leaders, students of postmodernity, and a broad reading public. A great achievement!”
-
Moderatism Pietism And Awakening
$58.99Add to cartThe Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church is a multivolume study by Hughes Oliphant Old that explores the history of preaching from the words of Moses at Mount Sinai through modern times. In Volume 5, Moderatism, Pietism, and Awakening, Old brings the story of preaching up through the eighteenth century, showing how, after the tumultuous age of the Reformation, preaching in the eighteenth century was driven in several very different directions. The book’s first chapter considers moderatism, an inevitable reaction against the high tensions of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. In the second chapter Old discusses pietism, examining the contributions of Philipp Jakob Spener, Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Samuel Davies, and other preachers. The remaining seven chapters delve into a variety of national or denominational schools of preaching.
-
Word Made Plain
$27.00Add to cartPreaching mediates the word of God into a cultural matrix. And no American preaching has done so more effectively and powerfully than African American preaching, claims noted homiletician James Harris. Known for its rhetorical strength, social-justice orientation, and dead-on connection to the community’s lived experience, black preaching is here analyzed and proposed as a model for all preaching.
Harris grounds black preaching in the self-understanding of the historic black church and its most prominent preachers, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Samuel Proctor. Harris also explores the hermeneutical and aesthetic dimensions of preaching, especially at the intersection of sacred text and the broader culture. He then lays out the specific distinguishing characteristics of black preaching, including verbal cadence and rhythm, use of gestures, and, most thoroughly, the narrative model of the sermon. His last chapter, “Preaching Plainly,” provides specific instructions on how to put the sermon together employing this model. -
Raising Up Young Heroes
$22.99Add to cartYouth ministry is about much more than Sunday night Bible study and lock-ins. It’s about changing the lives of youth and empowering young heroes to change their world. Here is a model for holistic ministry that addresses all the needs of students–body, soul and spirit. Powerful stories from the author’s urban, multiethnic context shape the context of this book, while the principles within are designed to serve the whole body of Christ.
-
Experiential Youth Ministry Handbook
$24.99Add to cartThis handbook offers more than eighty activities youth workers can use to help students connect. It also offers twenty-one examples of specific program sequences that show how these activities can be used intentionally to become more than just games. Additionally, seven templates for specific contexts common in youth ministry enable youth workers to adapt the activities into an infinite number of program combinations.
-
Growth By Accident Death By Planning
$21.99Add to cartA congregation that had been growing in numbers and spiritual vitality reaches a plateau, and then begins to decline. What has happened? Whitesel explains where churches go wrong planning for growth and how they can correct themselves by looking at three related phenomena: the factors that cause initial growth; the erroneous decisions that lead to getting stuck on the plateau; and corrective steps they can take to regain growth and vitality.
-
Ducking Spears Dancing Madly
$19.99Add to cartLeadership among God’s people is not a matter of easy answers or simple solutions. There is no foolproof list of character traits that one can acquire and develop in order to be a successful leader. Authentic leadership is a complex interaction of the leader’s gifts and calling, the people’s needs and response, the particular situation of the moment, and, above all, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Birch and Parks believe if we wish to understand the intricate and messy character of leadership in the church, the obvious place to start is Scripture. The Bible portrays leaders not as heroes placed on a pedestal, but rather as flawed and fallen human beings who nonetheless work with the people around them and with the situation at hand to move toward accomplishing the will of God.
Ducking Spears, Dancing Madly is a penetrating look at church leadership through the stories of Saul, David, and other central Old Testament figures. The authors demonstrate that those who have a clear and honest understanding of the triumphs and flaws of the individuals who lead God’s people in Scripture will be better prepared to lead God’s people today. In order to provide that understanding, they engage in a dialogue with the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, texts that portray the people of Israel in frequent social and political transition, and hence in need of effective leadership.
-
More Movie Based Illustrations For Preaching And Teaching
$14.99Add to cartPreachers and teachers recognize that movies are having a powerful voice in influencing the thoughts and ideas of modern Americans. Therefore, increasing numbers of preachers/speakers are using video movie clips or verbal references to contemporary movie scenes in church services and classrooms. But how do they find an appropriate movie to relate to a particular theme or text? Using the extensive indexes in More Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching will enable them to refer to illustrations in context and even locate where the clip can be found. The illustrations are contemporary and provide extended descriptions of the settings and dialogue for the selected scenes. Ninety to ninetyfive percent of these illustrations have never before appeared in print. Purchasers of the book will also receive a free threemonth subscription to Christianity Today’s PreachingToday.com. This useful reference tool will help any preacher or speaker find moving illustrations to connect with today’s audiences and reinforce biblical truths.
-
Right Road : Life Choices For Clergy
$17.00Add to cartMany clergy are in startlingly bad health. Not only do they regularly report depression, stress, and serious family and financial problems, they also exhibit higher than normal incidences of obesity, high cholesterol levels, inactivity, high blood pressure, and heart disease. How effective can professionals in ministry be with such debilities and vulnerabilities? Are clergy too busy helping others to take care of themselves?
Gwen Halaas’s caring and savvy book addresses clergy health directly: clergy have a spiritual as well as physical need to care for themselves, to live to the fullest, to ensure that they enjoy the life and gifts God gave them. Building her brief, practical book around the wellness wheel, Halaas emphasizes not just healthy eating but a whole array of life-affirming choices for clergy. Halaas provides the tools for clergy to choose growth and well-being over burnout and decline. With this practical and upbeat volume, clergy can begin to put their own lives in perspective and ‘keep [themselves] in training for a godly life’ (1 Timothy 4:7).
-
Bored With God
$18.99Add to cartIVP Print On Demand Title
In this book, Sean Dunn catalogs what he’s seen of apathy in his ministry to youth. Teenagers can be frustratingly sleepy in their faith, but once these slumbering giants are awakened to a life with God, they can apply virtually tireless energy to the problems of a world bored with God. And their energy is particularly contagious.
-
Family Based Youth Ministry (Revised)
$26.99Add to cartDisappointed with the results from the glitzy programs and entertaining activities you’ve used with your church’s young people? Try Mark DeVries’s newly revised Family-Based Youth Ministry for a multigenerational approach that takes seriously the job of discipling teens and building mature believers. You’ll learn how to involve not just the nuclear family but the entire church body, from singles to seniors. Includes a bonus curriculum for youth and adults.
-
Spiritual Direction And The Care Of Souls
$30.99Add to cartGary W. Moon and David G. Benner, along with a team of expert contributors, provide a comprehensive survey of spiritual direction in its myriad Christian forms. Specific chapters offer careful historical perspective and contemporary analysis of how Christians from various backgrounds have practiced spiritual direction, with particular attention to each tradition’s definition of spiritual direction, the process of authentic transformation, the role of the spiritual direction, indicators of mature spirituality and other aspects of the spiritual direction process. Chapters also provide psychological and clinical insight into how spiritual direction is similar to, different from and can be integrated with psychotherapy and pastoral counseling. Spiritual direction holds the potential to revolutionize how soul care is practiced in our troubled society. This volume is an extraordinary resource for understanding and helping others experience spiritual transformation and union with God.
-
Multicultural Ministry : Finding Your Churchs Unique Rhythm
$24.99Add to cartAn inspiring and practical guide for learning how to transition from a unicultural to multicultural church The changing ethnic face of America will increasingly require evangelicals to minister to people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds, including AfricanAmericans, Hispanics, Asians, and others. In Multicultural Ministry, author and pastor David Anderson provides practical ideas to show how both new and existing churches can embrace greater cultural diversity and discover their unique rhythm. Anderson shares many stories from his experiences in planting Bridgeway Community Church, a successful multicultural church that has grown to about 1,500 people, half of whom are AfricanAmerican, 30 percent are Caucasian, and about 15 percent are from other racial and ethnic groups. This book provides transferable principles and practical ideas adaptable for churches of any size and setting. Features include: *How to discover your church’s unique rhythm and identify where you are on the racial reconciliation continuum, and move forward along the continuum *How to move from stadiumlevel repentance to strategylevel realities *Scriptural basis for multicultural ministry *Inspiring stories, specific howto’s, and dangers to avoid
-
Preaching The Calendar
$25.00Add to cartPastors face a perennial challenge of knowing how to treat special days in the calendar. For days marked in the church year, the challenge is how to speak a fresh word about a familiar theme or story. For days marked in the civil calendar, the challenge is to discern within secular celebrations appropriate connections with the Christian gospel. In Preaching the Calendar, masterful preacher Ellsworth Kalas discusses the importance of embracing holidays and special days as occasions when sermons can enlarge and deepen spiritual yearnings. His words of wisdom demonstrate how this type of preaching can be done well and serve as valuable sources of stories and sermon illustrations for pastors eager to help people find new and renewed relationships with God.
-
Glory Of The Atonement
$55.99Add to cartThe Glory of the Atonement offers a wide selection of essays by notable scholars in the Reformed tradition presented in honor of Roger Nicole. Divided into three sections-biblical, historical and practical-the essays include Scriptural exegesis of important atonement passages, studies in historical theology examining particular Christian thinkers and eras, and probing inquiries into the practical implications of the doctrine in the Christian life and in contemporary preaching. This insightful and wide-ranging volume includes contributions from Henri Blocher, D.A. Carson, Timothy George, Bruce McCormack, J.I. Packer, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Bruce Waltke, all of whom, examine the atonement from their respective fields of expertise. Although the doctrine of the atonement has fallen under strong criticism in recent times, this volume offers constructive proposals and exegetical foundations for understanding some of its major facets, applying those insights to Christian living, and recapturing the awe of this wondrous doctrine.
-
Raising The Bar
$20.99Add to cartTwo-thirds of today’s teens are interested in having a meaningful relationship with God, yet less than one-third of them are active in a local church. Alvin Reid – an experienced pastor and youth ministry speaker – suggests that these statistics indicate that it is time to change how the church does youth ministry.
Today’s generation of teens is marked by teamwork, authenticity, and a “can – do” attitude. They have incredible potential and a desire to be taught how to be Christian adults. This compelling book provides an impassioned plea for the church to set their standards higher, to reinvent the fundamental ways we minister to teens and their families.
-
Max Q Student Journal (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartAre you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? Are you willing to use your influence to impact others? Are you able to live the life you were designed for? Max Q: Just seconds after launch, any spacecraft intent on leaving the earth’s atmosphere must pass through it. It cannot be avoided. Successfully passing through Max Q requires that every system be executed at the right time and in the right way. That every person operate at peak capacity and that the integrity of the spacecraft is strong and functional.
You live in a world that tests you in the very same way. The pressures you face from both inside and out can sometimes push you to your limits. This dynamic book will help you not only withstand the pressure but actually excel through it. It will teach you how to be light in dark places and how to stand firm in your faith. More than that, it will show you how to turn the pressures of this life into opportunities to be influential without being negatively influenced yourself.
With the help of this book, you will do more than merely withstand the pressure. You will be a powerful force for good among your friends. Are you up for it?
-
Bivocational Pastor : Two Jobs One Ministry
$15.99Add to cartSucceed in bi-vocational ministry. Bi-vocational ministers face unique challenges. Often times, you are called to lead smaller churches with few resources, many of which have plateaued or are in decline is looked at by some as a “second-class” ministry performed by people who do not have the opportunity to serve a larger church. Along with your family and church responsibilities, your second job also requires a large amount of time each week.
But you have a special calling, as both of your jobs can provide opportunities for ministry. In his new book, Dennis Bickers provides solid advice to help you succeed in bi-vocational ministry. You’ll learn how to:
*Manage time wisely
*Define success on your own terms
*Develop a vision for your church
*Maintain a passion for the ministry
*And much more! -
3 Months With Revelation (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartAvailable in English for the first time, Three Months with Revelation is popular author Justo Gonzalez’ study of Revelation. Eminently readable, the study uses the see-judge-act method to bring readers closer to the text and informs and challenges the daily life of the Christian. These thirteen studies can be used for Sunday school, for evening Bible study, for home study meetings, for faith communities, for retreats, and for personal Bible study. In addition, Three Months with Revelation can easily be used as a daily Bible study, as each lesson is divided into seven parts. This is the third Gonzalez title to be translated from the Spanish
-
Family (Student/Study Guide)
$9.99Add to cartWhat, exactly, is a family? Is it a married couple with 2.3 children, a dog, and a minivan? Couples without children? Single adults? Friends> Church groups? Colleagues? The notion of “family” encompasses these forms and more. In this study, family is shaped and nurtured by our relationship with God, a relationship that encourages mutual growth in love of God, self, and neighbor through our interactions with those whom we identify as “family.” This resource helps users explore their questions about family with insights, images, and stories from Scripture. Each session delves into specific issues about family and contains suggestions about how an individual or group can use the session ot look at family form a Christian perspective.
-
Hate Work
$35.00Add to cart1. Many Ways Of Hating : A Spectrum Of Hates
2. Transforming Moment : Breakthrough To Empathy
3. Learning To Hate : Hate Taught And Caught
4. Hate And Memory : Living Out The Past
5. Hate And The Shadow : Exploring The Soul
6. Demon Of The Absolute : The Need To Be Right
7. Ultimate Triumph Of Hate : The Horror Of The Holocaust
8. Fear Of The Other : The Faces Of The Enemy
9. Justice Mercy And Hate : Contempt Becomes CompassionAdditional Info
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the word hate is being used in our society more than ever, argues respected teacher and author David Augsburger, yet we still most often see hate in others and refuse to see it in ourselves. This book is at once a psychological, theological, and sociological analysis of hate and an argument for moving from hatred to compassion in our dealings with others.Augsburger explores the different levels of hate, which he believes range across a continuum, from extremely destructive to constructive patterns of hating. As he discusses how it is possible for hatred to become compassion, Augsburger helps the reader understand hate as it operates in ourselves and in others, and he proposes a path to help us move away from violent expressions of hate.
-
On Being A Priest Today
$16.95Add to cartThis important book on priestly identity embraces the many contemporary and denominational varieties of priestly ministry; male and female, paid and unpaid, parish and work-based, catholic, evangelical, charismatic. Examining the “root,” the “shape,” and the “fruit” of priestly identity, On Being a Priest Today is essential reading for priests, priests in training, and everyone considering the ministry. Part One “roots” a priest’s human and church life in the theological convictions derived from the Christian understanding of God as being for and with others. Part Two explores the “shape” of priestly life in relation to worship, word, and prayer, each supported by the three key virtues of love, faith, and hope. Part Three examines the “fruit” of priestly life by focusing on three fundamental features of priestly identity: holiness, reconciliation, and blessing.
-
Making Your Childrens Ministry The Best Hour Of Every Kids Week
$22.99Add to cartPromiseland is Willow Creek’s highly successful children’s ministry. Using examples from Promiseland and churches of all sizes around the country, this book provides stepbystep guidance and creative application exercises to help churches develop a thriving children’s ministry_one that strives to be the best hour of every kid’s week. Included are Scripturebased principles and practical resources for church staff members and volunteers who agree with the critical role children’s ministry plays in a local church. Making Your Children’s Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kid’s Week, based on twentyeight years of experience at Willow Creek, explains four ministry foundations: Mission, Vision, Values, and Strategy. Content includes: Detailed answers to questions facing every children’s ministry: *What does Jesus expect from children’s ministry? *How can we evangelize lost kids and disciple saved kids at the same time, and should we? *How do we engage kids so they don’t become bored? *How do we get better at recruiting and leading volunteers? *How can our ministry be a safe place for children? *Six specific ministry values that address the needs of today’s children *Practical first steps for ministries that want to get serious about change *Clear indicators of success in children’s ministry
-
Do I Know What The Bible Says
$21.99Add to cartYour youth group is like no other-so a cookie-cutter curriculum just won’t do. With a single book you have the basics for 15 complete sessions-and you can put it all together in a way that works for you. Each topic has been developed by ministry experts to be teen-relevant and spiritually enriching. Each five-session book also includes a 14-point plan for customizing your program, a selection of ice breakers, thought provokers, reproducible handouts, and an encouraging how-to article from well-known youth ministry experts!
Do I Know What the Bible Says?
In the Beginning…What?–The Bible Talks about Creation (Fresh approach to the topic of creation. Kids will explore issues like beginning of creativity, significance of divine rest, introduction of God’s plan for humankind.)
O.T Speedway–A Zip Through the Old Testament (Takes kids on a whirlwind tour of O.T. Along with creation, covenants, and colorful characters, they’ll see the big picture–that God takes an interest in them and wants to help them make some history of their own.)
N.T. Speedway–A Zip through the New Testament (Fast-track tour of the N.T. Explore the miracles and parables of Jesus, exciting adventures of early believers. Kids will discover the truths of Christianity are as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago.)
-
Ministry Of Childrens Education
$22.00Add to cartThis highly anticipated resource establishes the importance of children’s education to the life of today’s faith communities. A very readable textbook, The Ministry of Children’s Education presents foundations for education in the faith, explores contexts in which contemporary faith is nurtured, and suggests practical helps for creating programs that work in congregations.
-
Educating For Shalom
$30.99Add to cartIn addition to his notable work as a premier Christian philosopher, Nicholas Wolterstorff has become a leading voice on faith-based higher education. This volume gathers the best of Wolterstorff’s essays from the past twenty-five years dealing collectively with the purpose of Christian higher education and the nature of academic learning.
Integrated throughout by the biblical idea of shalom, these nineteen essays present a robust framework for thinking about education that combines a Reformed confessional perspective with a radical social conscience and an increasingly progressivist pedagogy. Wolterstorff develops his ideas in relation to an astonishing variety of thinkers ranging from Calvin, Kuyper, and Jellema to Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant to Weber, Habermas, and MacIntyre. In the process, he critiques various models of education, classic foundationalism, modernization theory, liberal arts, and academic freedom.
-
Ordination : Celebrating The Gift Of Ministry
$34.99Add to cartFor graduating seminary students, Stephen Sprinkle has written a practical theological guide for preparing for ordination in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ, American Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), and other closely related denominations. He provides a theology of what ordination is and what it means to the person being ordained, to the life of the church at large, and to the congregation gathered for the celebration. Sprinkle includes “hands-on” practical guidance on how to plan the service, plus samples of ordination services from each of the four traditions.
-
What Is Chrysalis
$4.99Add to cartIn Chrysalis, a metamorphosis begins for young people, a transformation from a taught faith to a faith of their own.
This booklet will introduce you to the ideas behind Chrysalis, as well as help you know what to expect during the event. It’s ideal for potential participants and church leaders considering the program.
Chrysalis offers spiritual renewal to young people through a 3-day experience and follow-up. Open to older high school students (sophomores through seniors) and young adults (ages 19-24) of any Christian denomination, Chrysalis is an exciting 3 days of experiencing God’s love in a fresh new way.
As a former participant has said, “The Chrysalis weekend was a wonderful experience that helped bridge my childlike faith to the vital and intense spiritual hunger I have as an adult.”
-
Emerging Worship : Creating Worship Gatherings For New Generations
$26.99Add to cartWhere are the 18-35 year olds? Churches are aging, and even among mega-churches with all the tech and big crowds there are generations now missing. Churches need to incorporate alternative services for emerging generations! Here’s why: 1) New models and methods are needed for new generations 2) Postmodern ministry requires a different missionary approach 3) Blended services are not generally effective today 4) Intergenerational community does not happen by sitting in the same service 5) Church congregations naturally age and must plan for long-term health and life 6) Sharing facilities honors God and makes wise usage of finances In a very conversational, narrative, and full-of-anecdotes tone (from author Dan Kimball’s own experience at Graceland), he will help guide church leaders on how to create alternative services from start to finish. Kimball will cover areas such as developing a prayer team, evaluating your local mission field and context, determining the leader and vision-based team, why youth pastors are usually ideal staff to start a new service, determining the values will you hold to that will be different from rest of the church, and asking the critical questions before you start. In addition, Kimball offers nine models—-Life-stage outreach service, service for “young adults,” multi-Congregational, teaching Model Approach, video Services with different music, Church within a Church, Church Services that are birthed within and plant, Youth Churches, and Church service plants—as well as several real-life examples of each, so the reader can more easily relate to these models. Finally, several of the profiled church services will appear on a DVD in the back of the book. Here’s an outline: Starting New Services within Your Church For Emerging Generations Chapter 1: The problem today: Where are all the 18-35 year olds? Raising the big felt need. Where are the 18-35 year olds? Churches are aging, and even among mega-churches with all the tech and big crowds there are generations now missing. Chapter 2: Reasons why we should start new services within a church Building a case for why these services are good options for churches to explore. 1)New models and methods are needed for new generations 2)Postmodern ministry requires a different missionary approach 3)Blended services are not generally effective today
-
Preaching Hebrews
$15.95Add to cartThe Rochester College Sermon Seminar and the series of books it has inspired have been built on the conviction that Christian preaching today needs revision. Such reforming begins with a close and faithful reading of Scripture, an engagement so serious that the world of Scripture ultimately sets agendas and invents expectations for meaningful life…In this present volume, too, we wish to grant the book of Hebrews the opportunity to pull all of us into the world it envisions, allowing it the power to judge, convict, and form us into a community God desires. This is not an easy task for several reasons, most notably the fact that the world of Hebrews is quite alien from our own…Like previous volumes in the Rochester Lectures on Preaching, the current work is divided into two parts. The first is a collection of four related essays meant to orient the reader to the world clearly conceived in Hebrews. The second half appropriates this orientation with sermons for particular Christian congregations.
-
Practicing Passion : Youth And The Quest For A Passionate Church
$30.99Add to cartFocusing on the theological resonance between the Passion of Christ and adolescents’ experience of passion, the author develops a framework for youth ministry that draws on the historic practices of the Christian community as a “curriculum of passion”.
-
Preaching As Prophetic Calling
$20.95Add to cartPreaching as Prophetic Calling is the twelfth in a series of books devoted to presenting examples of preaching excellence from parishes throughout the Episcopal Church. This volume addresses the difficult and essential area of preaching a prophetic word. What does a prophetic sermon look like without being shrill, and without being filled with “musts,” “oughts,” and “shoulds”? This collection of sermons includes examples of prophetic preaching that are visionary and that speak in ways that offer radical comfort as well as radical challenge.
-
Short Term Spiritual Guidance
$18.99Add to cartA significant departure from other treatments, this unique resource combines deep appreciation for the great classic discipline of spiritual guidance with a very practical focus on meeting the specific needs of the person seeking direction. Through case studies, sample dialogues, and practical tips for the spiritual director, Bidwell’s lucid work shows what directors can learn from the short-term therapy model, enabling people briefly but effectively to listen for God’s presence and to formulate authentic responses. He also shows how such techniques can be helpfully applied not only to individual direction but to group settings, vocational discernment, and family counseling.
-
Global House Church Movement
$13.99Add to cartA major church shift is happening all around the world. God is once again bringing back the power and simplicity of New Testament style Christianity. The Lord is raising up the global house church movement. Do you want to reach your friends and your nation with an approach to church life and church planting that is biblical and effective? If so, read this book. “This is an excellent, scholarly and pastoral introduction into the fascinating phenomenon of the house church movement.”-Wolfgang Simson
-
Windows For Life
$15.95Add to cartWhether you’re looking for a great collection of sermon illustrations, or just want to enjoy reading amusing and inspiring anecdotes drawn from a lifetime in the ministry, Windows For Life is a fascinating book you’ll want to include in your library. In this companion to his popular Windows For Sermons, Don Yocom shares a treasure trove of humorous and insightful stories on a wide range of topics. Each “window” sheds light on faith and life, and is an excellent source of material for preaching and teaching. And a convenient topical index makes it easy to quickly locate items on a specific subject.
-
What Does The Lord Require
$16.95Add to cartContemporary life is filled with a host of contentious moral and social issues. There are many thorny topics, both personal and political, which bring out a cacophony of opinions that can overwhelm us. While we are inundated with questions, there often seem to be no clear answers. So how should we respond? As Christians, we must constantly ask ourselves, “What does the Lord require of me?”
In this outstanding collection of meditations, James Killen examines many of today’s hot-button issues with an eye toward helping readers think through their beliefs and responsibilities. Mindful of our call to live in faithfulness to God’s purpose, each essay draws on the Bible and the Christian faith to discern how God would have us respond to the emerging situations of our world’s history.
What Does The Lord Require? is topical, inspiring reading — and with thoughtful discussion questions at the end of each meditation, it’s an excellent resource for adult classes or study groups, as well as for a sermon series that is sure to connect with congregations.
Among the issues addressed are:
* religious pluralism
* economic justice
* materialism
* environmental stewardship
* gender roles
* suicide
* abortion
* personal integrity
* homosexuality
* AIDS
* race relations
* war -
Come Follow Me Student Book (Revised)
$19.95Add to cartAcolytes can be much more than just cute little kids who light and extinguish the candles on Sunday morning — they have a very important role as congregational worship leaders. But acolytes can only fulfill that responsibility if they understand what worship is, why it is important, and how we do it.
Come, Follow Me is an excellent teaching tool that helps prepare young people to become effective acolytes. It provides a thorough overview of worship — its specifics, its history, and its significance. Students will grow in knowledge and faith as they learn about the meaning of worship, the sanctuary, ritual and liturgy, Christian symbols, and the sacraments.
The teacher’s guide of this completely revised and updated edition includes extensive aids, such as practical suggestions on how to organize an acolyte program, a brief service of consecration, and several quizzes and tests that can be used “as is” or adapted to individual needs. And the material for students is presented in clear, easy-to-understand language appropriate for junior high age youth. Each chapter also includes a brief “How Much Do You Remember?” summary that facilitates review.
-
Come Follow Me Teachers Guide (Revised)
$17.95Add to cartAcolytes can be much more than just cute little kids who light and extinguish the candles on Sunday morning — they have a very important role as congregational worship leaders. But acolytes can only fulfill that responsibility if they understand what worship is, why it is important, and how we do it.
Come, Follow Me is an excellent teaching tool that helps prepare young people to become effective acolytes. It provides a thorough overview of worship — its specifics, its history, and its significance. Students will grow in knowledge and faith as they learn about the meaning of worship, the sanctuary, ritual and liturgy, Christian symbols, and the sacraments.
The teacher’s guide of this completely revised and updated edition includes extensive aids, such as practical suggestions on how to organize an acolyte program, a brief service of consecration, and several quizzes and tests that can be used “as is” or adapted to individual needs. And the material for students is presented in clear, easy-to-understand language appropriate for junior high age youth. Each chapter also includes a brief “How Much Do You Remember?” summary that facilitates review.
-
Dancing The Sacraments
$17.95Add to cartThe sacraments of baptism and communion are foundational acts of the Christian faith — in addition to affirming God’s grace, they have the power to transform us in the living presence of the Almighty. Elaine Ward believes that the sacraments also “enable us to become aware of the holy.” Dancing The Sacraments is an extensive collection of 20 complete worship services that will help congregations experience the holiness in these rituals.
Each thematically unified service provides the framework for a celebration of communion or baptism, and includes:
* a sermon
* a children’s message (with brief talking points to reinforce the theme)
* scripture readings
* hymns
* a complete set of prayers
There’s also original poetry, plus an informative discussion of ways to help children understand the symbolism of the sacraments, including suggestions for specific activities. Renew the power and potency of your baptism and communion services — Dancing The Sacraments gives you a wealth of inventive material for observing them with awe and reverence.
-
Paradise Restored
$12.95Add to cart“Children’s time” — a brief lesson specifically targeted for preschool and elementary age youngsters — is an important part of the Sunday morning worship service in many churches today. But many of those who are called upon to provide these lessons feel too intimidated to write their own material. Pastors, children’s ministry leaders, and Sunday school teachers who need fresh, exciting messages that captivate their young people will find that this collection of easy-to-prepare lessons is just what the doctor ordered.
Geared toward the typical age range of the “children’s time” audience — toddlerhood to age 13 — Ping-Pong Words is a valuable resource for anyone who presents children’s sermons or devotionals. Each of the 31 lessons is scripture-based and runs 3-5 minutes in length, and many include demonstrations using simple visual aids such as ping-pong balls, family pictures, a flashlight, and clothespins to illustrate common precepts in ways that clearly communicate God’s Word to young ears, eyes, and hearts. The lessons are flexible, and can be incorporated into a variety of churches and ecumenical settings. Appropriate for Sunday school, worship services, religious schools and day care programs, Bible clubs, and anywhere else where young people gather to learn about God, this volume is certain to earn a trusted place on the bookshelf.
-
Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series 7 Cycle C
$38.95Add to cartDelivering a fresh, timely reflection every week on assigned scripture passages is a formidable challenge for even the most resourceful preacher. So when you’re short on time or need creative ideas to jump-start your sermon preparation, the newest edition of this classic CSS resource is just what the doctor ordered! Prominent pastor, former seminary president, and prolific author Jerry Schmalenberger draws on the experience of a lifetime in the ministry to help you prepare vital, incisive messages that are sure to connect with the people in your pews. The Lectionary Preaching Workbook explores a variety of approaches for Cycle C lectionary passages, providing you with plenty of practical aids for effectively proclaiming God’s Word.
Each chapter includes:
* a listing of the applicable Revised Common, Roman Catholic, and Episcopal lectionary texts;
* a theme for the day’s service;
* commentary on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel lessons;
* suggestions on preaching possibilities;
* an outline of possible sermon moves;
* a prayer for the day; and
* additional illustrations to flesh out the message. -
Worship Resources For Special Sundays
$12.95Add to cartHere’s a practical collection of thoughtful material to help you celebrate several special occasions during the fall and winter months: Rally Day, Reformation Sunday, All Saints’ Day, Thanksgiving, Advent, and Youth Sunday. Included are:
* The Saga Of Bobby Wildgoose, a service and sermon specifically tailored for the fall kick-off of Sunday school and commissioning of new Sunday school teachers. The message relates the inspirational story of the beginnings of the Sunday school movement, illustrating the difference that one person can make in the lives of young people.
* Facing The 21st Century With A 16th Century Faith, a message and service for Reformation Sunday that examines what motivated Martin Luther in his disagreements with the established church and suggests that Luther’s ideas about the authority of the Bible, the priesthood of all believers, and justification by faith alone remain the durable bedrock of our Christian faith today.
* Running With The Cloud, a stirring All Saints’ Day sermon and service reminding us that we who are living are only a small segment of the church universal, and noting that we can draw great strength from the lives of the “saints” who have gone before us.
* A Solid Place To Stand, a Thanksgiving message and service that explores how the Bible’s promise of God’s presence with us gives us a firm foundation to base our lives on.
* The Measure Of A Man, A Heart Prepared, Night Watch, and Tidings, a set of four first-person monologue sermons for Advent that tell the old, old story with a twist. We see the birth of the Christ child unfold through the eyes of Joseph, the innkeeper’s wife, a shepherd, and an angel. Key Advent themes such as watching, preparation, and righteous action are raised as each character struggles to make sense of extraordinary events.
* A Youth Sunday worship service with a charming children’s story honoring the presence and participation of the church’s young people. The service celebrates their fresh vision and courage in risking, praying, and creating the future.
-
Heroes Of The Faith Speak
$12.95Add to cartLearn the fascinating stories of seven historical and biblical personages in this wide-ranging collection of first-person monologue sermons from the pen of popular CSS author Stephen Crotts. Perfect for presentation from the pulpit, these delightfully creative pieces are excellent for varying routine preaching fare or covering pastoral vacations. And the concise biographical portraits also make informative programming for men’s, women’s, or youth groups, as well as inspiring devotional reading.
Characters profiled include:
* William Bradford
* Christopher Columbus
* Martin Luther
* Saint Patrick
* Saint Nicholas
* Paul
* The Tenth Leper (from the parable in Luke 17:11-19) -
Sermons On The Second Readings Series 1 Cycle C
$41.95Add to cartWherever you are in your walk with Christ, this anthology offers practical, scripture-based wisdom as well as delightfully serendipitous surprises on every page. Three outstanding preachers from diverse denominations provide a complete set of sermons for each Sunday and major celebration throughout the Christian year based on the Second Reading from Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary. Weaving together illustrations that enlighten the mind and warm the heart with fresh insight into New Testament epistle texts, these creative messages invite you to experience God’s presence anew. Each biblically grounded sermon draws on a deep understanding of the human condition, reaffirming the hope that is ours through Jesus Christ and challenging you to a more intense faith relationship with the Almighty.
This is an essential resource that’s useful for:
* Fresh homiletical approaches to the lectionary texts
* Preaching illustrations
* A clearer understanding of scripture passages
* Adult study and discussion groups
* Personal devotions and Bible study on each Sunday’s readings -
Sermons On The Gospel Readings Series 1 Cycle C
$38.95Add to cartFull of gripping illustrations that bring the scriptures to life, this anthology of sermons for the entire church year offers readers a treasure trove of spiritual guidance. Five distinguished preachers representing a variety of denominations and ministry settings contribute messages based on gospel texts for each Sunday and major celebration in Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary. Their thoughtful meditations proclaim the Good News for today’s world and exemplify the transforming power of God’s Word in our lives. Unforgettable in their power and biblical witness, these sermons provide readers with strength, support, and a Christ-centered vision.
This is an essential resource that’s useful for:
* Fresh homiletical approaches to the lectionary texts
* Preaching illustrations
* A clearer understanding of scripture passages
* Adult study and discussion groups
* Personal devotions and Bible study on each Sunday’s readings -
Sermons On The First Readings Series 1 Cycle C
$42.95Add to cartFilled with wit, insight, and inspiration, this anthology includes sermons for every Sunday and major celebration throughout the Christian year based on the First Readings from Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary. Three outstanding preachers from diverse denominational backgrounds interpret texts from the Old Testament and Acts in fresh ways that proclaim the Good News for the 21st century. Their powerful messages remind us that the Hebrew scriptures are much more than just ancient history and explore what they mean for us today. Proclaiming timeless themes of justice and righteousness, as well as God’s faithful covenant and enduring forgiveness, these imaginative homilies call us to lead better, more God-centered lives.
This is an essential resource that’s useful for:
* Fresh homiletical approaches to the lectionary texts
* Preaching illustrations
* A clearer understanding of scripture passages
* Adult study and discussion groups
* Personal devotions and Bible study on each Sunday’s texts -
Ordinary Words Extraordinary Deeds Cycle C
$12.95Add to cartThe stories of Jesus’ miracles can be challenging to modern sensibilities, conditioned as we are to believe that there must be a logical explanation for water being turned into wine or nets suddenly overflowing with fish. But John Wurster suggests that for contemporary preachers and their listeners, the most important question raised by these remarkable accounts is not “How did they happen?” but rather “What do they mean?”
Ordinary Words, Extraordinary Deeds helps answer that question by exploring the theological significance of the nine miracle stories appearing in Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary. Each chapter includes the biblical text along with interpretive reflections that set the passage in its literary context and connect it to major themes of the gospel writer. There’s also a section investigating a variety of preaching possibilities and offering brief thoughts about what these texts tell us about the sacraments, since (like the miracles) the sacraments make grace evident in ways we can touch and feel.
Specifically geared for the busy pastor with limited time, this is an excellent volume packed with valuable idea starters and rich material for sermon development. But it’s also stimulating reading for anyone who wants greater insight into these marvelous stories of God’s power at work.
Chapter titles include:
* The Star (Matthew 2:1-12)
* Wedding At Cana (John 2:1-11)
* Jesus Transfigured (Luke 9:28-36)
* The Lepers (Luke 17:11-19)
… and five more! -
Preaching The Parables Series 3 Cycle C
$22.95Add to cartJesus used his parables to teach ordinary persons with mundane concerns about the kingdom of God; and because these simple stories contain universal truth that transcends time and culture, they still strike a powerful chord with us nearly two millennia later. Preaching The Parables provides a gold mine of background material on each of the eighteen parables appearing in Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary. Dallas Brauninger brings a fresh, imaginative approach to these familiar texts, probing them to reveal what they tell us about God and inviting further reflection on what they mean for us today.
Preaching The Parables is more than just a sermon preparation resource; it’s also stimulating reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of how God speaks to us through the parables. Modeled on the format of Brauninger’s popular Preaching The Miracles series, each chapter in Preaching The Parables includes five sections:
* Text — the entire parable text is reproduced, eliminating the need to flip back and forth to a Bible
* What’s Happening? — a synopsis of points of action within the story, defining its movement, conflict, and change or resolution
* Spadework — significant terms are examined through a survey of Hebrew and New Testament writings
* Parallel Scripture — similarities and differences with parallel stories in the other Gospels are highlighted; where the story is unique, parallel words and concepts are examined
* Chat Room — readers are creatively engaged in a variety of imaginary online exchanges, ranging from interviews with parable characters to browsing ideas to self-driven conversations.
-
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit Series 4 Cycle C
$15.95Add to cartIf you’re looking for imaginative reflections that take you right to the heart of the scriptures, the newest edition of CSS’ popular Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit series is the perfect resource for you. Timothy Merrill offers 65 thought-provoking contemplations on Cycle C lectionary passages that draw out the biblical theme by relating it to aspects of modern life we have all experienced. This book is not only great for preaching illustrations and “sermon starters” — it’s also a wonderful source for inspiring devotional reading.
-
Preaching And Reading The Old Testament Lessons Cycle C
$20.95Add to cartProminent author and biblical scholar Elizabeth Achtemeier provides an outstanding preaching and study resource with this collection of brief expositions on all of the First Lesson texts contained in Cycle C of the Revised Common and Lutheran Lectionaries. Infused with her customary insight into the Hebrew scriptures, this compendium of Achtemeier’s stimulating contributions to the preaching journal Emphasis furnishes a plethora of fruitful starting points for preparing sermons solidly rooted in the Bible yet connected to modern life. But as the book’s title suggests, this volume isn’t just for preachers and homiletics students — it’s also a powerful commentary for study groups and personal devotional reading. Achtemeier’s unrelenting focus on the promises of God appearing in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament, combined with her outstanding scholarship, make these faith-filled essays an enriching resource for anyone who wants a clearer understanding of God’s Word contained in the scriptures.
-
Pray Like This
$8.95Add to cartPrayer is a powerful force — in Tennyson’s oft-quoted phrase, “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” But the Lord’s Prayer is so familiar that we often take it for granted, reciting it by rote and missing its deeper meaning. Pray Like This… is an informative volume that helps you rediscover the simplicity and strength of the prayer that Jesus taught us. Alex Gondola carefully analyzes each of the prayer’s ten petitions, and explores how it is Christ’s template for communicating with God. Suitable for personal devotions, adult study groups, sermon preparation, or gift-giving, Pray Like This… is a versatile resource that will unclog your spiritual arteries and open new pathways in your own prayer life.
-
Dateline Jerusalem : Dramatic Dialogue Sermons For Lent
$8.95Add to cartYou’ll feel like you are right on the scene viewing the events of Holy Week as this innovative series presents the familiar story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in a novel, engaging, and entirely modern way. In a television-style interview format, six witnesses share their point of view in up-to-date language and references — making each personage more accessible to contemporary congregations.
Dateline: Jerusalem is a flexible resource that can be used in many different settings: during Lenten worship services, as part of a Christian education curriculum, or for a youth program. Scripture lessons accompany each script, and a character summary provides further insight into the personality of each interviewee. Easy to produce with a minimum of staging, these dialogues provide a fresh, engaging approach to the timeless story.
Characters interviewed are:
* Pontius Pilate
* Caiaphas
* Peter
* Mary Magdalene
* John
* the Centurion -
Preaching The Parables Series 2 Cycle C
$27.95Add to cartParables provide insights and lessons that are timeless. When they are employed in preaching the hearer receives images which are easy to remember. Preaching the parables provides a means of communicating the teachings of Jesus for modern Christians.
With each parable Keeney includes:
Scripture Text so readers do not have to refer to the Bible
The theme of the parable
The context of the parable
how it fits into the church year
how it relates to the other scripture passages for the day
Some issues that the parable addresses
Ideas for preaching the parable
Creative illustrations which can be used in preaching -
Seasons Of Faith
$19.99Add to cartBuilding on the success of Symbols of Faith, Marcia Stoner has written a follow-up volume, Seasons of Faith. Based on the seasons of the Christian Year, the activities in this new volume may be used for short-term studies for older children, preteens, youth, and even adults. This book includes photocopiable patterns and charts that will enhance ease of use, an Advent worship booklet for church and/or home use, a Lenten study, All Saints’ Eve activities, and multicultural activities for Christmas, Pentecost, and World Communion Sunday. The author includes a brief history of each season.
-
Places You Go
$22.99Add to cartTo be effective, pastors must minister in a variety of settings, each of which brings its own unique challenges. Each setting–hospital room, jail, nursing home, pastor’s study–has its own dilemmas and resources. Here Urias Beverly offers concrete steps to minister artfully in a variety of contexts encountered Monday through Saturday.
-
Family Ministry Desk Reference
$30.00Add to cartIn groundbreaking fashion, physician and lay minister Pat Fosarelli provides this quick reference and how-to-manual for pastors and church groups charged with the care of families facing difficult situations. Each chapter in this one-of-a-kind resource opens with a vignette illustrating complex and prevalent problem facing families today and continues with a presentation of facts and figures about the problem and an outline of the physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges that are posed for family members. Immediate, suitable responses to these problems are proposed for pastors, church boards, and individuals committed to the care of families. In addition to its user-friendly format, this book includes a listing of resources to obtain even more information and an area for readers to write the names of resources in their own communities.
-
Light Of Bethlehem Shines On
$12.95Add to cart* In The Darkness Of Despair — Isaiah 9:2-7
* In The Darkness Of Suffering — John 1:1-13
* In The Darkness Of Oppression — Luke 2:1-5
* In The Darkness Of Fear — Luke 2:6-11
* In The Darkness Of Anxiety — Luke 2:12-17
* In The Darkness Of Uncertainty — Luke 2:17-20
* In The Darkness Of Suspicion — Matthew 2:1-12Additional Info
The impact of the miraculous event of the incarnation continues — and the light of hope that appeared in the darkness of that night in Bethlehem two thousand years ago still shines on us today, even in the midst of life’s most difficult situations. Illustrated with poignant stories and anecdotes, these powerful messages celebrate the heartwarming joy of Christ’s coming, and demonstrate how we can rely on the Lord to serve as our steady lighthouse while we navigate the shoals of life.This seven-part series for Advent, Christmas Eve, the Sunday after Christmas, and Epiphany Sunday provides a comprehensive seasonal resource for busy pastors and worship planners. Each chapter includes a sermon, a children’s message, a candle lighting response with scripture reading, and a pastoral prayer.
-
Aging Spirituality And Religion Volume 1
$49.00Add to cartNew! The first such comprehensive collection of articles on all aspects of gerontology and faith. Outstanding contributors from a variety of disciplines make this a potential library reference for chaplains, health-care workers, psychologists, etc.
-
Voicing The Vision
$26.95Add to cartFor more than a decade popular homiletics professor Linda Clader has been helping her students become attentive to how the Holy Spirit is speaking to them, and eventually through them to the congregation. In Voicing the Vision she shares her ideas about what preachers can do to be open and receptive to the Spirit once the exegesis is done.
Clader’s approach to inspired and prophetic preaching is a holistic one, filled with suggestions about how the preacher’s spiritual life and practice affect openness to the Spirit, as well as how various creative exercises can create spaces in which the Spirit can flourish. Her careful analysis of the biblical texts that illuminate how the Spirit works in those texts is supplemented by practical suggestions for noticing how the Spirit also works in the everyday life of preacher and congregation.
This book will be a welcome companion for the seminarian who is just learning to preach, as well as the seasoned preacher who is looking for new inspiration
-
Preaching And Reading The Old Testament Lessons Cycle A
$23.95Add to cartProminent author and biblical scholar Elizabeth Achtemeier provides an outstanding preaching and study resource with this collection of brief expositions on all of the First Lesson texts contained in Cycle A of the Revised Common and Lutheran Lectionaries. Infused with her customary insight into the Hebrew scriptures, this compendium of Achtemeier’s stimulating contributions to the preaching journal Emphasis furnishes a plethora of fruitful starting points for preparing sermons solidly rooted in the Bible yet connected to modern life. But as the book’s title suggests, this volume isn’t just for preachers and homiletics students — it’s also a powerful commentary for study groups and personal devotional reading. Achtemeier’s unrelenting focus on the promises of God appearing in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament, combined with her outstanding scholarship, make these faith-filled essays an enriching resource for anyone who wants a clearer understanding of God’s Word contained in the scriptures.
-
Preaching The Parables Series 3 Cycle A
$19.95Add to cartJesus used his parables to teach ordinary persons with ordinary quandaries; yet because these simple stories contain universal truths that transcend time and culture, they still provide us with powerful lessons. Preaching The Parables provides a gold mine of background material on each of the fourteen parables appearing in Cycle A of the Revised Common Lectionary. Dallas Brauninger brings a fresh, imaginative approach to these familiar texts, probing them to reveal what they tell us about God and inviting further reflection on what they mean for modern living.
Much more than just a sermon preparation resource, Preaching The Parables explores questions like:
* What dimension of the soul that needs tending does the parable address?
* What is the parable’s surprise?
* What moves us into hope?
* How does its point become obvious?
* How do its characters relate to us today?Brauninger identifies points of action, examines significant terms, and engages in imaginary exchanges with a variety of characters. The complete text of each parable is also included, along with an analysis highlighting similarities and differences in parallel passages. Modeled on the format of Brauninger’s popular Preaching The Miracles series, each chapter includes five sections:
* Text
* What’s Happening?
* Spadework
* Parallel Scripture
* Chat Room -
Work Of The People
$17.95Add to cartThe word “liturgy” literally means “the work of the people” — so the active participation of everyone in the congregation should be the goal of Christian worship. Designed to help you attain that sense of full partnership, The Work Of The People provides you with a full year’s worth of eloquent resources for thoughtful, reverent services. It’s a comprehensive collection of liturgical prayers and readings for 52 Sundays, with each week’s material based on a common subject (Freedom, Hospitality, Peace, and Stewardship are just a few examples). Written in everyday language that connects them to our daily lives, the prayers are conceived for congregational reading (either responsively or in unison) — and their thematic unity will lead to reflection and insight in addition to praise and celebration.
The components for each week include:
* call to worship
* invocation
* call to confession
* prayer of confession
* words of assurance
* Psalm reading
* offering sentences
* prayer of dedication
* benediction
* scripture references (as possible texts for homilies based on the theme) -
Big Book On Small Groups (Revised)
$25.99Add to cartSmall groups can make a BIG difference by encouraging individual growth, strengthening the church, and involving the community! In this revised bestseller, Arnold explores the basics of “Body Life” and explains how to start a group, develop relationships, train leaders, launch outreach programs, and more. Includes a “small-group starter kit” and training resources.
-
Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series 3 Cycle C
$37.50Add to cartPractical preaching strategies to help the over-burdened parish pastor communicate God’s Word in vital, meaningful ways.
This is the third volume in CSS’s third series of popular preaching workbooks — Designed to help you get the most out of every moment you spend in sermon preparation.
Special Features Include:
Commentary on Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Common Lectionary texts
Sermon Starters for First Lesson, Second Lesson, and Gospel texts for every Sunday in Cycle C
“Theological Clues” to help you explore the relationships among all the texts for each Sunday
Wide Margins and Stay-flat binding for ease of use
Overviews of preaching challenges and possibilities for each liturgical season
Extensive Bibliography of exegetical and homiletic resources for Cycle C preaching
And All-new Insights from one of CSS’s most well-respected and successful authorsThis workbook is an exercise in liturgical, as well as lectionary preaching. It springs from the rationale that most lectionary helps ignore the liturgical setting of the lessons assigned to the various Sundays. It is this author’s contention that the exegetical/homiletical process begins with the church year. The year, cycles, seasons, Sundays, and festivals establish the themes and provide theological clues for worship and, particularly, preaching, especially in the first half of the church year. This approach is the outgrowth of the author’s doctoral dissertation and four of his books, The Renewal Of Liturgical Preaching, The Song And The Story, and Lectionary Preaching Workbook, Cycle A and Cycle B. Each deals with preaching from the lectionary texts in the context of the worship, work, and lives of the people of God.
-
Get Ready Get Set Grow (Revised)
$17.95Add to cartEstimates are that as many as three-quarters of mainline Christian congregations are located in small towns or rural areas — and many of these areas are diminishing in population. So is it inevitable that small town and rural churches will decline in membership and close in the next few decades?
“Not necessarily!” says Gary Exman. During his years as the pastor of a small-town parish, his congregation reversed the trend and grew dramatically. By applying the principles of the “church growth” movement, Exman’s church revitalized a dying Sunday school, increased average worship attendance by 50 percent, and quadrupled church offerings.
Get Ready… Get Set… GROW! is a practical handbook that shows how you can achieve results like that in your congregation as well. Exman identifies the unique problems facing small town and rural churches, and in this book he offers proven strategies for conquering the cancer of declining membership and building stronger congregations.
There is untapped potential in the small towns and open country of our land — and Get Ready… Get Set… GROW! can help you discover it.
-
Training Ministry Teams
$19.99Add to cartProvides practical instruction to help pastors and congregational leaders bring clarity and purpose to the role of elders or deacons, and to help deacons or elders learn and refine their ministry. Each of the nine sessions in Training Ministry Teams reflects on Jesus’ method of training leaders and works toward a specific outcome. Topics include: working as a ministry team, decision-making, mediating conflict, visitation, partnering with the pastor, and more. Sessions conclude with group assignments designed to move participants from theory to action. Also included are resources to help in calling, commissioning, and nurturing elders and deacons.
-
Holidays Are Holy Days
$20.95Add to cartAlmost every month in the year has a secular holiday — and on those “special” Sundays, preachers need to balance honoring the occasion with maintaining their focus on the proclamation of God’s Word. It can be a challenging task, but it also presents a great opportunity to uncover the religious significance of our civic celebrations. In this extensive volume of inspiring messages, Alex Gondola draws on the rich variety of American culture and scriptural insight to remind us that holidays truly are holy days. Great for personal reading, adult study groups, or fresh sermon ideas, Holidays Are Holy Days is a versatile resource that you’ll draw on throughout the year.
Sermons are included for:
* New Year’s Day
* Martin Luther King Day
* Super Bowl Sunday
* Valentine’s Day
* Presidents’ Day
* St. Patrick’s Day
* April Fool’s Day
* Earth Day
* Mother’s Day
* Memorial Day
* Father’s Day
* Independence Day
* Labor Day
* Grandparent’s Day
* Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day
* Halloween/All Saints’ Day
* Reformation Sunday
* Veterans’ Day
* Thanksgiving Sunday
* Christmas -
Lectionary Preaching Workbook Cycle A (Revised)
$46.95Add to cartOne of the most comprehensive lectionary preaching resources available, the Lectionary Preaching Workbook is the one tool you will want to have close at hand to help you get the most out of every minute you spend preparing your Sunday sermon. This completely revised and updated volume provides you with a host of practical aids for effectively proclaiming God’s Word. In addition to theological reflections on the three lessons for each Sunday, each chapter also explores a theme for the day (including a prayer and a suggested hymn) and outlines numerous preaching options. You’ll also find a handy, easy-to-use Sermon Planner template to facilitate the process of building your sermon.
Special features include:
* an introduction to Matthew’s gospel
* overviews for each liturgical season that pinpoint preaching goals and possible sermon series — and examine the season’s customs, history, meaning, and message
* a listing of applicable Revised Common, Roman Catholic, and Episcopal lectionary texts
* commentary on each Sunday’s Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel lessons
* theological reflections to help you explore the relationships among all the texts
* a variety of preaching options, complete with suggested outlines
* available in either paperback or 3-ring binder formats, with wide margins for convenient, easy use
