Download or read book Hiding in the Pews written by Steve Austin and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2012, Steve Austin, then a pastor, nearly died by suicide. His experience launched him on a journey that opened his eyes to the widespread problem of mental illness and how those who live with it are often treated in congregations. He began to wonder: if church folks had talked openly about mental health, therapy, suicide prevention, recovery from abuse, and other difficult issues, would that have changed his story? In Hiding in the Pews, people with mental illness--some of whom might be pastors themselves--will find comfort as they learn they are not alone. Those who know someone with mental illness will gain wisdom about how to be a safe presence. Those who hold the most power in church communities--pastors, board members, and lay leaders--will be challenged and equipped to transform their congregations into places of healing, where it is safe for people to be vulnerable about their suffering. Austin draws on his own experience, as well as on interviews with eighty current and former church leaders and members. Each chapter covers a topic or theme about mental illness and the church and includes practical applications to guide leaders on a journey toward transforming church culture. When a church champions vulnerability and establishes safety within its walls, especially for those who are suffering, the loving power of God heals. Austin offers hope that faith communities will be the first places people think of when they need a sense of safety and belonging.

Download or read book Prophetic Crack written by Julia McMillan and published by Thorncrown Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the analogy of a crack-cocaine addict's journey from addiction to recovery, Prophetic Crack describes the unhealthy emotional, hermeneutical, and legalistic manipulations of church leaders that may lead to "pushing" a toxic faith that inadvertently may lead to church addiction. It also outlines a clear path to recovery and restoration for both "pushers" and "addicts." Using Acts chapter 16, verse 16 as a foundation for her research, Dr. McMillan has explored the causes and effects of church addiction and paralleled its destructive patterns to that of the crack cocaine addict. You ll find the similarities astonishing! The foreword is written by Dr. Claudette Anderson Copeland and the book is published by Yorkshire Publishing.

Download or read book Grace Will Lead Us Home written by Jennifer Berry Hawes and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 * BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER GREAT NEW WRITERS PICK * OPRAH MAGAZINE SUMMER 2019 READING LIST SELECTION * NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE “A soul-shaking chronicle of the 2015 Charleston massacre and its aftermath... [Hawes is] a writer with the exceedingly rare ability to observe sympathetically both particular events and the horizon against which they take place without sentimentalizing her subjects. Hawes is so admirably steadfast in her commitment to bearing witness that one is compelled to consider the story she tells from every possible angle.” —The New York Times Book Review A deeply moving work of narrative nonfiction on the tragic shootings at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes. On June 17, 2015, twelve members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. Two days later, some relatives of the dead stood at Roof’s hearing and said, “I forgive you.” That grace offered the country a hopeful ending to an awful story. But for the survivors and victims’ families, the journey had just begun. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath. With unprecedented access to the grieving families and other key figures, Hawes offers a nuanced and moving portrait of the events and emotions that emerged in the massacre’s wake. The two adult survivors of the shooting begin to make sense of their lives again. Rifts form between some of the victims’ families and the church. A group of relatives fights to end gun violence, capturing the attention of President Obama. And a city in the Deep South must confront its racist past. This is the story of how, beyond the headlines, a community of people begins to heal. An unforgettable and deeply human portrait of grief, faith, and forgiveness, Grace Will Lead Us Home is destined to be a classic in the finest tradition of journalism.

Download or read book The Disciple Making Minister written by David Servant and published by Shepherd Serve. This book was released on 2014-04-14 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Servant has been ministering to Christian leaders in conferences around the world for over three decades. From his experience of speaking to tens of thousands of pastors in over forty countries, he has complied biblical teaching in this book that addresses the most important issues that Christian leaders are facing today. Servant covers topics such as church growth, spiritual warfare, divorce and remarriage, biblical interpretation, house churches, women in ministry, church government, spiritual gifts, evangelism and many more. He often questions the prevailing opinion, always considering what Scripture says. His conclusions may sometimes surprise you. Servant's foundational condition is that every Christian leader should be making disciples who obey all of Christ's commandments. Translated into many languages, The Disciple-Making Minister is helping Christian leader around the world be more effective in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Download or read book The Black Church written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

Download or read book Empty the Pews written by Chrissy Stroop and published by . This book was released on 2019-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Union with Christ written by Rankin Wilbourne and published by David C Cook. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 Christian Book Award for New Author Named one of the top books of 2016 by John Piper's Desiring God ministry To experience why the gospel is good news and answer life’s most foundational questions about identity, destiny, and purpose, we must understand what it means to be united to Christ. If you are a Christian, the Bible says that Christ has united his life to yours, that you are now in Christ and Christ is in you. This almost unfathomable truth is the central theme of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Yet few Christians today experience or enjoy this reality. Union with Christ reveals the transformational power of this ancient doctrine while addressing the basic questions of the human heart: Who Am I? Why Am I Here? Where Am I Headed? How Will I Get There? Nothing is more practical for living the Christian life than union with Christ. The recovery of this reality provides the anchor and engine for your life with God—for your destiny is not only to see Christ, but to actually become like him.

Download or read book Canoeing the Mountains written by Tod Bolsinger and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you ever feel that you are leading in uncharted territory? Pastor and consultant Tod Bolsinger draws on decades of expertise guiding churches and organizations in this expanded practical leadership resource, offering illuminating insights and practical tools to help you reimagine what effective church leadership looks like in our rapidly changing world.

Download or read book Why Men Hate Going to Church written by David Murrow and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Church is boring.” “It’s irrelevant.” “It’s full of hypocrites.” You’ve heard the excuses—now learn the real reasons men and boys are fleeing churches of every kind, all over the world, and what we can do about it. Women comprise more than 60% of the adults in a typical worship service in America. Some overseas congregations report ten women for every man in attendance. Men are less likely to lead, volunteer, and give in the church. They pray less, share their faith less, and read the Bible less. In Why Men Hate Going to Church, David Murrow identifies the barriers keeping many men from going to church, explains why it’s so hard to motivate the men who do attend, and also takes you inside several fast-growing congregations that are winning the hearts of men and boys. In this completely revised, reorganized, and rewritten edition of the classic book, with more than 70 percent new content, explore topics like: The increase and decrease in male church attendance during the past 500 years Why Christian churches are more feminine even though men are often still the leaders The difference between the type of God men and women like to worship The lack of volunteering and ministry opportunities for men The benefits men get from attending church regularly Men need the church but, more importantly, the church needs men. The presence of enthusiastic men is one of the surest predictors of church health, growth, giving, and expansion. Why Men Hate Going to Church does not call men back to church—it calls the church back to men.

Download or read book Caught in the Pulpit written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA). This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it like to be a preacher or rabbi who no longer believes in God? In this expanded and updated edition of their groundbreaking study, Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola comprehensively and sensitively expose an inconvenient truth that religious institutions face in the new transparency of the information age—the phenomenon of clergy who no longer believe what they publicly preach. In confidential interviews, clergy from across the ministerial spectrum—from liberal to literal—reveal how their lives of religious service and study have led them to a truth inimical to their professed beliefs and profession. Although their personal stories are as varied as the denominations they once represented, or continue to represent—whether Catholic, Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Mormon, Pentecostal, or any of numerous others—they give voice not only to their own struggles but also to those who similarly suffer in tender and lonely silence. As this study poignantly and vividly reveals, their common journey has far-reaching implications not only for their families, their congregations, and their communities—but also for the very future of religion.

Download or read book Centenary Thoughts for the Pew and Pulpit of Methodism in Eighteen Hundred and Eighty four written by Randolph Sinks Foster and published by . This book was released on 1884 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Notes made during a Journey in 1821 in the United States of America from Philadelphia to Lake Erie and back to Philadelphia in search of a settlement written by John PEARSON (of Ewell, Surrey.) and published by . This book was released on 1822 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Becoming Dallas Willard written by Gary W. Moon and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dallas Willard was a personal mentor and inspiration to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers. In Gary W. Moon’s candid and inspiring biography, we read about the development of Willard's personal character, philosophical writing, and spiritual teaching, and how he has inspired some of the most influential books on spirituality of the last generation.

Download or read book Eat This Book written by Eugene H. Peterson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2009-07-29 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Eugene Peterson maintains that how we read the Bible is as important as that we read it. The second volume of Peterson's momentous five-part work on spiritual theology, Eat This Book challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms, as God's revelation, and to live them as we read them. Countering the widespread practice of using the Bible for self-serving purposes, Peterson here serves readers with a nourishing entrée into the formative, life-changing art of spiritual reading." - from the back of the book.

Download or read book Witchcraft in the Pews written by George Bloomer and published by Whitaker House. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deception, witchcraft, and occult practices reign worldwide—and these evils have even infiltrated the Christian church! So, fasten your seatbelt as you read the most provocative book of our time, in which you will learn to recognize: Ministers who use intimidation and fear Controlling power in families Spiritual discernment and its many uses Manipulative media techniques Distractions coming from Satan It's time to take a stand and engage in spiritual warfare. Bishop Bloomer shows how to prevent others from unfairly taking advantage of you.

Download or read book Leaving Church written by Barbara Brown Taylor and published by Canterbury Press. This book was released on 2013-01-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells how a renowned preacher left her ministry to rediscover the authentic heart of her faith. A moving reflection on keeping faith amidst the relentless demands of modern life.

Download or read book Metropolitan Pulpit and Homiletic Monthly written by and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: