Pastoral Helps
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God Of The Dangerous Sermon
$19.99Add to cartEvery sermon has a theology, and a god of that theology behind it. Preaching is more effective, and has more integrity when preachers understand the god behind their theology. Specifically, whether the god is a universal God, like the one expressed by Christ and the Christian faith, or a tribal god, which is sometimes dressed up to resemble Christianity but is something else entirely.
Frank A. Thomas culminates his exploration of the Dangerous Sermon with this book, which leads readers through the process of identifying and understanding the gods behind theology, and their connection to preaching. The reader is equipped to discern the metaphors, symbols, and rhetorical indicators which point to the god a preacher is serving and calling others to serve.
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Pastoral Theology In The Baptist Tradition
$49.99Add to cartA veteran Baptist pastor and ministry professor offers a distinctive free church vision for pastoral ministry, attending to voices from the past four centuries as they speak about the practice of pastoral ministry. The book contains theological reflection on current ministry issues among Baptists based on biblical and historical foundations and reflects a diversity of Baptist life across time and around the world, including many different kinds of voices. Each chapter contains reflection questions to help readers consider the implications of Baptist thinking.
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1-2 Samuel
$45.00Add to cartTo craft informed sermons, pastors scour commentaries that often deal more with minutia than the main point. Or they turn to devotional commentaries, which may contain exegetical weaknesses. The Teach the Text Commentary Series bridges this gap by utilizing the best of biblical scholarship and providing the information a pastor needs to communicate the text effectively. By keeping the discussion of each carefully selected preaching unit to six pages of focused commentary, the volumes in this series allow pastors to quickly grasp the big idea and key themes of each passage of Scripture. The text and its meaning are made clear, and sections dedicated to effectively teaching and illustrating the text help pastors prepare to preach. Full-color illustrations, maps, and photos are included throughout each volume to illustrate the world and events described in the Bible.
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Christian Meditation In Clinical Practice
$40.99Add to cartChristians are hungry for a return to their own tradition to cultivate meditation practices that are both psychologically and spiritually fruitful.
In recent decades, mindfulness meditation, which originates from the Buddhist tradition, has been embraced in many settings as a method for addressing a plethora of symptoms. What would it look like to turn instead to the Christian faith for resources to more effectively identify and respond to psychological suffering? Over the last decade, Dr. Joshua Knabb has conducted a variety of empirical studies on Christian meditation, focusing on both building theory and testing specific, replicable practices. In this overview and workbook he presents the foundations of a Christian-sensitive approach to meditation in clinical practice. Filled with practical features for immediate use by Christian clients and their therapists, Christian Meditation in Clinical Practice provides:
*an introduction to the rich resources on meditation from eight major streams of the Christian tradition
*practices from the early desert Christians, Ignatius of Loyola, Celtic Christians, the Puritans, contemporary writers, and many others
*guidance for targeting transdiagnostic processes–patterns of cognition, affect, behavior, the self, and relationships that may lead to psychological suffering
*research-based evidence for the benefits of Christian meditation
*client-friendly tools for practicing meditation, including step-by-step instructions, worksheets, journaling prompts, and links to tailored audio resources
Using the approach of Christian psychology, Knabb’s model dually builds on a biblical worldview and integrates the latest research in clinical psychology. As clients engage the variety of meditative exercises in this book, they will move toward healthier responses to difficult experiences and a deeper awareness of, and contentment in, God.
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Not Quite Fine
$16.99Add to cartA practical guide for people who care
There is no time in history and no place in the world where so many people have understood themselves to be suffering from mental health problems. There is also virtually no time and no place in the world where people who are suffering have been so readily ostracized.
In Not Quite Fine, author Carlene Hill Byron tackles the mounting dilemmas that pastors and churches face around mental health. Medicines and therapies have their roles in supporting those who live with mental health problems or mental illness. But God’s own body as the church is intended to be our greatest support in this world. How can the church step up for such a time as this? How can the body of Christ become a healing community for its members in pain–a place where the weary find strength for the journey, a place where those who mourn are raised up as rebuilders of the cities left in ruins?
Drawing on her own history of mental health problems and her experience as a teacher and lay counselor, Byron offers words of hope for those who struggle as well as practical insights to equip congregations to better support those who are suffering in their midst.
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Living By The Holy Spirit
$8.99Add to cartThe Father and Son gave believers the Holy Spirit to be with us and live in us. The transforming power of the Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ as we allow Him to work freely in our lives. Life in the Spirit accomplishes God’s hopes and dreams for your abundant living!The Holy Life Bible Study Series is a practical discipleship tool for both new and seasoned Christians. Author Frank Moore takes readers on a journey that unpacks theological truths of faith in a way that is both inspirational and motivating. He invites us to discover the incredible love of a God who empowers us to overcome any circumstance to live with joy, peace, and power-a God who calls us to take part in his divine nature. Each book in the series includes thought-provoking questions to stimulate discussion in a small-group study setting.
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Meeting God The Father
$8.99Add to cartGod created humanity in love. God placed humanity in a perfect environment with parental hopes and dreams for abundant living. Return to your roots and explore all God has in mind for you!
The Holy Life Bible Study Series is a practical discipleship tool for both new and seasoned Christians. Author Frank Moore takes readers on a journey that unpacks theological truths of faith in a way that is both inspirational and motivating. He invites us to discover the incredible love of a God who empowers us to overcome any circumstance to live with joy, peace, and power-a God who calls us to take part in his divine nature.
Each book in the series includes thought-provoking questions to stimulate discussion in a small-group study setting.
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Kingdom Heroes Workbook (Workbook)
$9.99Add to cart“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”-Hebrews 11:1
You must act out your faith before you can harvest the fruits of trusting God. But what does that look like in everyday life? As you look to people in the Bible who walked with assurance in God’s power, you’ll discover you can be confident that He will always provide for those who follow Him.
Dr. Tony Evans’ Kingdom Heroes Interactive Workbook-which can be used on your own or with a group in companion with the Kingdom Heroes DVD-will help you refine your reliance on God’s strength. Learn from the examples of biblical role models like Noah, Abraham, and Rahab so you can experience what it means to live by faith in your daily life.
Complete your experience with:
Kingdom Heroes
Kingdom Heroes DVD -
Women Of The Bible
$11.99Add to cartLoaded with charts, graphs, images, and fascinating facts, the Women of the Bible: Old Testament Bible Study is easy enough that the new believer understands, but in-depth enough that the longtime churchgoer still comes away learning something new.
This six-session Bible study explores the impact of incredible women from the Old Testament. With fascinating historical insights and engaging discussion questions, you’ll learn about Old Testament women such as:
*The outspoken matriarch Rebecca
*Five daughters who reshaped the law for women in ancient Israel
*The outstanding judge Deborah and the feisty warrior Jael
*A life-saving wise woman of a city under siege
*The hospitable woman of Shunem
*Lady Wisdom from the book of Proverbs who is the picture of wise living -
You Were Made For This Moment Study Guide Plus Streaming Video (Student/Study Gu
$19.99Add to cartRacial divides. Political strife. Uncertain futures. This is the story of our day. But it is also the story of the exiles in Persia. The Jewish people had been taken from their homeland. They were being pressured to conform to foreign customs. They were facing discrimination. Now, an edict was being issued that would stamp out the Jewish race forever. Everything seemed to be falling apart for God’s people. But then two figures emerge on the scene . . . and everything changes.
As Max Lucado relates in this five-session study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), Esther and Mordecai are these unlikely heroes of the tale. Both had spent their lives trying to fit in and conform. But both experience a turning point-a crucial moment where they choose to step up and stand out for the God they served. As a result of their courageous actions, winter turned to springtime for God’s people. They emerged from the crisis stronger, more unified, and more committed to serving the God of their forefathers, even in their exile.
The promise for God’s people in the book of Esther is the same promise that we have today. Our God triumphs in troubled times. When it seems as if everything is falling into pieces, he is working in our midst, causing everything to fall into place. The very one who seeks to destroy us will be destroyed. Even when it appears that evil has won, and that there is no hope for our future, we can know God’s throne is still occupied. We will triumph in the end.
The question for you today is not whether God will show up on the scene. Rather, it is whether you will choose to be a part of it when he does. Will you, like Mordacai and Esther, realize you are a position “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14)? God is calling you to rise up in these chaotic times. You were made for this moment.
Sessions include:
1. The Problem of Conformity (Esther 1:1-2:18)
2. A Moment of Decision (Esther 2:19-4:14)
3. Heaven Set in Motion (Esther 4:15-6:14)
4. The God of Great Turnarounds (Esther 7:1-8:17)
5. Remembering God’s Faithfulness (Esther 9:1-10:3)Designed for use with You Were Made for This Moment Video Study (sold separately).
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Evangelism : How To Share The Gospel Faithfully
$29.99Add to cartPaul’s challenge to Timothy 2,000 years ago remains a clarion call for pastors today: “Do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim 4:5). Because evangelism is the central work of a Christian’s life, there is a great need for pastors to understand what evangelism is and what makes it effective. Much of modern evangelical culture has become memorized conversations, pre-packaged formulas, and programmatic approaches that serve as poor substitutes for the simple proclamation of the gospel. In Evangelism: How to Share the Gospel Faithfully, John MacArthur along with pastors, missionaries, and church planters from Grace Community Church give the summons to return to the basics.
Evangelism covers four primary topics:
*Theological presuppositions and biblical foundations of evangelism
*Evangelism from a pastoral perspective
*One-on-one witnessing
*How outreach fits into and shapes the activities of the local churchYou’ll learn theological principles of sharing the gospel and practical approaches to incorporating outreach into your life, including specialized areas, like:
*Sharing the gospel with children and youth
*Witnessing to those with special needs
*Working with people suffering from addiction
*Immigrant outreach International missionsThere is an urgent need for the gospel in today’s fallen world. This insightful guide to biblical evangelism will ignite your passion and equip you to spread the gospel faithfully from your pulpit, in your church, and within your community.
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Everyday Connections For Year C
$40.00Add to cartThis beautifully bound volume provides a full fifty-two weeks of devotional prompts based on the Revised Common Lectionary for Year C. Drawing from the insightful Bible commentaries in the Connections series, each week of offerings also includes scriptural and literary readings, lectio divina, spiritual practices, questions for journaling, and a prayer. This resource has been crafted with mainline, lectionary preachers and lay leaders in mind, both to supplement their planning for the week and to feed their souls in the midst of the work of ministry.
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All The Good Leader Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$14.99Add to cartIn All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, a group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley’s means of grace. In four sessions of study, prayer, and conversation, readers will look at preparing the way for God, the discipline of prayer, the substance of good works, and the recognition of God’s presence with us in communities that are called to serve the world.
This Advent learn and practice works of mercy and works of piety examining on how God’s love is embodied in communities of faith in the world.
The Leader Guide includes session outline for each group meeting with Scripture, prayer, opening activity, discussion questions, activity, and ending call to action.
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Heart That Grew Three Sizes Childrens Leader Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$18.99Add to cartWe don’t know why the Grinch hated Christmas. We just know he did. If we’re being honest, there’s probably something within the Christmas season celebration that awakens a Grinch within all of us. Maybe the gift we unwrap was all wrong, or memories that were supposed to be joyful never were. When everything seems wrong in the world, even joyful celebrations are much too loud.
In his new Advent study, Matt Rawle explores the faith themes in the Christmas classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas including how did the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes come Christmas morning? How did Christmas save the Grinch? Could it be that the very thing we think we hate, is the one thing that changes our life?
Rediscover and reinvigorate your Christian faith this Advent and Christmas season and look at this familiar classic through the lens of faith.
The Children’s Leader Guide contains session ideas for younger and older children including games, activities, craft ideas, and reproducible handouts.
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Heart That Grew Three Sizes (Student/Study Guide)
$16.99Add to cartWe don’t know why the Grinch hated Christmas. We just know he did. If we’re being honest, there’s probably something within the Christmas season celebration that awakens a Grinch within all of us. Maybe the gift we unwrap was all wrong, or memories that were supposed to be joyful never were. When everything seems wrong in the world, even joyful celebrations are much too loud.
In his new Advent study, Matt Rawle explores the faith themes in the Christmas classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas including how did the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes come Christmas morning? How did Christmas save the Grinch? Could it be that the very thing we think we hate, is the one thing that changes our life?Rediscover and reinvigorate your Christian faith this Advent and Christmas season and look at this familiar classic through the lens of faith.
Additional components for a four-week Advent study include a DVD featuring Matt Rawle, a comprehensive Leader Guide, and resources for children and youth.
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Forming Resilient Children
$24.99Add to cartMany children today are growing up in the midst of adversity, whether family difficulties or larger societal crises.
All children need to be able to deal with stress, cope with challenges, and persevere through disappointments. While we cannot protect children from all hardships, we can promote healthy development that fosters resilience. In this interdisciplinary work, Holly Catterton Allen builds a bridge between resilience studies and children’s spiritual formation. Because children are spiritual beings, those who work with them can cultivate spiritual practices that are essential to their thriving in challenging times. This book equips educators, counselors, children’s ministers, and parents with ways of developing children’s spirituality to foster the resilience needed to face the ordinary hardships of childhood and to persevere when facing trauma. It offers particular insight into the spiritual experiences of children who have been hurt by life through chronic illness, disability, abuse, or disasters, with resources for healing and hope.
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Together In Ministry
$22.99Add to cartWomen and men are designed to work together in fulfilling God’s mission on earth.
Yet God’s original intent for equal partnership has been so distorted that churches and organizations continually struggle to foster healthy mixed-gender ministry collaboration. Is it even possible to return to the Genesis ideal of co-laborers in today’s contexts? Longtime ministry leader Rob Dixon knows it’s possible–though it takes intentionality, courage, and wisdom. Based on qualitative field research among ministry practitioners, Together in Ministry offers a prophetic roadmap for individuals and communities as they seek to develop flourishing ministry partnerships for women and men. Organized around the key domains of inner life, community culture, and intentional practices, this model identifies ten key attributes of partnerships that are both personally satisfying and missionally effective. For each attribute Dixon presents research findings and biblical examples, along with benefits, barriers, and practical next steps. With plenty of real-life stories from ministry leaders and reflection questions in each chapter, Together in Ministry casts a compelling–and encouraging–vision for flourishing partnerships and equips teams and individuals with next steps for making that vision a reality.
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Person Of Interest Investigators Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartImagine investigating a murder in which there was no crime scene, no physical evidence, and no victim’s body. How would you identify a person of interest in such a case?
Designed to be used alongside Person of Interest and the Person of Interest Video Study, this study guide will teach you the same investigative strategies used by detective J. Warner Wallace to examine the claims of history.
Dateline featured cold-case detective and bestselling author, J. Warner Wallace, has investigated a number of these “no body missing person” cases and has successfully identified and convicted the killers, even without the victim’s body or evidence from the crime scene.
Can the historicity of Jesus be investigated in the same way? Can the truth about Jesus be uncovered even without a body or a crime scene? In Person of Interest, Wallace describes his own personal investigative journey from atheism to Christianity, as he employs a unique investigative strategy to confirm the historicity and deity of Jesus–without relying on the New Testament manuscripts.
Imagine a scenario in which every New Testament document has been destroyed, Wallace carefully sifts through the evidence from history alone to reconstruct the identity of Jesus as the world’s most important person of interest.
Person of Interest will:
*Invite readers into the life of a cold-case detective as he uncovers the truth about Jesus, using the same approach he also employs to solve a real murder case*Teach readers how to become good detectives, using an innovative and unique “‘fuse’ and ‘fallout'” investigative strategy they can also use to examine other claims of history
*Help readers to explore common objections to Christianity
Concrete, compelling, and unique in its approach, Person of Interest will strengthen the faith of believers, while engaging those who are skeptical and distrusting of the New Testament.
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Gentle And Lowly Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$11.99Add to cartA Study Guide Companion to the Best-Selling Book Gentle and Lowly
In his best-selling book, Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortlund takes readers into the depths of Christ’s very heart for sinners. Focusing on Jesus’s words that he is “gentle and lowly in heart,” Ortlund dives deep into Bible passages that speak of who he is, encouraging readers with the affections of Christ for his people.
Designed as a supplement to the book, the Gentle and Lowly Study Guide helps readers reflect further on these key biblical truths. This helpful resource written by Dane Ortlund features discussion questions organized into 8 lessons, with each lesson covering 2-3 chapters from the book. Perfect for small groups and individuals alike, the Gentle and Lowly Study Guide can be used together with the book, the Gentle and Lowly Video Study, or both.
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Sermons That Sing
$30.99Add to cartPreaching and music are both regular elements of Christian worship across the theological spectrum.
But they often don’t interact or inform each other in meaningful ways. In this Dynamics of Christian Worship volume, theologian, pastor, and musician Noel A. Snyder considers how the church’s preaching might be helpfully informed by musical theory. Just as a good musical composition employs technical elements like synchrony, repetition, and meter, the same should be said for good preaching that seeks to engage hearts and minds with the good news of Jesus Christ. By drawing upon music that lifts the soul, preachers might craft sermons that sing.
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Following : Embodied Discipleship In A Digital Age
$26.00Add to cartThis book offers theological perspectives on the challenges of discipleship in a digital age, showing how new technologies and the rise of social media affect the way we interact with each other, ourselves, and the world. Written by a Gen X digital immigrant and a millennial digital native, the book explores a faithful response to today’s technology as we celebrate our embodied roles as followers of Christ in a disembodied time.
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Worship Architect : A Blueprint For Designing Culturally Relevant And Bibli
$32.99Add to cartWorship professor and practitioner Constance Cherry shows how to create services that are faithful to Scripture, historically conscious, relevant to God, Christ-centered, and engaging for worshipers of all ages in the twenty-first century. More than 150 colleges and seminaries have used or currently use the first edition as a required text. In this new edition, each chapter has been substantially updated and revised, including illustrations, key terms, examples, technological references, and suggested resources for further reading. A new chapter on global worship and a new appendix on live-streamed worship are included.
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Difficult Words Of Jesus
$17.99Add to cartJesus provided his disciples teachings for how to follow Torah, God’s word; he told them parables to help them discern questions of ethics and of human nature; he offered them beatitudes for comfort and encouragement. But sometimes Jesus spoke words that followers then and now have found difficult. He instructs disciples to hate members of their own families (Luke 14:26), to act as if they were slaves (Matthew 20:27), and to sell their belongings and give to the poor (Luke 18:22). He restricts his mission (Matthew 10:6); he speaks of damnation (Matthew 8:12); he calls Jews the devil’s children (John 8:44).
In The Difficult Words of Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine shows how these difficult teachings would have sounded to the people who first heard them, how have they been understood over time, and how we might interpret them in the context of the Gospel of love and reconciliation.
Additional components for a six-week study include a DVD featuring Dr. Levine and a comprehensive Leader Guide.
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Acts Participant Workbook (Student/Study Guide)
$17.99Add to cartLearn to awaken to God’s Spirit today and every day by studying the Book of Acts with Melissa Spoelstra.
Whether it’s because of distractions, busyness, or a case of the blahs, we can experience a drift toward indifference in our spiritual lives. We have a need for an ongoing spiritual awakening if we want to become more aware of God’s presence and activity in our everyday lives.
In Acts: Awakening to God in Our Everyday Lives, a six-week study of the Book of Acts by Melissa Spoelstra, you will journey with the first followers of Jesus and witness the birth and growth of the early church through spiritual awakening to the power of God’s Spirit, message, freedom, grace, mission, and direction.
From their experiences you will learn postures that will help you attune your own spiritual heart to experience God’s presence, hear God’s voice, and see God at work all around.
This study offers a fresh encounter with God to prepare you to:
– Face daily battles
– Be able to discern the messages of our culture
– Be ready to share God’s love with others alwaysComponents for this six-week Bible study, each available separately, include a Participant Workbook, a Leader Guide, and video sessions with six 20 to 25-minute segments (with closed captioning).
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Integration Of Psychology And Christianity
$30.99Add to cartOver the course of recent decades, scholars and practitioners have been working to integrate contemporary psychology-related fields and Christianity.
This project continues to move forward, evidenced in associations, publications, degree programs, and conferences around the world. While much progress has been made, there are still foundational issues to be worked out and aspects of integration the community is just now venturing into. In this expert overview, psychologists William L. Hathaway and Mark A. Yarhouse take stock of the integration project to date, provide an introduction for those who wish to come on board, highlight work yet to be done, and offer a framework to strategically organize next steps. The authors’ attention encompasses five domains:
*worldview integration
*theoretical integration
*applied integration
*role integration
*personal integrationTheir comprehensive approach yields insights relevant for non-clinical areas of psychological science as well as for counseling, social work, and other related mental health fields. Done properly, integration enriches our understanding of both Christianity and psychology. Through biblical and theological grounding and numerous examples, Hathaway and Yarhouse demonstrate how synthesis can continue to serve the field and make a difference in caring for individual lives.
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Ephesians Study Guide Plus Streaming Video (Student/Study Guide)
$22.99Add to cartThe book of Ephesians is about identity. It’s about learning who we are, living who are, and then leveraging who we are. When we do that, we stop walking in defeat, and instead, walk with our heads held high.
Too often, our shoulders slump under the weight of family struggles, financial stress, and feelings of insecurity. We are pushed down by insignificance, insecurity, and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness, disappointment and discouragement.
You are not meant to be under that burden any longer. You are a chosen child of God, saved by His grace, forgiven and free. It’s time to walk with your head held high.
In this six-session video Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), Lori Wilhite draws on her experience as the pastor’s wife of the fifth largest congregation in the country located in the town otherwise named ‘Sin City’ to share the truth of what Paul tells the Ephesians about unity and its direct reflection of our hearts, our focus, and our love for God.
The Beautiful WordTM Bible Study Series helps you connect God’s Word to your daily life through vibrant video teaching, group discussion, and deep personal study that includes verse-by-verse reading, Scripture memory, coloring pages, and encouragement to receive your own beautiful Word from God. In each study, a central theme-a beautiful word-threads throughout the book, helping you connect and apply each book of the Bible to your daily life today, and forever.
Designed for use with Ephesians Video Study (sold separately).
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For The Common Good
$14.00Add to cartFor the Common Good reminds us that the Holy Spirit gives each Christian one or more spiritual gifts to be used for the common good. It guides readers to discover their own particular gifts and learn to use their gifts to serve others.
Examining key passages in Paul’s writings, author Christine Harman leads readers through a personal spiritual gift assessment. She names 25 distinct spiritual gifts-such as discernment, hospitality, compassion, evangelism, or music-and helps people explore scripture references on each one. After identifying their particular gifts, clergy and laypeople will learn how to apply them for the good of their church, community, and the world. This book is ideal for both group study and self-discovery. The book also includes suggestions for how to build a ministry team based on the gifts of each individual.
This book is the text for a Lay Servant Ministries advanced course on spiritual gifts. It also can be used for a small-group study.
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Transforming Worship : Planning And Leading Sunday Services As If Spiritual
$20.99Add to cartSpiritual formation is the key to the survival of our faith.
Stigmatized by scandal, the church in North America and throughout Europe has been branded as useless and irrelevant. To stem the tide of nominal Christianity, we need to get serious about making disciples who can make other disciples. There is an urgent need today for church services that are substantive and purposeful. Rory Noland is a worship leader who has led in contexts ranging from megachurches to small retreat settings such as the Transforming Center. Combining discipleship and worship–what Noland calls “Transforming Worship”–he offers a vision for worship as spiritual formation. We need to reclaim our worship services as a formative space, and through that we will become the light of Christ in a dark world.
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Taking An Honest And Spiritual Inventory Participants Guide 2 (Student/Study Gui
$7.99Add to cartThe Celebrate Recovery Participant’s Guides are essential tools for the personal recovery journey. In the five lessons in Guide 2: Taking an Honest and Spiritual Inventory, you will experience an in-depth look at the 4th principle in the recovery process:
4 Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself, and to someone I trust. “Happy are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8).
By working through the lessons and exercises found in each of the four Participant’s Guides you will begin to experience the true peace and serenity you have been seeking, restore and develop stronger relationships with others and with God, and find freedom from life’s hurts, hang-ups, and habits. All the scriptures have been updated to the new NIV 2011 version.
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Stepping Out Of Denial Into Gods Grace Participants Guide 1 (Student/Study Guide
$7.99Add to cartThe Celebrate Recovery Participant’s Guides are essential tools for the personal recovery journey. In the six lessons in Guide 1: Stepping Out of Denial Into God’s Grace, you will experience the first 3 of the 8 recovery principles:
1 Realize I’m not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable. “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor” (Matthew 5:3).
2 Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to him, and that he has the power to help me recover. “Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
3 Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control. “Happy are the meek” (Matthew 5:5).
By working through the lessons and exercises found in each of the four Participant’s Guides you will begin to experience the true peace and serenity you have been seeking, restore and develop stronger relationships with others and with God, and find freedom from life’s hurts, hang-ups, and habits. All the scriptures have been updated to the new NIV 2011 version.
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Celebrate Recovery Updated Participants Guide Set Volumes 1-4 (Student/Study Gui
$30.99Add to cartAlcoholism–Divorce–Sexual Abuse–Codependency–Domestic Violence–Drug Addiction–Sexual Addiction–Food Addiction–Gambling Addiction.
Move beyond your hurts, habits, and hang-ups to experience the forgiveness of Christ. The Journey Begins Participant Guides are essential tools in the Celebrate Recovery program for your personal recovery journey. These four guides by Pastor John Baker walk you through the eight recovery principles, drawn from the Beatitudes, upon which the 12-step Celebrate Recovery program is built.
This shrinkwrapped pack includes one each of all four participant’s guides for the Celebrate Recovery Program:
Guide 1: Stepping Out of Denial
Guide 2: Taking an Honest and Spiritual Inventory
Guide 3: Getting Right with God
Guide 4: Growing in ChristBy working through the lessons and exercises found in each of the four Participant’s Guides, you will begin to experience the true peace and serenity you have been seeking, restore and develop stronger relationships with others and with God, and find freedom from life’s hurts, habits, and hang-ups.
Note: This shrinkwrapped pack is identical to the participant’s guides included in the Celebrate Recovery Updated Curriculum Kit (9780310131601). Designed for use with the Celebrate Recovery Journal (9780310090342), sold separately.
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Celebrate Recovery Updated Leaders Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$21.99Add to cartThere is a way the church can help the wounded move beyond their hurts, habits, and hang-ups to experience the forgiveness of Christ. Celebrate Recovery helps the church fulfill its role as Christ’s healing agent. You don’t have to lead alone. To lead people forward in spiritual, physical, and emotional restoration is to walk in the footsteps of Christ. And that’s why the Celebrate Recovery Leader’s Guide is so important.
With everything you need to encourage lasting life-change, the leader’s guide is the best way to facilitate Celebrate Recovery in your church and help people look forward to a whole new future.
The Celebrate Recovery Leader’s Guide includes:
*Fresh testimonies
*A 90-day start-up strategy
*A clear, easy-to-follow format
*Step-by-step instructions for each meeting
*Guide for conducting leader training
*Teaching notes for the 25 lessons of The Journey Begins (Participant Guides 1-4)
*Overview of the 25 lessons of The Journey Continues (Participant Guides 5-8)Along with a willing heart, this leader’s guide is invaluable for leading men and women forward in complete restoration and transformation through Christ.
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Elijah Teen Girls Bible Study Leader Kit
$59.99Add to cartJoin Priscilla Shirer on this 7-session journey through the life and times of the prophet Elijah to discover how the fire on Mount Carmel was forged in the valley of famine. Elijah demonstrates how the strength of faith, character, and boldness are first shaped in the hidden fires of silence, sameness, solitude, and adversity. Those who patiently wait on God in the darkness always emerge with their loyalty, courage, and belief in Him set afire. And the emboldened, fiery faith you desire is being fashioned by God in your life at this very moment.
Leader Kit Includes:
*One Bible study book with personal study segments to complete between 7 weeks of group sessions and a leader guide to lead discussion within small groups
*1 DVD with enriching teaching videos, approximately 15-20 minutes per session
*Card with 3 additional digital downloads of teaching videos
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Elijah Teen Girls Bible Study Book (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartFaith and Fire
Join Priscilla Shirer on this 7-session journey through the life and times of the prophet Elijah to discover how the fire on Mount Carmel was forged in the valley of famine. Elijah demonstrates how the strength of faith, character, and boldness are first shaped in the hidden fires of silence, sameness, solitude, and adversity. Those who patiently wait on God in the darkness always emerge with their loyalty, courage, and belief in Him set afire. And the emboldened, fiery faith you desire is being fashioned by God in your life at this very moment.
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Whats So Amazing About Grace Participants Guide Updated Edition (Student/Study G
$13.99Add to cartIn this six-session revised and updated video Bible study, bestselling author Philip Yancey explores the concept of grace-the one thing the world cannot duplicate and the one thing it craves above all else-and explores what it looks like in action. He also examines how Christians, as the sole dispensers, are doing at lavishing the grace on a world that knows far more of cruelty and unforgiveness than it does of mercy.
As Yancey explains, true grace is shocking and scandalous, for God does not excuse sin but always treasures the sinner. God always extends his grace to individuals regardless of what they have done-for no one is unforgiveable in his eyes. Grace thus shakes our conventions with its insistence on getting close to sinners and touching them with mercy and hope. It forgives the unfaithful spouse, the racist, the child abuser. It loves today’s AIDS-ridden addict as much as the tax collector of Jesus’ day.
Yancey offers compelling and true portraits of grace’s life-changing power. He searches for its presence in his own life and in the church. He asks how Christians today can contend graciously with moral issues that threaten all they hold dear. And he challenges each of us to become living answers to a world that desperately wants to know, “what’s so amazing about grace.”
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I Love Jesus But I Want To Die
$17.00Add to cartWhat happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you.
You just want a way out.
But there’s hope.
In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better.
Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
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Reawakened : How Your Congregation Can Spark Lasting Change
$16.99Add to cartDoes your church have gummed-up gears? Or are you activated for ministry?
Are you relevant in the community in which you serve? More and more people are moving away from the church–not because they lack faith in God, but because the church is no longer relevant to their lives. The church, not God, is the problem. There are eight keys to unlocking the power of relevance in your ministry. In the pages of [title], Glen Guyton, executive director of a Mennonite denomination, explores those keys and gives practical suggestions to churches for reaching out. Offering a biblical scaffold for the idea of the activated church and sharing stories from successful ministries that are actively engaging their communities, Reawakened helps Christians ask the big questions about God’s work in the world.
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Reawakened : Activate Your Congregation To Spark Lasting Change
$29.99Add to cartEvery church wants to make a lasting difference. Unlock the keys to how.
More and more people are moving away from the church-not because they lack faith in God but because the church is no longer relevant to their lives. The church, not God, is the problem. In Reawakened, Glen Guyton explores eight keys to developing the abilities of congregations to bring healing and hope to their communities. These eight keys give voice to the most urgent needs of a community and offer practical suggestions for how churches can spark holistic and lasting differences in their communities.
Built on a solid biblical framework, Rewakened positions churches as catalysts for transformative mission and change. Filled with stories from successful ministries that are actively engaging their communities, Reawakened helps Christians ask the big questions about God’s ongoing work in the world.
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Table For Two
$16.99Add to cartBreaking free from an eating disorder is difficult and complex. Those who are suffering often feel misunderstood. They struggle with feeling alone and afraid, ashamed to tell those closest to them. Their loved ones also feel helpless and ill-equipped to care for them. Within this dynamic, hurt, disappointment, and neglect often thrive. From the unique perspective of a husband and wife team, Table for Two shares Krista Dunham’s journey to freedom from her eating disorder while David shares insights as the loved one coming beside her.
Krista suffered from an eating disorder for over ten years and, by God’s grace and through biblical counseling, overcame it. She openly and honestly shares her experience, describing what she did, what she needed, and what proved helpful in the process of change. In conjunction with her insights, David shares what he did, how he failed, and what he learned along the way as a biblical counselor that was helpful to Krista.
Without minimizing complicated issues, the Dunhams provide practical, gospel hope and biblical encouragement to those suffering and help for loved ones walking with them. They share personal narratives, interactive exercises, and biblical direction for those navigating recovery. Individuals suffering from an eating disorder – and loved ones – will find practical help, hope, and encouragement in this couple’s story. Applying the truth of Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, they know two are better than one and understand the need to connect and jointly navigate the process together.
This powerful, redemptive book reveals an intimacy beyond personal stories of struggle told through a biblical counseling lens; it highlights the close-knit relationship of husband and wife and a home life where one person struggles with an eating disorder.
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From Research To Teaching
$20.99Add to cartIt’s a long way from the research carrel to the classroom.
No matter your personality, your prior experience, or the specifics of your situation, the transition from graduate studies to teaching involves a set of challenges for which no one is ever fully prepared. In this practical guide Michael Kibbe, author of From Topic to Thesis, provides a helpful companion for the journey. With plenty of personal examples and tested advice, Kibbe covers preparation for teaching, best practices in the classroom, self-evaluation, and the discovery of your mission and method. He also reflects on the spiritual lives of professors, including social media practices, Sabbath, and relationships. From Research to Teaching is the concise, accessible resource every new and aspiring professor needs.
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How To Fight Racism Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartThe How to Fight Racism Study Guide, used together with the How to Fight Racism Video Study, provides groups and individuals with practical tools and suggestions, along with real-world examples of change, to enable them to become proactive initiators of racial justice.
Tisby offers an array of actionable items to confront racism in our relationships and in everyday life through a simple framework–the A.R.C. Of Racial Justice–that helps readers consistently interrogate their own actions and maintain a consistent posture of anti-racist action. This book is for anyone who believes it is time to stop compromising with racism and courageously confront it.
The study guide, along with the video study, offers readers the opportunity to be part of the solution to racial problems and suggests that the application of these principles can offer us hope that will transform our nation and the world. Tisby encourages us to reject passivity and become active participants in the struggle for human dignity across racial and ethnic lines. Readers of the book will come away with a clear model for how to think about race in productive ways and a compelling call to dismantle a social hierarchy long stratified by skin color.
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Pursued Womens Bible Study Leader Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$15.99Add to cartDiscover how God is pursuing you as you explore His relentless love from Genesis to Revelation in Pursued by Jennifer Cowart.
We all want to be loved. We long to be desired, pursued-whether by a special someone, our friends, or others in our lives. This longing for love and acceptance is the underlying story of many of our lives, and it’s the overarching story we see throughout the Scriptures. Although the Bible tells many stories, the main theme is God’s relentless love for us.
In Pursued, a six-week Bible study by Jennifer Cowart, we will explore God’s great love for us from Genesis to Revelation. We will see that God passionately pursues people who do not deserve His love, and we are those people!
Like Cain, Abraham, Sarah, Rebekah, David, the woman caught in adultery, Peter, and so many others, we are the ones who have broken relationship with God. But He runs after us anyway to bring us home.
In this study, we will explore God’s love as evidenced in the stories of creation, the patriarchs, the judges and prophets, Jesus, and the early church. Together we will dive into a great love story and discover that it is our story!
Through this study women will:
*See the big picture of God’s love for them throughout the Scriptures
*Discover that God wants a personal relationship with them
*Experience God’s relentless love for them individually
*Realize that God never stops pursuing themComponents for this six-week Bible study, each available separately, include a Participant Workbook, a Leader Guide, and video sessions with six 20 to 25-minute segments (with closed captioning).
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Sensible Shoes Leaders Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$16.99Add to cartSensible Shoes is an unusual novel, blending a fictional story with nonfiction teaching elements.
Some readers view it only as a story of four characters on a journey. Others say yes to a deeper level of reading, embracing the opportunity to take a “sacred journey” along with the characters, by opening themselves to the Spirit’s work and attending to God’s invitations. The Sensible Shoes Leader’s Guide offers two ways to invite readers into a deeper journey: first, there are resources here for a twelve-week small group experience through the Sensible Shoes Study Guide. Each week you’ll be provided with a few prayer prompts for your work as a leader, tips for facilitating the group, and behind-the-scenes information about the characters and their journeys that can be used as opening materials for your sessions. The second set of resources in this guide relates to leading a retreat based on Sensible Shoes. After years of creating and speaking at “Sensible Shoes Retreats,” spiritual director Sharon Brown offers here additional content to help you design the ideal space for your context as you gather people in longer sessions to experience this material. In addition to one-day, weekend, and online schedules, there are many creative ideas from leaders of groups who have used Sensible Shoes for retreats over the years. Sensible Shoes was written for the purpose of bringing God’s healing and spiritual transformation into the lives of readers traveling in community. Is there an invitation here for you to bring this message to your community? Also available: Sensible Shoes Leader Kit and Sensible Shoes Participant Kit, with everything you need for a small group or retreat experience.
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Sensible Shoes Participant Kit (Student/Study Guide)
$57.99Add to cartSensible Shoes is an unusual novel, blending a fictional story with nonfiction teaching elements.
Some readers view it only as a story of four characters on a journey. Others say yes to a deeper level of reading, embracing the opportunity to take a “sacred journey” along with the characters, by opening themselves to the Spirit’s work and attending to God’s invitations. The Sensible Shoes Participant Kit offers everything you need for two different types of experiences: a twelve-week small group or a one-day, weekend, or online retreat. There’s also a copy of the book and a beautiful journal with a ribbon and quotes from the characters. Sensible Shoes was written for the purpose of bringing God’s healing and spiritual transformation into the lives of readers traveling in community. Is there an invitation here for you to bring this message to your community?
The Sensible Shoes Participant Kit includes:
*Sensible Shoes
*Sensible Shoes Prayer Cards (sold as part of this kit only)
*Sensible Shoes Journal
*Sensible Shoes Study Guide -
Sensible Shoes Leader Kit
$74.98Add to cartSensible Shoes is an unusual novel, blending a fictional story with nonfiction teaching elements.
Some readers view it only as a story of four characters on a journey. Others say yes to a deeper level of reading, embracing the opportunity to take a “sacred journey” along with the characters, by opening themselves to the Spirit’s work and attending to God’s invitations. The Sensible Shoes Leader’s Kit offers everything you need to invite participants into two different types of experiences: a twelve-week small group or a one-day, weekend, or online retreat. Included in the kit is both a participant and a leader guide. The leader guide provides prayer prompts, tips for facilitating the group, and behind-the-scenes information about the characters and their journeys that can be used as opening materials for your sessions. Also provided are schedules for differing retreat formats and creative ideas gathered from the many groups that have used Sensible Shoes in retreats over the years. There’s also a copy of the book and a beautiful journal with a ribbon and quotes from the characters. Sensible Shoes was written for the purpose of bringing God’s healing and spiritual transformation into the lives of readers traveling in community. Is there an invitation here for you to bring this message to your community?
The Sensible Shoes Leader’s Kit includes:
*Sensible Shoes Leader’s Guide
*Sensible Shoes
*Sensible Shoes Prayer Cards (sold as part of this kit only)
*Sensible Shoes Journal
*Sensible Shoes Study Guide -
Treatment Of Childhood Disorders
$55.00Add to cartCaring for the mental health of children and their families is complex and challenging-and meaningful.
For Christian clinicians who work with childhood disorders, however, few resources exist to address such treatment from a research-based Christian integration perspective. Treatment of Childhood Disorders fills this gap by combining biblical and theological understanding with current psychological literature on empirically supported treatments for children. Sarah E. Hall and Kelly S. Flanagan present an integrated approach based in developmental psychopathology, which offers a dynamic, multifaceted framework from which to understand the processes that affect children’s development. In this unique textbook, Hall and Flanagan consider a variety of disorders commonly diagnosed in children and adolescents, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder. After discussing prevalence, risk and causal factors, patterns throughout development, and assessment, they focus on evidence-based practices that have been found to be effective in treating the disorders. Each chapter also features ideas for Christian integration in treatment and an extended case study that brings the content to life.
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Preaching : How To Preach Biblically
$29.99Add to cartMany sermons preached today lack the divine knowledge and spiritual understanding available only through dynamic expository preaching. In Preaching: How to Preach Biblically, John MacArthur” well-known passion for the Bible combines with the expertise of faculty members at The Master’s Seminary to inspire and equip preachers in effective biblical preaching.
Preaching: How to Preach Biblically flows from biblical foundations for expository preaching through a detailed process of developing expositions and creating sermons to the actual delivery of expository messages, connecting what pastors learn in seminary with the sermons preached in a local church. This volume shows how to progress purposefully from one phase to the next in preparing to minister to God’s people through preaching.
This book answers these questions and more:
*What is expository, biblical preaching?
*What are the theological and historical foundations for insisting on expository preaching?*What are the steps involved in preparation for and participation in biblical preaching?
*What models exist for expository preaching today?The Master’s Seminary faculty, with over thirty years’ experience in preaching and seminary training of preachers, contributes a treasury of expertise alongside insights from expositor John MacArthur. While united on their commitment to exposition, the variety of individual expressions and methodological preferences discussed offers beneficial assistance for any preacher seeking a higher level of expository excellence.
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Connections Year B Volume 3 Season After Pentecost
$55.00Add to cartDesigned to empower preachers as they lead their congregations to connect their lives to Scripture, Connections features a broad set of interpretive tools that provide commentary and worship aids on the Revised Common Lectionary. This nine-volume series offers creative commentary on each reading through the lens of its connections to the rest of Scripture and then seeing the reading through the lenses of culture, film, fiction, ethics, and other aspects of contemporary life. Commentaries on the Psalms make connections to other readings and to the congregation’s experience of worship.
Connections is published in partnership with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Indispensable Church : Powerful Ways To Flood Your Community With Love
$19.00Add to cartYou have a passionate desire to take the church outside its four walls and make the love of Jesus practical, visible, and lived out in daily life. But how? How do you put into action what is stirring in your heart?
Indispensable Church provides you and your church real-world, hands-on steps to create a revolution of service to your local community in the name of Christ. By exploring the life of Jesus and the strategic ways he modeled serving the people around him, pastor Chris Sonksen shows you how to put love into action in your neighborhood and your city. The step-by-step instructions, biblical challenges, and teaching resources will help you take love to the streets and make an impact right where you live.
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Leaves From The Notebook Of A Tamed Cynic
$31.00Add to cartLeaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic is Niebuhr’s account of the frustrations and joys he experienced during his years at Bethel. Addressed to young ministers, this book provides reflections and insights for those engaged in the challenging yet infinitely rewarding occupation of pastoral ministry.
Renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr began his career as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan, where he served from 1915-1928. Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic is Niebuhr’s account of the frustrations and joys he experienced during his years at Bethel. Addressed to young ministers, this book provides reflections and insights for those engaged in the challenging yet infinitely rewarding occupation of pastoral ministry.
With a foreword from Jonathan Walton on Niebuhr’s enduring insights into the challenges and relevance of pastoral ministry, this powerful book remains as useful today as it was last century.
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Not Forsaken Leader Guide With Participant Helps
$21.99Add to cartForsaken: Growing up Black, Male and Christian in the Hood encapsulates principles author Chris McNair gleaned from successfully working with at-risk African American boys in the inner city in over thirty years of ministry. This book teaches how youth workers can address social, emotional, physical and spiritual issues facing young black men in the city. It is about building a relational ministry among black youth, centered on instilling a sense of identity in Christ and provides a study curriculum to use with the young men themselves.
The book with study sessions contains everything needed to begin to equip leaders and guide a group through the study including session plans, activities, and discussion questions.
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Wild At Heart Field Guide Revised Edition (Revised)
$19.99Add to cartIn Wild at Heart, bestselling author John Eldredge thrust a generation of men, young and old, toward a journey to recover true masculinity?the soul of a man as God designed him. He reminded men they needed adventure in their lives-in their work, in their love, and their spiritual lives-and showed how God designed them to be dangerous. Sadly, most men today have abandoned these dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a “nice guy.” It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death.
The Wild at Heart Field Manual, which corresponds chapter-by-chapter with the book, helps men understand how God wants to heal these deep wounds from earlier years that take away their confidence and, in some case, their masculinity. Men will discover that deep within their heart is a longing for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue-because that is how God created them. It is time for the church to reclaim these wounded warriors. It is time to give men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!
Packed with new information and insights, the Wild at Heart Field Manual guides men along “the road less traveled.” Filled with probing questions, creative exercises, and space to record personal field notes, this companion volume is designed to transition men from reading about the wild heart to living from it.
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Positive Psychology In Christian Perspective
$45.99Add to cartOriginally the field of psychology had a threefold mission: to cure mental illness, yes, but also to find ways to make life fulfilling for all and to maximize talent. Over the last century, a focus on mental illness has often been prioritized over studies of health, to the point that many people assume “psychologist” is just another way of saying “psychotherapist.” This book is about one attempt to restore the discipline’s larger mission.
Positive psychology attends to what philosophers call “the good life.” It is about fostering strength and living well–about how to do a good job at being human. Some of that will involve cheerful emotions, and some of it will not. There are vital roles to be played by archetypal challenges such as those involving self-control, guilt, and grit, and even the terror of death enters into positive psychology’s vision of human flourishing. Charles Hackney connects this still-new movement to foundational concepts in philosophy and Christian theology. He then explores topics such as subjective states, cognitive processes, and the roles of personality, relationships, and environment, also considering relevant practices in spheres from the workplace to the church and even the martial arts dojo. Hackney takes seriously the range of critiques positive psychology has faced as he frames a constructive future for Christian contributions to the field.
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Enneagram Goes To Church
$18.99Add to cartIf I had known the Enneagram earlier in my ministry, I would have been a much better pastor.
When this thought came to Todd Wilson, he had already served as a pastor in several churches for the better part of fifteen years and was successfully leading a large, historic, and diverse congregation. He’d started out in ministry with a strong education in everything from biblical exegesis and homiletics to organizational development and Christian education. However, at its root, pastoral ministry is about shepherding, serving, leading, and loving people, and Todd realized that what he lacked was wisdom about how people work. He says, “When it came to empathetically shepherding people and sensitively engaging their manifold personalities and diverse ways of seeing the world, I was an amateur.” Whether you are on a church staff or leading a small group, you will find that the insights from the Enneagram that have helped many grow in self-awareness can be applied to life in our faith communities. The Enneagram can help us to become better teachers. It can influence how we develop worship and Christian education. And it can guide us in building and leading teams. It’s time to take the Enneagram to church–and to allow it to shape our life together.
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Purpose Gap : Empowering Communities Of Color To Find Meaning And Thrive
$28.00Add to cartIn The Purpose Gap, Patrick Reyes reflects on a family member’s death after a long struggle with incarceration and homelessness. As he asks himself why his cousin’s life had turned out so differently from his own, he realizes that it was a matter of conditions. While they both grew up in the same marginalized Chicano community in Southern California, Patrick found himself surrounded by a host of family, friends, and supporters. They created a different narrative for him than the one the rest of the world had succeeded in imposing on his cousin. In short, they created the conditions in which Patrick could not only survive but thrive.
Far too much of the literature on leadership tells the story of heroic individuals creating their success by their own efforts. Such stories fail to recognize the structural obstacles to thriving faced by those in marginalized communities. If young people in these communities are to grow up to lives of purpose, others must help create the conditions to make that happen. Pastors, organizational leaders, educators, family, and friends must all perceive their calling to create new stories and new conditions of thriving for those most marginalized. This book offers both inspiration and practical guidance for how to do that. It offers advice on creating safe space for failure, nurturing networks that support young people of color, and professional guidance for how to implement these strategies in one’s congregation, school, or community organization.
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Wild At Heart Study Guide Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartIn this updated edition of the bestselling classic, author John Eldredge reminds men they need adventure in their lives . . . in their work, in their love, and their spiritual lives. He reveals how God designed men to be dangerous. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: to be a hero, to be a warrior, and to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men today have abandoned these dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a “nice guy.” It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death.
In this provocative six-session video study (DVD/digital video downloads sold separately), John Eldredge explains how God wants to heal these deep wounds from earlier years that take away a man’s confidence and-in some cases-his masculinity. He shows that deep within the heart of every man is a longing for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue-because that is how God created him. It is time for the church to reclaim these wounded warriors. It is time to give men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!
Sessions include:
1. The Heart of a Man
2. The Wound
3. A Battle to Fight
4. An Adventure to Live
5. A Beauty to Rescue
6. A Band of BrothersDesigned for use with the Wild at Heart Video Study (sold separately).
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Starfish And The Spirit
$19.99Add to cartLeveraging the metaphor Ori popularized in his NYT best-selling book, The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman shows why the distributed structures of starfish organizations are uniquely fit to the church. They can function without a rigid central authority, and their regenerative abilities make them nimbler in reacting to external forces. Seeding starfish networks inside todays churches will prepare the church of tomorrow to be agile while still maintaining the necessary accountability to be effective.
Rather than advocating the adoption of a starfish structure in place of the hierarchy of the spider, Brafman, along with pastors Lance Ford and Rob Wegner, emphasize the advantages of adapting the structure and order inherent in a spider organization toward a hybrid model–either a Spiderfish approach (leaning toward centralization) or a Starder approach (leaning toward decentralization).
The Starfish and the Spirit is about creating a culture where church leaders view themselves as curators of a community on mission, not the source of certainty for every question and project. It is about creating a team of humble leaders “in the middle” of the church, not at the top–leaders who naturally reproduce multiple generations of leaders, from the middle out on mission. Imagine a church led by a team whose gifts and talents are completely unleashed, enabling everyone to show up and step up with all they really are. The joy and vigor coming from the collective strength, intelligence, and skill in the community of leaders not only brings greater potency but better yields for your ministry as well. What would it be like to see this kind of healthy leadership reproduced into the second, third, and fourth generation, on multiple strands?
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Preaching And The 30 Second Commercial
$29.00Add to cartAt first glance, preaching and advertising seem worlds apart from one another. One tries to proclaim love of God and neighbor; the other tries to sell you something that you may or may not need. Yet both must compete with other ways we receive and process information in an increasingly distracted world. While most of the time preaching simply tries to muddle through this situation, advertising knows that it must continually relearn how to reclaim its audience’s attention-and keep it.
Believing that preaching can benefit from advertising’s laser focus on how to make its message stick, O. Wesley Allen, Jr. (a preaching professor) and Carrie La Ferle (a professor of advertising) have written this first-of-its-kind book on what preachers can learn from advertising.
Examples of these lessons include:
– Sharpening one’s analysis to understand the congregation better
– Encoding a message so that listeners can decode it for their individual lives
– Understanding how the form of the sermon leads to greater or lesser effectiveness
– Building the sermon around imagery and narrative
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Worship For The Whole People Of God Second Edition
$50.00Add to cartThis revised edition of the popular textbook on worship by renowned hymn writer and professor Ruth C. Duck provides theological foundations for worship and explores the ways Christians have adapted worship to various cultures to help them live faithfully and to communicate the gospel to others. The author celebrates the many languages and cultural settings in which the gospel has been, and is, preached, sung, and prayed. The goal of this volume is to support good pastoral and congregational reflection on what worship is and does. Consequently, Duck discusses many different forms of worship from several cultures (African American, Asian, Euro-American) and offers advice on how to read a congregation and define its culture in order to plan culturally appropriate worship. She includes many practical suggestions for preparing and leading worship, including diverse ministries of music, movement, and visual arts that are becoming more popular today.
From worship’s theological underpinnings, the book turns to worship leadership, forms of prayer, preaching, the sacraments, ordination, and various other liturgies. Because of its emphasis on vital and Spirit-led worship, this comprehensive book on Christian worship will be used in years to come, not only as a core textbook for seminarians and ministry students from a variety of cultures and traditions but also as a resource for local church pastors and laity who are dedicated to the enlivening of Christian worship.
In this new edition, Duck updates and expands the recommended resources, updates the section on worship trends, enhances the section on multicultural worship, and revises marriage information based on cultural and denominational changes.
Highlights include stories of four churches that are developing creative ways to grow and meet the possibilities and challenges of these times, especially in seeking justice, serving people in their neighborhood, and building bridges among cultures and religious groups. In addition, a new appendix by David Gambrell addresses the theological and practical questions surrounding online worship in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.
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Healing The Wounds Of Trauma Facilitators Guide 2021 Edition Print On Deman (Tea
$11.99Add to cartThis handbook is for certified facilitators who care for hurting people using Healing the Wounds of Trauma: How the Church Can Help, the book which is the foundation of the Bible-based trauma healing ministry of the Trauma Healing Institute. This guide contains the timetables, instructions, and logistical details that facilitators need to lead healing groups.
This edition contains stories that can be effectively used in North American and global city contexts.
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Come Back Participant Book (Student/Study Guide)
$12.99Add to cartWe all experience setbacks. Loss, failure, and even tragedy are part of life. But when these start to define us, it’s time to regroup. Roger Ross teaches the essentials for rising up and out of bad circumstances in Come Back: Returning to the Life You Were Made For. This engaging book tells turnaround stories from sports, history, and everyday life, tracing Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son to reveal five crucial stages for every comeback. Each stage is paired with an ancient spiritual practice designed to help everyday people turn some part of their life around.
This Participant Guide is your personal study tool and workbook. It’s designed to help you process the lessons of Come Back: Returning to the Life You Were Made For. The study leads you to analyze your own situation more deeply, and shows you how to incorporate the spiritual practices into your daily life. The study is particularly effective in a group setting. Participants need both this Guide and the main book.
It’s not too late. It’s time for your comeback.
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How Women Transform Preaching
$30.99Add to cartWomen preachers are everywhere. The pulpit, once a bastion of male presence and power, has become, in many denominations, a place where women regularly exercise their gifts, leading congregations and proclaiming God’s word each week. The number of women scholars who are publishing and teaching in the field of preaching has also expanded dramatically.
Leonora Tubbs Tisdale explores how the presence of women preachers and scholars of preaching has transformed the practice of homiletics this country-from the reclamation of women’s “herstory” in preaching, to the topics addressed in preaching and scholarship, to the way in which Biblical hermeneutics and theologizing are undertaken in preaching, to the imagery, illustrations, shape and embodiment of the sermons themselves.
How Women Transform Preaching begins with a fascinating survey, including statistical information and historical analysis. Interviewing 16 women preachers/homileticians, Tisdale shares ‘untold stories’ of women preachers throughout history who are largely unknown but who serve as examples of both the struggle and power of women’s preaching. She then tells the stories of contemporary women preachers. Throughout, Tisdale draws practical lessons for the reader, showing what students, homileticians, and preachers can learn from extraordinary women preachers.
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Building A City On A Hill Student Workbook (Student/Study Guide)
$7.74Add to cartBuilding A City On A Hill: African American Communities of Purpose Student Workbook explores how we can shine for Jesus by demonstrating Christian character wherever God has placed us. Each chapter reminds us that God calls us to be Christians at home, at work, and in the community. This call enables us to change lives and foster economic development, which causes families and communities to flourish. A revisit of historic Black towns showcases the self-sufficient businesses and enterprises that African Americans built after emancipation. Vocational excellence, unselfish service, and an awareness that God is at work in each life are key to this curriculum.
Building A City On A Hill is suitable for Adult Vacation Bible School, small groups, and individual Bible study. The lives of ten Bible characters serve as examples of good works and moral excellence while being the light in their particular situations. By learning about these characters, you will be inspired and equipped to be the light of the world.
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Lectures To My Students Volume 3 Practical And Spiritual Guidance For Preac
$19.99Add to cart“The solemn work of Christian ministry demands a man’s all, and that all should be at its best. To engage in ministry halfheartedly is an insult to God and man. Sleep must leave our eyelids before men are allowed to perish. Yet we are all prone to sleep, and students, among the rest, are apt to act the part of the foolish virgins. Therefore, I have sought to speak out my whole soul in the hope that I might not create or foster any dullness in others, and to this end, my lectures are colloquial, familiar, full of anecdote, and often humorous. May He, in whose hand are the churches and their pastors, bless these words to younger brethren in the ministry, and if so, I will count it more than a full reward and will gratefully praise the Lord.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon -
Disability And The Church
$18.99Add to cartPastor Lamar Hardwick was thirty-six years old when he found out he was on the autism spectrum. This revelation prompted him to reconsider the church’s responsibilities to the disabled community. Insisting that the good news of Jesus affirms God’s image in all people, Hardwick offers practical steps and strategies to build stronger, truly inclusive communities of faith.
Lamar Hardwick was thirty-six years old when he found out he was on the autism spectrum. While this revelation helped him understand and process his own experience, it also prompted a difficult re-evaluation of who he was as a person. And as a pastor, it started him on a new path of considering the way disabled people are treated in the church. Disability and the Church is a practical and theological reconsideration of the church’s responsibilities to the disabled community. Too often disabled persons are pushed away from the church or made to feel unwelcome in any number of ways. As Hardwick writes, “This should not be.” He insists that the good news of Jesus affirms God’s image in all people, and he offers practical steps and strategies to build stronger, truly inclusive communities of faith.
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Freedom Starts Today
$16.99Add to cartEvery church is filled with people who are struggling–often secretly–with addictions of all kinds. Porn, pills, food, money, alcohol, social media, body image, status, sex, anxiety–the list goes on and on. John Elmore is no stranger to addiction. Fifteen years ago, he put a loaded shotgun to his head and later had three doctors tell him he was going to die of alcoholism. More than 15 sober years later, he leads the world’s largest weekly recovery gathering, re:generation, where people journey toward healing in Christ.
In Freedom Starts Today, he makes a huge promise to the addicted: you can be free from your struggle, and much sooner than you may think. Through easily digestible readings grounded in Scripture and the practice of daily surrender, Elmore shows you how to break the cycle of addiction, make war against sin, and find your identity in who you are and not the shame of what you have done–one day at a time.
Leave behind struggles, addiction, and shame as you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the love, mercy, and forgiveness of the God who is not only by your side but on your side.
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Elijah Bible Study Book (Student/Study Guide)
$16.99Add to cartOld Testament heroes are best known for their most celebrated, highlight moments: Moses dividing the Red Sea; David slaying Goliath; Gideon routing an insurmountable army; Joshua marching around the defiant walls of Jericho.
And Elijah-calling down fire on Mount Carmel.
Blinded by the remarkable narratives of our biblical heroes, we can forget they each had a backstory-months and years of development, even difficulty, which fortified their spiritual muscle and prepared them for the tasks that made their lives unforgettable.
This 7-session Bible study, on one of the premier ancient prophets, is your invitation to surrender to that process.
Every serious believer longs to summon up the kind of boldness and faith that can stand firm on Mount Carmel and pray down heaven into impossible situations. Yet few are willing to go through the process required to get them there. Strength of faith, character, and boldness can only be shaped in the hidden fires of silence, sameness, solitude, and adversity. Those who patiently wait on God in the darkness emerge with their holy loyalty cemented, their courage emblazoned, and their confident belief in Him set afire.
Join author and Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer on a journey through the life and times of Elijah. Discover how the fire on Mount Carmel was forged in the valley of famine. And how the emboldened, fiery faith you desire is being fashioned by God in your life right now.
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Radiant Church : Restoring The Credibility Of Our Witness
$20.99Add to cartSomething is not right. The witness of the church in North America is eroding.
Many Christians are alarmed by the decline in church attendance and seek a culprit. Too often, we point the finger away from the church, make culture the enemy, and build walls between us and others. But our antagonism and enemy-making are toxins that further eat away at our witness. Is there a better way? Tara Beth Leach could easily be one of those millennials giving up on the church. Instead, she is a pastor who loves the church and is paradoxically hopeful for its future. In an era where the church has lost much of its credibility, Leach casts a radiant vision for Christians to rediscover a robust, attractive witness. We need to name the toxic soil we’ve grown in, repent for past wrongs, and lean into a better way to become the church that Jesus proclaimed we would be. Leach casts down idolatrous false images of God to recover a winsome picture of a kingdom of abundance and goodness. We can be sustained by practices that will tune our hearts to God’s and form us into the radiant communities God intends for us and those around us.
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Lamenting Racism Participant Journal (Student/Study Guide)
$11.99Add to cartWe need to talk about race. The Bible’s prayers of lament show us the way.
Stories of racial injustice fill our news feeds. Yet for too long many of us in the church have been hesitant to speak up. We fear offending others, of using the wrong words, of not knowing what to say.
In Lamenting Racism, a team of leading pastors and theologians come together to lay the groundwork for important conversations about racism in your congregation. In six, thought-provoking video sessions, they name that God’s people of every race are called to confront racism in every way possible. Together this team invites each of us to consider and give voice to how we have been shaped and formed by race.
Calling on us to reclaim the lost art of biblical lament, they offer a powerful way to pour out the fear, shame, grief, and rage of racism in prayer. In the process, we will be transformed, reclaiming hope for a world shaped by God’s inclusive vision of love and blessing.
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New Testament Challenge Study Journal (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartThe New Testament Challenge is designed to help small-group members explore the books of the New Testament in a fresh and new way. In this Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), participants will learn how the story of God restoring his original creation-which was begun in the Old Testament-reached its crowning moment with the birth of Messiah into the world. Through Jesus’ birth, he answered the question once and for all of who God is and what he is like. Through Jesus’ teaching, he revealed the deepest meaning of the laws and institutions that God gave to the people of Israel. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, he introduced the life of the age to come into the present age. Group members will also discover how the followers of Jesus formed a new community and invited people from all over the world to join them, and how the Bible looks ahead to the day when Christ will return to renew all of creation and establish God’s justice and peace on the earth.
Sessions include:
1. Luke-Acts
2. Luke-Acts, 1-2 Thessalonians
3. 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans
4. Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy
5. Matthew
6. Hebrews, James, Mark
7. 1-2 Peter, Jude, John
8. 1-3 John, Revelation -
Lamenting Racism Leaders Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$16.99Add to cartWe need to talk about race. The Bible’s prayers of lament show us the way.
Stories of racial injustice fill our news feeds. Yet for too long many of us in the church have been hesitant to speak up. We fear offending others, of using the wrong words, of not knowing what to say.
In Lamenting Racism, a team of leading pastors and theologians come together to lay the groundwork for important conversations about racism in your congregation. In six, thought-provoking video sessions, they name that God’s people of every race are called to confront racism in every way possible. Together this team invites each of us to consider and give voice to how we have been shaped and formed by race.
Calling on us to reclaim the lost art of biblical lament, they offer a powerful way to pour out the fear, shame, grief, and rage of racism in prayer. In the process, we will be transformed, reclaiming hope for a world shaped by God’s inclusive vision of love and blessing.
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Women In The Bible
$50.00Add to cartWhat was it like to be a woman in the biblical period? It depended, in part, on who you were: a queen, a judge, a primary wife, a secondary wife, a widow, a slave, or some other kind of ordinary woman. In Women in the Bible, Jaime Clark-Soles investigates how women are presented in Scripture, taking into account cultural views of both ancient societies as well as our own. While women today are exercising leadership in churches across a number of denominations and our scholarly knowledge related to women in the Bible has grown immensely, challenges remain. Most of Christendom still excludes women from religious leadership, and many Christians invoke the Bible to circumscribe women’s leadership in the public square and in the home as well. It is more urgent than ever, therefore, to investigate closely, honestly, and intrepidly what the Bible does and doesn’t say about women.
In a multipronged approach, Clark-Soles treats well-known biblical women from fresh perspectives, highlights women who have been ignored, and recovers those who have been erased from historical memory by particular moves made in the transmission and translations of the text. She explores symbolic feminized figures like Woman Wisdom and the Whore of Babylon and reclaims the uses of feminine imagery in the Bible that often go unnoticed. Chapters focus on themes of God’s relationship to gender, women and violence, women as creators, and women in the ministry of both Jesus and Paul. Clark-Soles aims to equip clergy and other leaders invested in the study of Scripture to consider women in the Bible from multiple angles and, as a result, help people of all genders to live God’s vision of better, more just lives as we navigate the challenges of our complex, globally connected world.
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Color Of Compromise Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartIn The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby takes readers back to the roots of sustained racism and injustice in the American church. Filled with powerful stories and examples of American Christianity’s racial past, Tisby’s historical narrative highlights the obvious ways people of faith have actively worked against racial justice, as well as the complicit silence of racial moderates. The Color of Compromise Study Guide, used together with The Color of Compromise Video Study, unpacks the content of the video study for an in-depth diagnosis of a racially divided American church, suggesting ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among God’s people.
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Planting A Church Without Losing Your Soul
$25.99Add to cartWhat does it take to be a church planter or ministry entrepreneur? According to veteran church planter Tim Morey, you need more than just vocational capacities-you need spiritual competencies. Featuring real-life stories from leaders plus practices and discussion questions, this book is a practical guide to spiritual formation geared to the unique needs of church planters and teams.
What does it take to be a church planter or other ministry entrepreneur? Most leaders start out with passion, a sense of calling, and a focus on building ministry skills. Such things might get some results, but they are not enough to sustain a healthy ministry-or a healthy life. Beyond the vocational capacities every church planter needs, there’s a range of capabilities more difficult to measure but even more essential: what veteran church planter Tim Morey calls spiritual competencies. Morey provides here a practical guide to spiritual formation geared to the unique needs of church planters. He helps readers answer the questions, What are the spiritual capabilities that I as a church planter need to develop? How might I lean into the work Jesus is doing in these vital areas? Spiritual competencies have to do not just with behaviors but also with the motivations, agendas, and scripts that drive behaviors. Morey explores how church planters can become people who:
*invest in their own physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual health
*accept limits and share responsibilities
*can be trusted with power
*are able to stay resilient and grow through difficulties
*can minister without being noticed
*find a sustainable pace that helps them avoid burnoutThe health of a church or any ministry organization is directly linked to the health of its leaders. Church planters may be used to improvising, but when it comes to their spiritual lives, they can’t afford to just wing it. Featuring real-life stories from leaders, suggested practices, and discussion questions in each chapter, this book will equip individuals and teams (and those who coach them) to commit to an intentional plan for spiritual formation-for the good of their churches, their relationships, and their own lives as disciples of Jesus.
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Words Of Life Childrens Leader Guide
$18.99Add to cartNearly everyone has heard of the Ten Commandments, the list of “thou-shalt-nots” found in the Bible. Jesus saw these commandments not as onerous burdens, but as guideposts to help us experience a good and beautiful life.
In this book of Scripture and inspiration, bestselling author Adam Hamilton brings modern eyes to the most important set of ethics in history. He considers the commandments in their historical context, considering the meaning of each commandment in Hebrew, unpacking how Jesus reinterpreted them, and showing how every thou-shalt-not was intended to point to a life-giving “thou shalt.” He also explores how the latest research in science and psychology illuminates these commandments, rightly understood, as a way of ordering one’s life beautifully in the present day. In a culture marked by workaholism, materialism, and social media-driven envy, God has given us a time-tested path that leads to gratitude, confidence, and peace.
The Children’s Leader Guide contains session plans for younger and older children (grades K-2 and 3-6) including games, activities, craft ideas, and reproducible handouts.
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Words Of Life Leader Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$14.99Add to cartNearly everyone has heard of the Ten Commandments, the list of “thou-shalt-nots” found in the Bible. Jesus saw these commandments not as onerous burdens, but as guideposts to help us experience a good and beautiful life.
In this book of Scripture and inspiration, bestselling author Adam Hamilton brings modern eyes to the most important set of ethics in history. He considers the commandments in their historical context, considering the meaning of each commandment in Hebrew, unpacking how Jesus reinterpreted them, and showing how every thou-shalt-not was intended to point to a life-giving “thou shalt.” He also explores how the latest research in science and psychology illuminates these commandments, rightly understood, as a way of ordering one’s life beautifully in the present day. In a culture marked by workaholism, materialism, and social media-driven envy, God has given us a time-tested path that leads to gratitude, confidence, and peace.
The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the six-week study including session plans, activities, and discussion questions, as well as multiple format options.
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7 Words Leader Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$14.99Add to cartExamine the last seven words of Christ on the cross this Lent.
While many of us naturally wish to avoid the reality of the cross, it’s from the cross that Jesus speaks and shows his deepest love for us. It’s from the cross that Jesus’ full humanity draws us closest to him. It’s from the cross, as Jesus breathes his last breath and speaks his last words, that his deep trust in the Father and his divine glory are revealed. Those who listen to Jesus’ last words from the cross will discover what he most wants them (the world) to hear and will experience an intimate and divine awe only available to those who are willing to draw near his cross.
In Seven Words, Susan Robb looks at the seven last words of Christ on the cross through a lens that finds life and hope in his final sayings, while exploring each from a biblical and historical perspective. The book brings a hopeful and contemplative take on the cross during the weeks of Lent.
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Better Decisions Fewer Regrets Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartIn this six-session video Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), Andy Stanley gives you five key questions to ask when you have a decision to make and you’re not sure what to do. We never know what or who hangs in the balance of the decisions we make. But what we do know is this: private decisions have public implications. Your private decisions probably won’t stay private, and personal decisions will impact some other persons.
These five simple questions will empower you to:
*Make better decisions with fewer regrets
*Pause when feeling tension over a decision
*Take the long view
*Look for the wise option
*Focus on the relational impact of decisionsDesigned for use with the Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets Video Study (sold separately).
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Comfort In The Ashes
$26.00Add to cartNavigating Trauma in the Church
It’s time for church leaders and believers to stop offering prettily packaged responses from a safe distance. It’s time for us to sit in the ashes with the hurting, our Sunday clothes covered in dirt and grime, our faces lined with tears. Trauma brings people to the ash heap, so that is where the church needs to go.
The church should serve as a refuge for people in pain. And yet, we often end up unintentionally causing more hurt to trauma survivors. Theological platitudes and positive thinking aren’t simply dismissive to those who suffer, but they inevitably retraumatize the wounded. Does the Bible have anything practical to offer for church leaders as they engage the pain in their congregations?
Biblical scholar Michelle Keener shows us that the book of Job provides embodied and practical answers for the church today. In this incredible tool for ministry leaders and trauma survivors alike, Keener offers:
*deep wisdom at the intersection of trauma theory and the book of Job for Christian communities
*reflection questions for ministry practitioners and those walking alongside those who have experienced trauma
*engagement with the idea of a shattered worldview and how to overcome the effects of that experience.
Comfort in the Ashes helps leaders navigate their own trauma and gives practical guidance for supporting others whose worlds are falling apart. God meets us in our ashes and our pain. It’s time for the church to do the same.
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Insider Church : Ekklesia And The Insider Paradigm
$19.99Add to cartInsider Movements = Church-planting Movements?
?In the last few decades, the Church has witnessed a growing harvest of Muslim-background believers coming to Christ. However, a divide remains over whether the “insider” paradigm contributes to the flourishing and multiplication of healthy, biblical churches among Muslims.
S. T. Antonio advances this conversation beyond the old arguments through a fresh analysis of the insider paradigm by asking the question, What is church? Starting with the identity-shaping narrative of the people of God, Antonio digs deep into the nature of biblical ekklesia from multiple angles-local and universal, visible and invisible, the classical “marks” of the church, and missional identity. Combining a robust, biblical vision with a nuanced contextualization framework, and informed by firsthand ministry among Muslims, Antonio uncovers the roots and contours of the ecclesial vision of the insider paradigm. Insider Church provides an innovative diagnosis of a paradigm that has been surrounded by controversy, challenging it with constructive analysis for multiplying biblical churches among Muslims.
This integrative study draws together biblical, theological, and missiological scholarship in service of Christ’s mission. Insider Church helps guide mission practitioners, leaders, and students toward a wise assessment of insider movements and a vision for church multiplication that is both fruitful and faithful to the Lord of the harvest.
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Daily Feast Meditations From Feasting On The Word Year B
$44.00Add to cartFeasting on the Word has quickly become the most popular lectionary commentary series in use today. This is the first in a new series of daily devotionals that draws from the wealth of writing in the commentaries to present inspirational reflections, responses, and prayers for each day of the lectionary year.
Each day of the week contains Scripture passages for the coming Sunday from the Revised Common Lectionary, excerpts from the commentaries for reflection, a response, and a prayer. Additional material is provided for each Sunday.
These handsome volumes will be packaged in a soft leather-like cover with rounded corners, a stamped cover, and a sewn-in ribbon to help you keep your place.
Feasting on the Word is a twelve-volume lectionary commentary series that presents brief essays on each of four perspectives–exegetical, theological, pastoral, and homiletical–for each of the four Sunday readings. The series is edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David L. Bartlett with a distinguished editorial board, and has been produced in partnership with Columbia Theological Seminary. For more information about the series and other related projects, visit FeastingontheWord.net.
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Systematic Theology Second Edition
$59.99Add to cartThe most widely-used text of the last 25 years in its discipline, Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem has been thoroughly revised and expanded (all 57 chapters) for the first time while retaining the features that have made it the standard in its field: clear explanations, an emphasis on each doctrine’s scriptural basis, and practical applications to daily life.
With several hundred pages of new content, this new edition now includes the following distinctive features.
*Updated, fuller analysis of several recent controversies within evangelicalism, including the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity, the question of God’s atemporal eternity, the role of women in the church, “seeker-sensitive” churches, miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, and contemporary worship music.
*New, thoughtful critiques of open theism, the “new perspective on Paul,” Molinism (or “middle knowledge”), “Free Grace” theology, and the preterist view of Christ’s second coming
*Completely revised, stronger chapter on the clarity of Scripture
*Completely revised, stronger chapter on creation and evolution (including a longer critique of theistic evolution)
*New discussion of how biblical inerrancy applies to some specific “problem verses” in the Gospels
*Additional material respectfully explaining evangelical Protestant differences with Roman Catholicism, Protestant liberalism, and Mormonism.
*Completely updated bibliographies
*All Scripture quotations updated from RSV to ESV
*An explanation of why monogenes in John 3:16 and elsewhere should be translated as “only begotten” rather than merely “only” (this is a change from the first edition)
*A contemporary worship song added at the end of each chapter (while retaining the traditional hymns as well)
*Numerous other updates and corrections
Part of the brilliance of Systematic Theology over the years has been its simplicity and ease of use. Each chapter follows the same structure. First, there is discussion of the doctrine being considered, such as justification or the Trinity or the deity of Christ. An explanation of where that doctrine is supported in the Bible and possible objections follow. Personal application and key terms to know for personal growth are then provided. Chapters also include a scripture memory passage, references to other literature on the topic, and suggested hymns and worship songs.
If you are someone who thinks theology is hard to understand or
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Saving Grace Clergy Workbook (Workbook)
$22.99Add to cartLearn to create a healthy relationship with your money and possessions
Saving Grace: A Guide to Financial Health is a program to help people of faith create healthy relationships with money and possessions. Participants will move through six sessions covering such topics as saving, earning, giving, spending, and debt, along with helpful strategies for achieving a sustainable financial life. Adapted from the best-selling Freed Up Financial Living from the Good Sense Movement, this study is based on Wesleyan values and provides text and tools to help participants address life concerns and reach personal financial goals.
A special clergy module addresses financial issues unique to pastors. This three-week study brings together faith and vocation while attending to the unique financial details of living as a pastor and being employed by the church. The clergy workbook contains worksheets and downloadable planners.
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Forward Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartIn this six-session video Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), bestselling author Dr. David Jeremiah reminds us that the Christian life is to be lived looking forward and with our eyes fixed on the race in front of us-not looking back over at our shoulder at the other runners or the past. In the Bible, the apostle said as much when he wrote, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14 (NKJV).
Dr. Jeremiah draws on this key verse to show that while it is good at times to look back, we need to make sure that we don’t go back and allow the past to dictate our future. We need to celebrate our good memories but also celebrate our bad memories with finality-thanking God for the lessons that He has taught us through the experience and committing to use those lesson to make positive changes in our lives. We then need to allow our past memories to cultivate our dreams-boldly stepping into the mission God has for us and allowing Him to continually transform us to be more like Christ.
Now is the time to step past our comfort and our failure. Now is the time to move forward in following God.
Designed for use with the Forward Video Study (sold separately).
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From Burned Out To Beloved
$18.99Add to cartAs a social worker, jail chaplain, and justice advocate, Bethany Dearborn Hiser pushed herself to the brink of burnout-only to discover that she needed the very soul care she was providing to others. Tackling the effects of secondary trauma and burnout, this is a trauma-informed soul care guide for Christians working in high-stress, helping professions.
As a social worker, jail chaplain, and justice advocate, Bethany Dearborn Hiser pushed herself to the brink of burnout-and then kept going. Stress, despair, and compassion fatigue overwhelmed her ability to function. She was called to serve the abused, addicted, and homeless people in her community. Yet she was emotionally and spiritually exhausted. Something needed to change. Searching for answers, Hiser learned that trauma affects everyone who is exposed to it-not only those experiencing firsthand violence, homelessness, and addiction, but also the social workers, therapists, pastors, relief workers, teachers, and community development workers who are trying to help. Psychologists call it “secondary trauma.” Hiser discovered that she needed the very soul care that she was providing to others. From Burned Out to Beloved is Hiser’s story of burnout, self-discovery, and spiritual renewal. But more than that, it’s a trauma-informed soul care guide for Christians working in high-stress, helping professions. There are many resources on secondary trauma and spiritual disciplines, but few bring these areas together. From Burned Out to Beloved equips readers to confess their limitations, embrace their identities as beloved children of God, and flourish in the ministries where God has called them.
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Bobbie Baker And Kingdom Core Values Volume 1
$59.99Add to cartA Full Interactive Children’s Curriculum Experience
Bobbie Baker is a klutzy, goofy, messy baker, with a beautiful heart, and his mission is to reflect Jesus to the children in your classroom! The Bobbie Baker and Kingdom Core Values curriculum offers a holistic solution for a supernatural children’s ministry that is grounded in core, biblical truth.
In this fourteen-week adventure, children ages 5-10 will encounter truths that Bobbie Baker shares from his recipe book – the Bible. Each week, kids will explore a Biblical principle with Bobbie, discovering practical values like joy, God’s presence, healing, and more. Along the way, they will discover the Holy Spirit, grow in spiritual gifts, and get to know Jesus on a deeper level.
Lessons include:
*God is Good
*Salvation Creates Joyful Identity
*Jesus Empowers Supernatural Ministry
*God is Still Speaking
*Free and Responsible
*Generous Like My Father
*and so much more!Each lesson contains fun and thought-provoking activities – skits with Bobbie Baker, weekly Bible memorization games, step-by-step prophetic activations, and pre-planned, small-to-large group games.
The concepts unpacked in each lesson are easy to understand and will empower children as they learn. This curriculum is your key to building a culture that emphasizes intimacy with Father God and supernatural ministry through fun and simple activities!Look for more adventures with Bobbie and his friends coming soon!
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God And Me Volume 1 Jesus And Me
$59.99Add to cartA Full Interactive Children’s Curriculum Experience
There is no Junior Holy Spirit!
Children’s ministry is meant to be an active, dynamic experience that extends far beyond “babysitting” on Sundays. God and Me: Volume 1 empowers the youngest of children (0-5 yrs) to begin to walk in their God-given identity and do the things Jesus did!
Take your children on an anointed journey through twelve weeks of age-appropriate, customizable lessons that will help them learn to:
*hear from God
*pray for healing and breakthrough
*worship God
*make powerful declarationsThis fun, interactive curriculum provides the perfect starting point for a holistic, supernatural children’s ministry, grounded in core biblical truth. Each lesson has been intentionally crafted to model biblical principles, including activities and tools that will give every child a deep foundation in Scripture and a strong connection to the heart of God.
So, what are you waiting for? Give the youngest children in your ministry an exciting start to the most important adventure of their lives – an adventure with God!
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Saving Grace Participant Workbook (Workbook)
$22.99Add to cartLearn to create a healthy relationship with your money and possessions
Saving Grace: A Guide to Financial Health is a program to help people of faith create healthy relationships with money and possessions. Participants will move through six sessions covering such topics as saving, earning, giving, spending, and debt, along with helpful strategies for achieving a sustainable financial life. Adapted from the best-selling Freed Up Financial Living from the Good Sense Movement, this study is based on Wesleyan values and provides text and tools to help participants address life concerns and reach personal financial goals.
Additional components for a six-week study include a DVD, Clergy Workbook, Leader Guide, and a 40-day devotional.
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Connection Year B Volume 2 Lent Through Pentecost
$55.00Add to cartDesigned to empower preachers as they lead their congregations to connect their lives to Scripture, Connections features a broad set of interpretive tools that provide commentary and worship aids on the Revised Common Lectionary. This nine-volume series offers creative commentary on each reading through the lens of its connections to the rest of Scripture and then seeing the reading through the lenses of culture, film, fiction, ethics, and other aspects of contemporary life. Commentaries on the Psalms make connections to other readings and to the congregation’s experience of worship.
Connections is published in partnership with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Purpose Pattern And Character Of Worship
$40.99Add to cartWithin the broad range of Christianity we find diverse understandings of what makes for “good worship.” This book develops a typology of Christian worship to provide a method of assessing the decisions of congregations and leaders in forming and changing the orders of their worship.
Among contemporary western Protestants, we find at least six discrete characteristics of worship:
-the Revival,
-the Sunday School,
-the Aesthetic Revival,
-the Pentecostal/holiness movement,
-the Prayer Meeting,
-and the twentieth-century Catholic Liturgical Renewal.These patterns find contemporary expression as:
-Seeker Worship,
-Creative Worship,
-Traditional Worship,
-Praise Worship,
-House Church Worship,
-and Word and Table Worship.Absent an overall authority for the structure of worship (such as the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer), many Protestant congregations have developed a “conflation of patterns,” which often creates incoherent worship. This book helps leaders define the purpose, character, and pattern of their community’s worship.
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Wisdom From Babylon
$25.99Add to cartWhat does it mean to provide leadership for the church in an increasingly secular context? When religion is privatized and secularism reigns in the public square, Christians are often drawn toward either individualist escapism or constant cultural warfare. But might this context instead offer a fresh invitation for the church to adapt and thrive? Gordon Smith is passionate about the need for capable, mature leaders to navigate and respond to a changing society. In this book, he draws on his extensive experience as a university president, pastor, and international speaker to open a multidisciplinary conversation about the competencies and capacities essential for today’s leaders. After analyzing the phenomenon of secularization in the West and charting common Christian responses, Smith introduces four sources of wisdom to help guide us through this new terrain: the people and prophets of Judah during the Babylonian exile, the early church in its pagan environment, contemporary churches across the Global South, and Christian thinkers in post-Christian Europe. From these resources he identifies practices and strategies-from liturgy and catechesis to mission and hospitality-that can give shape to faithful, alternate communities in such a time as this. In cultures fraught with fear and division, Smith calls for leaders who can effect change from the margins, promote unity and maturity among Christians, and provide a non-anxious presence grounded in the presence of Christ. Educators, church leaders, and anyone seeking to understand the times will find this book to be an indispensable resource for cultivating distinctively Christian leadership.
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Bigger Table Expanded Edition With Study Guide (Expanded)
$22.00Add to cartThis new edition includes a small-group study guide complete with ideas for exploring A Bigger Table in a congregation-wide sermon series and program along with a new foreword by Jacqui Lewis and new afterword by the author to explore the challenges of living out the bigger table when voices of hate and exclusion seem stronger and louder than ever.
A Bigger Table invites readers to envision a church that is big enough for everyone, by holding up a mirror to the modern church and speaking clearly on issues at the heart of the Christian community: LGBT inclusion, gender equality, racial tensions, global concerns, and theological shifts. John Pavlovitz shares moving personal stories, his careful observations as a pastor, and his understanding of the ancient stories of Jesus to set the table for a new, positive, more loving conversation on these and other important matters of faith. Though there are many who would remove chairs and whittle down the guest list, we can build the bigger table Jesus imagined, practicing radical hospitality, total authenticity, messy diversity, and agenda-free community.
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Uncommon Church : Community Transformation For The Common Good
$20.99Add to cartHow can the people of God develop churches in ways that help and don’t hurt poor neighborhoods? In urban ministry, Christians too often treat the poor as goodwill projects instead of people. Because of this mindset, many remain unchurched. Healthy, local, urban churches are needed because they combine personal empowerment and community transformation. Every poor neighborhood needs uncommon churches that will seek the common good of their communities. Alvin Sanders engages hard truths about these neighborhoods and provides a model for how to do ministry in difficult conditions. The local, urban church is the key to community transformation, as it plays three crucial roles of empowering, partnering, and reaching. Pastors and church planters interested in Christian community development will find here practical insights into the power of the local church, which is often underrated. Churches can serve their communities and improve the quality of life of every facet of the neighborhood.
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Hopeful Neighborhood : What Happens When Christians Pursue The Common Good
$18.99Add to cartWhen Christians join together to pursue the common good of our neighborhoods, we bring hope to the world, credibility to the church, and glory to God. Filled with original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries, this book from Don Everts offers constructive, practical ways that Christians and churches can bless our local communities.
Are you tired of hearing people dismiss the church as an irrelevant relic? (Do you secretly wonder if they are right?) Don Everts explores an exciting reality that is revealed in Scripture, shown throughout history, and confirmed in the latest research: when Christians pursue the common good of the neighborhood, the world stands up and notices. It turns out this is exactly what we’re called to do. When Christians make good things, we bring blessings and hope to our local community. With original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries on how Christians relate to our neighborhoods, this book is filled with constructive, practical ways that Christians and churches bless those around us. As Christians join together for the common good, we bring hope to the world, credibility to the church, and glory to God.
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Honor Shame And The Gospel
$17.99Add to cartAn Honorific Gospel: Biblically Faithful & Culturally Relevant
Christians engaged in communicating the gospel navigate a challenging tension: faithfulness to God’s ancient, revealed Word-and relevance to the local, current social context. What if there was a lens or paradigm offering both? Understanding the Bible-particularly the gospel-through the ancient cultural “language” of honor-shame offers believers this double blessing.
In Honor, Shame, and the Gospel, over a dozen practitioners and scholars from diverse contexts and fields add to the ongoing conversation around the theological and missiological implications of an honorific gospel. Eight illuminating case studies explore ways to make disciples in a diversity of social contexts-for example, East Asian rural, Middle Eastern refugee, African tribal, and Western secular urban.
Honor, Shame, and the Gospel provides valuable resources to impact the ministry efforts of the church, locally and globally. Linked with its ancient honor-shame cultural roots, the gospel, paradoxically, is ever new-offering fresh wisdom to Christian leaders and optimism to the church for our quest to expand Christ’s kingdom and serve the worldwide mission of God.
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Serving The People Of Gods Presence
$33.00Add to cartLeading theologian Terry Cross articulates the doctrine of the church’s ministry from a Pentecostal perspective, demonstrating how Pentecostals can contribute to and learn from the church catholic. This companion volume to Cross’s previous book, The People of God’s Presence, proposes a radical revision of the structural framework of the local church within the often-overlooked corporate priesthood of all believers. Cross explores principles for leadership and ministry from the New Testament and the early church, helping all believers to do the work of ministry.
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Making Room : The Purpose And Practice Of Youth Ministry
$19.99Add to cartIn Making Room, Michael A. Kipp contends that the primary purpose of youth ministry is to integrate young people into the body and mission of Christ. A lifelong youth ministry practitioner and researcher, Kipp shares the narrative of his and others’ experiences in order to help the church embrace and understand youth ministry more fully in practice, not just in theory.
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Womens Lectionary : Preaching The Women Of The Bible Throughout The Year
$47.00Add to cartIn A Weary World, Escobar provides twenty-eight daily reflections paired with Scripture and prayer to tackle this difficult season. Weekly resources make this Advent devotional suitable for group study as well.
During the holidays, so many of us can suffer for all kinds of reasons. The magnitude of our weary world weighs on our hearts and minds. We wrestle with chronic pain, broken relationships, shattered dreams, fragile faith, and unexpected losses. Our grief and sorrow feel particularly acute when compared to the festivity and joy everyone else seems to be feeling. More and more churches are acknowledging this fact with “Blue Christmas” services (also called “Longest Night” services) and offering resources to give particular support and comfort to those struggling during the “most wonderful time of the year.”
Kathy Escobar has been leading Blue Christmas experiences at her church for nearly a decade and just experienced her bluest season of all following the sudden death of her son. In A Weary World, Escobar provides twenty-eight daily reflections paired with prayers and practices to honor our struggles during the holidays. Weekly resources make this Advent devotional suitable for group study as well.
