Download or read book Hard Living People Mainstream Christians written by Tex Sample and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Through stories of hard-living people and pastors who minister with them, Tex Sample challenges mainline churches to break the yoke of middle-class captivity and join with the Christ who lives among the poor and marginalized".--Kenneth L. Carder, Resident Bishop, United Methodist Church.
Download or read book Gentle and Lowly written by Dane C. Ortlund and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2020-03-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians know that God loves them, but can easily feel that he is perpetually disappointed and frustrated, maybe even close to giving up on them. As a result, they focus a lot—and rightly so—on what Jesus has done to appease God’s wrath for sin. But how does Jesus Christ actually feel about his people amid all their sins and failures? This book draws us to Matthew 11, where Jesus describes himself as “gentle and lowly in heart,” longing for his people to find rest in him. The gospel flows from God’s deepest heart for his people, a heart of tender love for the sinful and suffering. These chapters take readers into the depths of Christ’s very heart for sinners, diving deep into Bible passages that speak of who Christ is and encouraging readers with the affections of Christ for his people. His longing heart for sinners comforts and sustains readers in their up-and-down lives.
Download or read book Introverts in the Church written by Adam S. McHugh and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever felt out of place as an introvert in an extroverted church culture? With practical illustrations from church and parachurch contexts, McHugh offers ways for introverts to serve, lead, worship, and even evangelize in ways consistent with their personalities. This expanded edition is essential reading for introverted Christians and church leaders alike.
Download or read book Grit Grime and Glory written by Rhonda Whitney Bandy PhD and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2019-09-26 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of how God took one of His children of little faith and showed her His almighty love and reliability. This is a story of extreme growth with God. But most of all, this is God’s story. There may be times as you read these stories, when you will imagine Him crying with his children, then hear Him burst into glorious booming song as He pours out outrageous, and unexpected blessings. If you believe in “it was meant to be,” you’ll find fate unfolding in serendipitous ways. If you believe in a living God who knows when the tiny sparrow falls and stays intimately involved with His precious children, your faith will be exponentially rewarded. Miracles still happen. These transparent stories candidly tell it all, the good, the bad, and the astounding.
Download or read book Matthew written by Alyce M. McKenzie and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Gospel, Matthew tells the story of Jesus, who is the presence of God and has come to call the faithful to a new level of righteousness. He challenges his disciples to live each day as participants in God's kingdom--be poor in spirit and pure in heart, turn the other cheek and love one's enemies. Through his teachings and healings, Jesus breaks the bonds of evil and sin and frees each one for a life rich in celebration and service. By his resurrection, Jesus continues to be present, even until the end of the age. Interpretation Bible Studies (IBS) offers solid biblical content in a creative study format. Forged in the tradition of the celebrated Interpretation commentary series, IBS makes the same depth of biblical insight available in a dynamic, flexible, and user-friendly resource. Designed for adults and older youth, IBS can be used in small groups, in church school classes, in large group presentations, or in personal study.
Download or read book The Good Life written by David M. McCarthy and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McCarthy is a masterful writer with an astute eye for the encapsulating anecdotes of our everyday lives. Digging in the garden of consumerist America, his spade roots out many economic and romantic assumptions, revealing the shallow but tenacious grip that many of those 'weeds' have on our lives. McCarthy invites us to cultivate a garden bearing real fruit, a fruit we often do not even realize we want, but when tasted, draws us on. --John Berkman, The Catholic University of America With style, warmth, and humor, David Matzko McCarthy challenges us to bring the gospel into our homes. His stories of spouse, children, neighbors, and friends help us remember that Christians can rise above personal foibles and social pressures to enjoy surprising generosity, love, and grace. --Lisa Cahill, Boston College How can we resist the empire's demand for our allegiance? This remains a fundamental question for Christian discipleship, and in 'The Good Life', McCarthy poses it afresh. But now the empire is not Rome but the market, and the arena of challenge is not the coliseum but Wal-Mart. He offers challenging wisdom to those of us in minivans who are trying to discern what God's disruptive grace means for our friendships, our neighborhoods, and our consumer habits. --James K. A. Smith, Calvin College A splendid theological analysis of everyday life for people who live ordinary, middle-class realities. McCarthy illumines everyday life with beautiful interpretations of scripture and the creed. He is clearly the best theologian today writing on the vocation of parenting and neighborly existence. --D. Stephen Long, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary Don't let the charm of his style or his mastery or the telling detail mislead you. McCarthy's 'The Good Life' is both a sustained critique of the consumerism that enslaves and a profound account of how God's graciousness can set us free. This is theology at its best. A 'how to' book about something that matters. --Elizabeth Newman, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond A wonderful book. Rooted in Scripture, informed by the Christian tradition, perceptive in its analysis of contemporary American culture, 'The Good Life' is full of practical wisdom for middle-class Christians seeking to live more faithfully in their relationships to people, places, and things. Take up and read! --Steve Bouma-Prediger, Hope College 'The Good Life' provides middle-class Christians a rich resource for theological reflections. McCarthy writes like a pastor and has a gift for making resistance to mainstream American culture seem both necessary and possible. --Julie Hanlon Rubio, author of A Christian Theology of Marriage and Family
Download or read book Stations of the Banquet written by Cathy C. Campbell and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Scripture-based exploration of the Christian story of salvation as a food story which provides nourishment for those engaged in living out the food and justice challenges of the Gospel. The book highlights the power of our Biblical and theological traditions to name the root issues of our day, shape our hope and define the horizons for action. It is a resource for study and prayer. The author explores in her ministry how individuals and parishes may live out the food and justice dimensions of the Gospel.
Download or read book The Rogue Christian written by Mike Genung and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Status quo Christianity has failed. The Rogue Christian provides an in depth look at where we are today, why the church has lost its salt, and what we should do about it.
Download or read book Renovation of the Heart written by Dallas Willard and published by Tyndale House. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Christians, we know that we are new creations in Jesus. So we try to act differently, hoping this will make us more like Him. But changing our outward behavior doesn’t change our hearts. Only by God’s grace can we be transformed internally. Renovation of the Heart lays a biblical foundation for understanding what best-selling author Dallas Willard calls the “transformation of the spirit”—a divine process that “brings every element in our being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God.” This fresh approach to spiritual growth explains the biblical reasons why Christians need to undergo change in six aspects of life: thought, feeling, will, body, social context, and soul. Willard also outlines a general pattern of transformation in each area, not as a sterile formula but as a practical process that you can follow without the guilt or perfectionism so many Christians wrestle with. Don’t settle for complacency. Accept the challenge Renovation of the Heart offers to become an intentional apprentice of Jesus Christ, changing daily as you walk with Him.
Download or read book Good Taste Bad Taste Christian Taste written by Frank Burch Brown and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians frequently come into conflict with themselves and others over such matters as music, popular culture, and worship style. Yet they usually lack any theology of art or taste adequate to deal with aesthetic disputes. In this provocative book, Frank Burch Brown offers a constructive, "ecumenical" approach to artistic taste and aesthetic judgment--a non-elitist but discriminating theological aesthetics that has "teeth but no fangs." While grounded in history and theory, this book takes up such practical questions as: How can one religious community accommodate a variety of artistic tastes? What good or harm can be done by importing music that is worldly in origin into a house of worship? How can the exercise of taste in the making of art be a viable (and sometimes advanced) spiritual discipline? In exploring the complex relation between taste, religious imagination, and faith, Brown offers a new perspective on what it means to be spiritual, religious, and indeed Christian.
Download or read book Christians in the Age of Outrage written by Ed Stetzer and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you tired of reading another news story about Christians supposedly acting at their worst? Today there are too many examples of those claiming to follow Christ being caustic, divisive, and irrational, contributing to dismissals of the Christian faith as hypocritical, self-interested, and politically co-opted. What has happened in our society? One short outrageous video, whether it is true or not, can trigger an avalanche of comments on social media. Welcome to the new age of outrage. In this groundbreaking book featuring new survey research of evangelicals and their relationship to the age of outrage, Ed Stetzer offers a constructive way forward. You won’t want to miss Ed’s insightful analysis of our chaotic age, his commonsensical understanding of the cultural currents, and his compelling challenge to Christians to live in a refreshingly different way.
Download or read book Blue Collar Resistance and the Politics of Jesus written by Tex Sample and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To be faithful to the gospel, all ministry must be indigenous; it must participate in the distinctive practices and perspectives of the people among whom ministry is taking place. Because our society tends to ignore or deny the reality of class divisions and prejudice, too many congregational leaders know too little about the world of working class whites. Continuing his groundbreaking work on class and American religion, Sample opens up the lives and lifestyles of working class whites in order to engage with them in authentic and transformational ministry. From the Circuit Rider review: "Tex Sample has written one of the most fun books to read on ministry that you will ever come across. Weaving philosophy, theology, country western lyrics, and stories throughout the book Sample at once delights and provokes us to think about the way in which we live out church in this day and age." (Click here to read the whole review.)
Download or read book Trolls and Truth written by Jimmy Dorrell and published by New Hope Publishers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trolls & Truth is the story of a local church of homeless people, college students, middle-class Christians, some poor and some rich, black, white, and brown, drunks, materialists, mentally ill, and former inmates who meet beneath the noise of 18-wheelers and rushing traffic under an interstate bridge in Waco, Texas. As they live out biblical mandates across racial and cultural barriers and institutional baggage, they remind us that the gospel cannot be shaped by socially accepted values and remain "good news."
Download or read book The Habits of Highly Effective Churches written by George Barna and published by Gospel Light Publications. This book was released on 2000-01-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Barna reveals nine critical habits proven to make a church an effective local body. The Habits of Highly Effective Churches dispels popular myths and wrong beliefs as to what constitutes a thriving church in today's society and is an excellent resource for ministry leaders who are seeking or willing to re-evaluate and restructure a church.
Download or read book The Patient Ferment of the Early Church written by Alan Kreider and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.
Download or read book Teaching Preaching as a Christian Practice written by Thomas G. Long and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preachings most able practitioners gather in this book to explore and explain the idea that preaching is a practice that can be taught and learned. Arguing that preaching is a living practice with a long tradition, an identifiable shape, and a broad set of norms and desired outcomes, these noted scholars propose that teachers initiate students into the larger practice of preaching, in ways somewhat like other students are initiated into the practice of medicine or law. The book concludes with designs for a basic preaching course and addresses the question of how preaching courses fit into the larger patterns of seminary curricula.
Download or read book Living Faith written by Susan Crawford Sullivan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars have made urban mothers living in poverty a focus of their research for decades. These women’s lives can be difficult as they go about searching for housing and decent jobs and struggling to care for their children while surviving on welfare or working at low-wage service jobs and sometimes facing physical or mental health problems. But until now little attention has been paid to an important force in these women’s lives: religion. Based on in-depth interviews with women and pastors, Susan Crawford Sullivan presents poor mothers’ often overlooked views. Recruited from a variety of social service programs, most of the women do not attend religious services, due to logistical challenges or because they feel stigmatized and unwanted at church. Yet, she discovers, religious faith often plays a strong role in their lives as they contend with and try to make sense of the challenges they face. Supportive religious congregations prove important for women who are involved, she finds, but understanding everyday religion entails exploring beyond formal religious organizations. Offering a sophisticated analysis of how faith both motivates and at times constrains poor mothers’ actions, Living Faith reveals the ways it serves as a lens through which many view and interpret their worlds.
