Download or read book The Divine Commodity written by Skye Jethani and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenge facing Christianity today is not a lack of motivation or resources, but a failure of imagination.A growing number of people are disturbed by the values exhibited by the contemporary church. Worship has become entertainment, the church has become a shopping mall, and God has become a consumable product. Many sense that something is wrong, but they cannot imagine an alternative way. The Divine Commodity finally articulates what so many have been feeling and offers hope for the future of a post-consumer Christianity.Through Scripture, history, engaging narrative, and the inspiring art of Vincent van Gogh, The Divine Commodity explores spiritual practices that liberate our imaginations to live as Christ's people in a consumer culture opposed to the values of his kingdom. Each chapter shows how our formation as consumers has distorted an element of our faith. For example, the way churches have become corporations and how branding makes us more focused on image than reality. It then energizes an alternative vision for those seeking a more meaningful faith. Before we can hope to live differently, we must have our minds released from consumerism's grip and captivated once again by Christ.

Download or read book The Divine Commodity written by Skye Jethani and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The human imagination is the key battleground in the conflict between the kingdom of God and the consumer culture. Drawing from the vivid imaginations of Impressionist painters, particularly Vincent van Gogh, each chapter of The Divine Commodity uses personal narrative, biblical exposition, and cultural observation to show how consumerism has shaped our faith, and then challenges the reader to use their sanctified imagination to envision an alternative way of expressing the Christian life in our

Download or read book With written by Skye Jethani and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2011-08-22 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With explores the narrative of the Bible to show that we were created to be with God, and that restoring this connection is his mission. Instead of life over, under, from, or even for God, what leads us into freedom and restoration is life with God. Why are American Christians, who have more access to biblical teaching than any other people in history, failing to experience the freedom of the Christian life? Why are pastors, those closest to the work and ministry, burning out at an alarming rate? Why do many church members, who give large amounts of their time and wealth to Christ and his kingdom, secretly question the legitimacy of their efforts? And why are spiritual seekers dismissing the validity of the Christian message? Is it possible we’ve misunderstood the call of the Christian life? A life lived in rich communion with God cultivates faith, hope, and love in a way that transforms both us and the broken world we inhabit. In With, you’ll find: illustrations of concepts in the book to aid understanding; recommendations for how to practice communion with God, including three helpful practices; and a discussion guide for use when continuing the conversation with others in small groups. Endorsements: If we've grown weary of Christianity, if we find most any local church uninspiring, maybe the problem lies not in the Christian faith or these faithful bodies, but in our own disgruntled hearts. In With, Skye Jethani tenderly unmasks the clichéd posturing that too often masquerades as genuine communion with Christ. More importantly, he takes readers to the humble place they must occupy--in prayer, studying Scripture, with the Church--if faith, hope, and love are to truly mark our lives. -James H. Gilmore, author, The Experience Economy It doesn’t matter, as old theologians were rumored to argue, how many angels can dance on a pinhead. But it does matter which preposition governs your faith--over, after, against, for, from, under, with. Who knew what huge worlds turn on such tiny words? Who knew what theological riches were laced into the bones of grammar? Skye has done a great service to the church. In prose elegant and clear, with insights keen and deep, he shows how everything changes with just one word: With. It’s a book I want my whole church to read. -Mark Buchanan, author of Spiritual Rhythm Who knew that a preposition had so much influence? Skye's book will challenge the way that you think about God and faith, digging deep into our motivations and heart issues. You can't read this book and not see yourself and others differently! -Margaret Feinberg, author of Scouting the Divine and Hungry for God

Download or read book What If Jesus Was Serious written by Skye Jethani and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daily Devotions for People Who Hate Daily Devotions Let’s face it. A lot of Christian resources can feel cheesy, out-of-touch, and a little boring. But when Skye Jethani started doodling and writing up some of his thoughts about God, his Twitter and email list blew up. What If Jesus Was Serious? is a compilation of all-new reflections (and hand-drawn doodles) from Skye. He takes a look at some of Jesus’ most demanding teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and pushes us to ask whether we’re really hearing what Christ is saying. The visual component of the book makes it memorable and enjoyable to read, and Skye’s incisive reflections make it worthwhile for any Christian. If you’ve traditionally been dissatisfied with Christian devotional resources but love to learn about Jesus and think deeply, this book was written for you.

Download or read book The Market as God written by Harvey Cox and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Market has deified itself, according to Harvey Cox’s brilliant exegesis. And all of the world’s problems—widening inequality, a rapidly warming planet, the injustices of global poverty—are consequently harder to solve. Only by tracing how the Market reached its divine status can we hope to restore it to its proper place as servant of humanity.

Download or read book Futureville written by Skye Jethani and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Want to see the future? It is brighter than you think. What we believe about tomorrow determines how we live today. As Christians debate how to faithfully engage with our rapidly changing world, our vision of the future has never been more important. But rather than providing a clear sense of purpose for our lives, popular Christian ideas about the future steal it from us by saying our work in the world, apart from ministry, has no eternal value. Is it any wonder why young adults are less interested in church, or why a culture desperate for meaning and hope dismisses our message? In Futureville, Skye Jethani offers us a vision-shifting glimpse of the world of tomorrow described in Scripture. He reveals how a biblical vision of the future can transform every person’s work with a sense of purpose and dignity today. Futureville is a smart, inspiring call to cultivate the order, beauty, and abundance that reflects the heart and vision of God for our world.

Download or read book Immeasurable written by Skye Jethani and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CHRISTIANITY TODAY'S PASTORAL/CHURCH LEADERSHIP BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 “In my first seminary class, we were asked to introduce ourselves and say why we enrolled. I’ll never forget what one student said… ‘My denomination wants me to have an M.Div., but once they see I can grow a big church, I don't think they'll make me finish the program.’” The priorities of this future pastor were startling, but he’s not alone in them.In the years since that class, author and minister Skye Jethani has seen more and more pastors swallowed by the celebrity syndrome. Not long ago, ministers were among the most trusted and admired people in our culture. But not anymore. A 2013 study from Gallop revealed that Americans’ admiration for clergy has reached an all-time low. That, taken with reduced trust of institutional religion overall, makes it easy to see why ministers feel insecure about their calling. In response to this trend, some pastors have looked to emulate those who are praised by the culture—business leaders, entertainers, and social activists. This has led to a new understanding of what a minister should be. We’ve turned away from viewing our pastors as shepherds, and now expect them to be celebrities. Immeasurable will help ministers recognize the cultural forces shaping their view of the calling, and then reimagine what faithful church leaders can look like in the twenty-first century. Through short essays and reflections on the pastor’s soul and skills, this book will help prospective pastors explore their calling to ministry, and it will help veteran pastors reframe their vision for the work. Drawing on cultural dynamics, personal stories, and his own experience working in a church and with church leaders, Skye Jethani will address matters like ambition, anger, community, consumerism, fame, health, justice, platform, preaching, rest,simplicity, success, vision, and more. There are endless resources to help pastors do the practical work of ministry, but there are far fewer that speak to the pastor’s soul and spirit. Immeasurable provides affirmation and encouragement for church leaders faithfully serving God. It commends the true work of ministry—shepherding, teaching, encouraging—while redefining what we mean by success in ministry. It’s a book church leaders can return to again and again for insight and inspiration.

Download or read book The Triumph of Vulgarity written by Robert Pattison and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1987-01-22 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Triumph of Vulgarity in a thinker's guide to rock 'n' roll. Rock music mirrors the tradition of nineteenth-century Romaniticsm, Robert Patison says. Whitman's "barbaric yawp" can still be heard in the punk rock of the Ramones, and the spirit that inspired Poe's Eureka lives on in the lyrics of Talking Heads. Rock is vulgar, Pattison notes, and vulgarity is something that high culture has long despised but rarely bothered to define. This book is the first effort since John Ruskin and Aldous Huxley to describe in depth what vulgarity is, and how, with the help of ideas inherent in Romaniticism, it has slipped the constraints imposed on it by refined culture and established its own loud arts. The book disassembles the various myths of rock: its roots in black and folk music; the primacy it accords to feeling and self; the sexual omnipotence of rock stars; the satanic predilictions of rock fans; and rock's high-voltage image of the modern Prometheus wielding an electric guitar. Pattison treats these myths as vulgar counterparts of their originals in refined Romantic art and offers a description and justification of rock's central place in the social and aesthetic structure of modern culture. At a time when rock lyrics have provoked parental outrage and senatorial hearings, The Triumph of Vulgarity is required reading for anyone interested in where rock comes from and how it works.

Download or read book What If Jesus Was Serious About Prayer written by Skye Jethani and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good things come to those who believe . . . right? People like to say, “Prayer works.” But what does that mean? Prayer works for what? Getting the answers from God that we want so much? While God certainly cares for your deepest needs, Skye Jethani wants you to know that prayer is so much more than a two-way transaction with a heavenly vending machine. Jesus didn’t pray like that. And with a pastor’s heart, Skye wants to take you deeper into what Jesus, the lover of your soul, had to say about talking with God. In What If Jesus Was Serious About Prayer?, you’ll benefit not only from Skye’s words of wisdom but his doodles that help the visual learner connect with spiritual truth. Prayer isn’t about getting answers, but getting God. We need more prayer in our lives—not because God can give us what we crave, but because He offers himself to us in love.

Download or read book God s Good Earth written by Jon Garvey and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God's world was created "very good," Genesis chapter 1 tells us, and in this book Jon Garvey rediscovers the truth, known to the Church for its first 1,500 years but largely forgotten now, that the fall of mankind did not lessen that goodness. The natural creation does not require any apologies or excuses, but rather celebration and praise. The author's re-examination of the scriptural evidence, the writings of two millennia of Christian theologians, and the physical evidence of the world itself lead to the conclusion that we, both as Christians and as modern Westerners, have badly misunderstood our world. Restoring a truer vision of the goodness of the present creation can transform our own lives, sharpen the ministry of the church to the world of both people and nature, and give us a better understanding of what God always intended to bring about through Christ in the age to come.

Download or read book A Diagram for Fire written by Jon Bialecki and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the work that miracles do in American Charismatic Evangelicalism? How can miracles be unanticipated and yet worked for? And finally, what do miracles tell us about other kinds of Christianity and even the category of religion? A Diagram for Fire engages with these questions in a detailed sociocultural ethnographic study of the Vineyard, an American Evangelical movement that originated in Southern California. This movement is known worldwide for its intense musical forms of worship and for advocating the belief that all Christians can perform biblical-style miracles. Setting the miracle as both a strength and a challenge to institutional cohesion and human planning, this book situates the miracle as a fundamentally social means of producing change—surprise and the unexpected used to reimagine and reconfigure the will. Jon Bialecki shows how this configuration of the miraculous shapes typical Pentecostal and Charismatic religious practices as well as music, reading, economic choices, and conservative and progressive political imaginaries.

Download or read book The God Conclusion written by Charles Taylor and published by Headline Accent. This book was released on 2018-09-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is God a delusion? Barrister Charles Taylor examines the evidence in this very readable book. His findings will be controversial to some but offer hope and insight to others. We are the only species unable to live in harmony with our environment and each other. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs is nothing compared with our impact on the Earth. We are currently responsible for “The Sixth Great Extinction” of wildlife. Religious terrorism is widespread, though current atrocities are dwarfed by the bloody record of Christianity. The Middle East is destabilised and to East and West we have Presidents Putin and Trump. So called ‘rational’ thinking and the dominance of our left brains have brought us to the brink of disaster. We need a spiritual revolution allowing individuals to reconnect with their right brain, intuition and spirit. Religions have had their day. They contain key truths, but these truths are usually obscured by manmade rules constructed to gain wealth and power. At the other extreme, materialism denies God, the spirit, free will, consciousness and love. Happily, the facts contradict this dispiriting left brained faith that we are deluded robots stumbling through life.

Download or read book What Is Happening to Me written by Jeannie Ortega Law and published by Chosen Books. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ghetto of Brooklyn to success in Hollywood to a stunning restoration in Jesus, Jeannie Ortega Law fought witchcraft, abuse, demonic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts, rejection, being treated like a commodity as a pop star, and more. She has learned that you must activate your spiritual sight to defeat the darkness in this world. In What Is Happening to Me?, Jeannie will help you to · discern unseen spiritual activity affecting your life · guard your heart and mind and close the door to evil · overcome lust, anger, and addictions · break soul ties and get out of bad relationships · rest in the love of God and his purpose for your life Let this book move you from being on the defense to taking an offensive stand against the enemy. You can win the battles that seem overwhelming. Open your spiritual eyes and walk in your divine authority, inheritance, and victory!

Download or read book Money Greed and God written by Jay W. Richards and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute Jay W. Richards and bestselling author of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It's Too Late and Infiltrated: How to Stop the Insiders and Activists Who Are Exploiting the Financial Crisis to Control Our Lives and Our Fortunes, defends capitalism within the context of the Christian faith, revealing how entrepreneurial enterprise, based on hard work, honesty, and trust, actually fosters creativity and growth. In doing so, Money, Greed, and God exposes eight myths about capitalism, and demonstrates that a good Christian can be a good capitalist.

Download or read book Pastrix written by Nadia Bolz-Weber and published by Jericho Books. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a New York Times bestselling author, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term "pastrix"(pronounced "pas-triks," a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith. ​ Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious leader material—until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor. Using life stories—from living in a hopeful-but-haggard commune of slackers and her unusual but undeniable spiritual calling to her experiences pastoring people from all walks of life—and poignant honesty, Nadia portrays a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way. Wildly entertaining and deeply resonant, this is the book for people who hunger for a bit of hope that doesn't come from vapid consumerism; for women who talk too loud and guys who love chick flicks; and for the gay person who loves Jesus and won't be shunned by the church. In short, this book is for every misfit suspicious of institutionalized religion but who is still seeking transcendence and mystery.

Download or read book The Naked Gospel written by Andrew Farley and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Naked Gospel is a chapter-by-chapter assault on the churchy jargon and double talk of our day. It puts forth a message that is simple but life-changing. With a fresh take on Scripture and unapologetic style, The Naked Gospel will challenge you to re-examine everything you thought you already knew.

Download or read book What If Jesus Was Serious about the Church written by Skye Jethani and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers have uncovered the following three trends: First, distrust of institutions, including the church, is at an all-time high. Second, young people raised in the church are leaving at alarming rates and not returning. Third, loneliness and social isolation are at pandemic levels. What’s the connection? It appears that an entire generation is starving for the very thing the church is called to provide but has chosen to look for it elsewhere. Why is this happening? Following the model set by What If Jesus Was Serious?—short readings and engaging illustrations—What If Jesus Was Serious about the Church? looks at what the Bible really says about the church, its purpose, and the impact of its modern captivity to consumer values. Rather than an event, a building, or an institution, the New Testament calls the church to be a community living in communion with God and one another for the sake of the world.