Jen Michel

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  Surprised By Paradox

  $18.99

  What if certainty isn’t the goal? In a world filled with ambiguity, many of us long for a belief system that provides straightforward answers to complex questions and clarity in the face of confusion. We want faith to act like an orderly set of truth-claims designed to solve the problems and pain that life throws at us. With signature candor and depth, Jen Pollock Michel helps readers imagine a Christian faith open to mystery. While there are certainties in Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian story is also paradox. Jesus invites us to abandon the polarities of either and or in order to embrace the difficult, wondrous dissonance of and. The incarnation-the paradox of God made human-teaches us to look for God in the and of body and spirit, heaven and earth. In the kingdom, God often hides in plain sight and announces his triumph on the back of a donkey. In the paradox of grace, we receive life eternal by actively participating in death. And lament, with its clear-eyed appraisal of suffering alongside its commitment to finding audience with God, is a paradoxical practice of faith. Each of these themes give us certainty about God while also leading us into greater curiosity about his nature and activity in the world. As Michel writes, “As soon as we think we have God figured out, we will have ceased to worship him as he is.” With personal stories and reflection on Scripture, literature, and culture, Michel takes us deeper into mystery and into worship of the One who is Mystery and Love.

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  Keeping Place : Reflections On The Meaning Of Home (DVD)

  $20.00

  To be human is to long for home. Home is our most fundamental human longing. And for many of us homesickness is a nagging place of grief. This five-session DVD study featuring author Jen Pollock Michel connects that desire and disappointment with the story of the Bible, helping us to see that there is a homemaking God with wide arms of welcome-and a church commissioned with this same work. Keeping Place offers hope to the wanderer, help to the stranded, and a new vision of what it means to live today with our longings for eternal home. The companion book includes a five-session discussion guide that incorporates the DVD sessions.

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  Keeping Place : Reflections On The Meaning Of Home (Student/Study Guide)

  $16.00

  Foreword By Scott Sauls
  Preface

  Part I: The Welcome Of Home
  1. Nostalgia: The Longing For Home
  2. Angel In The House: A Brief History
  3. Taken In: The First Maker Of Home
  4. Border Crossings: On (Not) Staying Put
  5. Perished Things: And Imperishable Home

  Part II: The Work Of Home
  6. A Suffering Servant: The Labor Of Love
  7. House Of God: The Church As Home
  8. Love And Marriage: The Routine Work Of I Do
  9. Saying Grace: Feasting Together
  10. Cathedral In Time: A Place Called Rest
  11. City Of God: Finally Home

  Acknowledgments
  Study Guide
  Notes

  Additional Info
  To be human is to long for home. Home is our most fundamental human longing. And for many of us homesickness is a nagging place of grief. This book connects that desire and disappointment with the story of the Bible, helping us to see that there is a homemaking God with wide arms of welcome-and a church commissioned with this same work. “Many of us seem to be recovering the sacred, if ordinary, beauty of place,” writes author Jen Pollock Michel. “Perhaps we’re reading along with Wendell Berry, falling in love with Berry’s small-town barber and Jayber Crow’s small-town life. . . . Or maybe we’re simply reading our Bibles better, discovering that while we might wish to flatten Scripture to serve our didactic purposes, it rises up in flesh and sinew, muscle and bone: God’s holy story is written in the lives of people and their places.” Including a five-session discussion guide and paired with a companion DVD, Keeping Place offers hope to the wanderer, help to the stranded, and a new vision of what it means to live today with our longings for eternal home.

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