Download or read book Before We Gather written by Zac M. Hicks and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2023-08-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 52-week devotional for ministry leaders and worship teams to prepare their hearts and minds for the service and make the worship experience of their church more meaningful. Anyone involved in organized worship has probably seen what worship can be, and they've wondered: How can we tap into that transformative spirit more often? How can we overcome the problems of urgency, fatigue, and the temptation to just go through the motions? How can we gather before God, consistently ready to receive his presence? In Before We Gather, Zac Hicks—author of the best-selling book The Worship Pastor—provides a unique, year-long devotional that focuses the attention of worship teams and individuals on God. This book offers biblical reflection in a simple, engaging style, helping worship teams set the tone of a gathering by developing a rich theology of worship through the practice of prayer. Full of field-tested devotionals specifically designed for pre-service prayer times, each entry has a simple, three-part format: read a passage, reflect on it, and then spend time in focused prayer that will propel worshipers into the service. The 52 entries can be used once a week over the course of an entire year and are also indexed according to themes, individual Scripture verses, and the church calendar, allowing you to adapt and use this resource in the way that best fits your context.

Download or read book The Art of Gathering written by Priya Parker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

Download or read book The Worship Pastor written by Zac M. Hicks and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern worship leaders are restless. They have inherited a model of leadership that equates leading worship with being a rock star. But leading worship is more than a performance, it's about shaping souls and making disciples. Every worship leader is really a pastor. The Worship Pastor is a practical and biblical introduction to this essential pastoral role. Filled with engaging, illustrative stories it is organized to address questions of theory and practice, striving to balance conversational accessibility with informed instruction. Part One presents a series of evocative "vignettes"--intriguing and descriptive titles and metaphors of who a Worship Pastor is and what he or she does. It shows the Worship Pastor as Church-Lover, Disciple Maker, Corporate Mystic, and Doxological Philosopher. Part Two covers specific roles related to ministry within the worship service itself--the Worship Pastor as Theological Dietician, Caregiver, Mortician, Emotional Shepherd, War General, Prophetic Guardian, Missional Historian, and Liturgical Architect. Part Three looks at ministry beyond the worship service--the Worship Pastor as Visionary Teacher, Evangelist, Artist Chaplain, and Team Leader. While some worship leaders are eager to embrace their pastoral role, many are lost and confused or lack the resources of time or money to figure out what this role looks like. Pastor Zac Hicks gives us a clear guide to leading worship, one that takes the pastoral call seriously.

Download or read book True Worshipers written by Bob Kauflin and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone worships. But Jesus tells us that God is seeking a particular kind of worshiper. In True Worshipers, a seasoned pastor and musician guides readers toward a more engaging, transformative, and biblically faithful understanding of the worship God is seeking. True worship is an activity rooted in the grace of the gospel that affects every area of our lives. And while worship is more than just singing, God’s people gathering in his presence to lift their voices in song is an activity that is biblically based, historically rooted, and potentially life-changing. Thoroughly based in Scripture and filled with practical guidance, this book connects Sunday worship to the rest of our lives—helping us live as true worshipers each and every day.

Download or read book When We Gather written by James G. Kirk and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When We Gather is an essential resource for pastors, worship committees, and others who plan weekly congregational worship. For every Sunday in the church year, James Kirk provides contemporary, theologically solid prayers and other elements for use in worship. Included are prayers of praise and adoration, confession and pardon, dedication, thanksgiving and petition, as well as concise comments on the lectionary Scripture readings for each Sunday. Now expanded and updated to conform to the Revised Common Lectionary, this revised edition of When We Gather combines the original three-volume set into a single handy volume covering all of the Sundays in lectionary cycles A, B, and C.

Download or read book Take Hold of the Faith You Long For written by Sharon Jaynes and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the outside, many women are well-put-together Christians with trendy shoes, beautiful children, and wide, white smiles. On the inside, those same women are little girls cowering at the edge of the playground, hoping no one notices them, yet still wishing they could join in. They've professed faith and know the right things, but they struggle to truly take hold of the "life more abundant" that Jesus offers. Instead they settle for a life that's less than what God has promised them. In this liberating book, Sharon Jaynes reveals the most common reasons women get stuck with a mediocre, mundane faith. Then she shows women how to break free and move forward, leaving behind the feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and insecurity that are holding them hostage. She uncovers untapped sources of confidence and courage, equipping women to move from knowing the truth to actually believing it--and living it out boldly in a life marked by true freedom.

Download or read book Sheltering Mercy written by Ryan Whitaker Smith and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist (Bible & Devotional) Sheltering Mercy helps us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms--through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns--as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. This book contains 75 prayers drawn from Psalms 1-75, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Whitaker Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning in the Psalms. While each prayer corresponds to a particular psalm and touches on its themes and ideas, it is not a new translation of the Psalms or an attempt to modernize or contextualize their content or language. Rather, the prayers are responses to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life. This artful, poetic, and classic devotional book features compelling custom illustrations and beautiful hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms.

Download or read book How We Gather Matters written by Leor Rotchild and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grow your audience, shrink your footprint, change the world Events can help educate, inspire, and connect us to our community, but all too often they escalate into resource-intensive glorifications of excess and exclusivity. How We Gather Matters is an invitation to reimagine the modern events industry as a powerful vehicle for change. This practical guide will enable and inspire festival, conference, trade show, wedding, concert, and sporting event planners to: Develop the financial and human resources required to implement green, sustainable gatherings Collaborate effectively with diverse teams and stakeholders Design events with impact and purpose, while supporting marketing and strategic goals Engage participants authentically while aligning with positive and progressive values Lead the shift towards net-zero emissions and zero waste by leveraging best practices and accepted international standards. Packed with personal insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and case studies, How We Gather Matters is required reading for event professionals who want to decrease risk, increase profitability, and meaningfully contribute to a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society.

Download or read book We Gather Together written by Neil J. Young and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the interactions among evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons from the 1950s to the present day, We Gather Together recasts the story of the emergence of the Religious Right, showing that it was not a brilliant political strategy of compromise and coalition-building hatched on the eve of a history-altering election. Rather, it was the latest iteration of a much-longer religious debate that had been going on for decades. Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons found common cause and pursued similar ends in debates about abortion, school prayer, the Equal Rights Amendment, and tax exemptions for religious schools, but they were far from a unified bloc, cracks in the alliance shaped the movement from the very beginning. This provocative book will reshape our understanding of the most important religious and political movement of the last 30 years.

Download or read book As We Gather as We Part written by Carl Koch and published by Saint Mary's Press. This book was released on 2000-09-16 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Touching on ten themes essential to Christian life, these 150 prayers are designed to help begin or end a meeting, a community event, or any other type of gathering.

Download or read book Shall We Gather at the River written by E. Reid Gilbert and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-09-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Romeo/Juliet story set in the mountains of Virginia in the 1870s depicts a life and time largely forgotten now. Jimmie Sue, a white farm boy, and Madeleen, a colored sharecropper girl, although mutually attracted to each other, must deal with a greater obstacle than having different family names, such as the Capulets and Montagues in Shakespeare. Jimmie Sue was not so interested in a sheet of paper to certify their relationship, but Madeleen would have no part of an arrangement that was not "blessed of the Lord." Their shared experiences in the fields, the churches, the baptism creek give them many contact opportunities, which are duly celebrated yet constantly thwarted. Although the focus is on these two teenagers, the story gives some insight into the post-civil war racial relationships in the mountains... quite different from the more normally accepted tales of the plantations.

Download or read book As We Gather to Pray written by Clayton L. Morris and published by Church Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thirteen fascinating essays in this book bring together theoretical articles and practical planning strategies to create a how-to guide for worship. The editors have compiled the work of eighteen lay people and clergy actively serving the Church today in a variety of ministries. Article topics include style in worship, liturgical space, the role of the arts, dance, small church issues, etc. The planning strategies describe how to form a parish worship committee, to evaluate worship, to welcome children, to design service leaflets, to compose intercessions, to celebrate the Triduum, etc. The book carries the publisher's permission for non-commercial reprinting of articles for local parish use. It is ideal for instruction or discussion in the worship committee or parish study groups.

Download or read book We Gather Together written by Denise Kiernan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Castle and The Girls of Atomic City comes a new way to look at American history through the story of giving thanks. From Ancient Rome through 21st-century America, bestselling author Denise Kiernan brings us a biography of an idea: gratitude, as a compelling human instinct and a global concept, more than just a mere holiday. Spanning centuries, We Gather Together is anchored amid the strife of the Civil War, and driven by the fascinating story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother with no formal schooling who became one of the 19th century’s most influential tastemakers and who campaigned for decades to make real an annual day of thanks. Populated by an enthralling supporting cast of characters including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Walt Whitman, Norman Rockwell, and others, We Gather Together is ultimately a story of tenacity and dedication, an inspiring tale of how imperfect people in challenging times can create powerful legacies. Working at the helm of one of the most widely read magazines in the nation, Hale published Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others, while introducing American readers to such newfangled concepts as “domestic science,” white wedding gowns, and the Christmas tree. A prolific writer, Hale penned novels, recipe books, essays and more, including the ubiquitous children’s poem, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” And Hale herself never stopped pushing the leaders of her time, in pursuit of her goal. The man who finally granted her wish about a national “thanksgiving” was Lincoln, the president of the war-torn nation in which Hale would never have the right to vote. Illuminating, wildly discussable, part myth-busting, part call to action, We Gather Together is full of unexpected delights and uneasy truths. The stories of indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, women’s rights activists, abolitionists, and more, will inspire readers to rethink and reclaim what it means to give thanks in this day and age. The book’s message of gratitude—especially when embraced during the hardest of times—makes it one to read and share, over and over, at any time of year.

Download or read book We Gather Together written by Charles C. Eldredge and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mutual history of art, agriculture, and American identity as told through the theme of the harvest. The harvest has traditionally been a productive season, both on American farms and in its artists’ studios. Before the early nineteenth century, the ideal of the Jeffersonian yeoman, singly cultivating a subsistence plot for family use, dominated the American imagination; after World War II, the advent of big agribusiness proved less immediately attractive for artists. In We Gather Together, Charles C. Eldredge examines the period in between—when many Americans were farmers and much of America was farmland. Organized in a series of case studies each devoted to a single crop, We Gather Together initially focuses on familiar commodity crops such as corn, wheat, and potatoes, and then expands to other yields by Native American harvesters and California floriculturists, as well as winter ice cutters and coastal seaweed gatherers. This novel history of agriculture and art traces parallel developments on land and canvas, highlighting breakthroughs in each field. Artists such as Winslow Homer, Doris Lee, and Georgia O’Keeffe are joined by innovators in agriculture, whether mechanical inventors such as Eli Whitney, John Deere, and Cyrus McCormick or genetic hybridizers such as Luther Burbank, W. Atlee Burpee, and Theodosia Shepherd. Surveying an astonishing amount of material and a wide range of paintings, prints, and other artworks from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, We Gather Together gorgeously demonstrates how the use of agricultural metaphors permeated American visual culture. The harvest, we see here, came to signify and dominate politics, poetry, and popular culture, ultimately representing a primary facet of American identity and nationhood.

Download or read book Shall We Gather at the Potluck written by Mike Mennard and published by Review and Herald Pub Assoc. This book was released on 2004 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tongue-in-cheek commentary on everything from hairy theological issues to hoary church traditions that will add a charming glow to the warts and blemishes of the saints.

Download or read book We Gather in Christ written by Worship Office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and published by LiturgyTrainingPublications. This book was released on 1996 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at what it means to gather as an assembly for worship.

Download or read book Making Pandemonium written by Nadeem Masood and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2012 was largely celebrated as the greatest ceremony ever. It won over critics and the general public, and made a nation proud. This book describes the entire rehearsal process of the volunteers, told from a performer's perspective, for what most agreed was the most spectacular part of the show.