Download or read book Why We Love the Church written by Kevin L. DeYoung and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2009-06-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the case for loving the local church. It paints a picture of the local church in all its biblical and real life guts, gaffes, and glory in an effort to edify local congregations and entice the disaffected back to the fold. It also provides a solid biblical mandate to love and be part of the body of Christ and counteract the "leave church" books that trumpet rebellion and individual felt needs. Why We Love the Church is written for four kinds of people - the Committed, the Disgruntled, the Waffling & the Disconnected.

Download or read book Love Your Church written by Tony Merida and published by The Good Book Company. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to grow in love for your church. God calls us to be "devoted to one another in love" (Romans 12:10). What does this look like for us today? How can we be the kind of church member who makes a real difference? This engaging book by Tony Merida explores what church is, why being part of it is exciting, and why it’s worthy of our love and commitment. He sets out eight privileges and responsibilities of a church member: to belong, to welcome, to gather, to care, to serve, to honour, to witness and to send. As we see how wonderful it is to belong to God’s family and be a part of his amazing witness to both the earthly and the heavenly realms, we’ll grow in our love for and commitment to our local church. This is a great book for every churchgoer to read, whether they’re new or have been attending for some time but need re-energising with God’s vision for the local church. With a discussion guide at the end of the book, Love Your Church is also a great resource for small groups.

Download or read book Loving God When You Don t Love the Church written by Chris Jackson and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Christians who experience hurt in the church don't just leave their own churches; they leave the church altogether. Whether they have been wounded by pastors or people in the pews, these believers have had enough and are jumping ship in massive numbers. Pastor and churchgoer Chris Jackson is honest about his own failings as well as those of the church at large. He identifies with many of the hurts churchgoing Christians have experienced. In Loving God When You Don't Love the Church, he hopes to provide healing to wounded and disillusioned believers and restore the wonder of a genuine relationship with Jesus and his bride, the church. Jackson's humility, compassion, and practical advice for healing and restoration will touch those who have left the church and those who love them.

Download or read book A Place to Belong written by Megan Hill and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2020-04-16 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians know church is important, but sometimes it doesn't seem worth it. An eclectic assortment of people with differing personalities, political views, and parenting styles can make for awkward interactions and difficult connections. What’s the point of putting in the tough work to build relationships? But the Bible says God’s people ought to be bound together. It uses words like beloved, brothers and sisters, saints, and fellow laborers to describe their mutual relationship in the church. In this book, Megan Hill answers a common question of churchgoers: What’s so great about the church? With rich theology, practical direction, and study questions for group use, Hill encourages and equips both first-time visitors and regular members to delight in being a part of the local church—no matter how messy and ordinary it seems today. It is only when God’s people begin to see one another as the Lord sees them that they will truly find a place to belong.

Download or read book You Are What You Love written by James K. A. Smith and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

Download or read book They Like Jesus but Not the Church written by Dan Kimball and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people today, especially among emerging generations, don’t resonate with the church and organized Christianity. Some are leaving the church and others were never part of the church in the first place. Sometimes it’s because of misperceptions about the church. Yet often they are still spiritually open and fascinated with Jesus. This is a ministry resource book exploring six of the most common objects and misunderstandings emerging generations have about the church and Christianity. The objections come from conversations and interviews the church has had with unchurched twenty and thirty-somethings at coffee houses. Each chapter raises the objection using a conversational approach, provides the biblical answers to that objection, gives examples of how churches are addressing this objection, and concludes with follow-through projection suggestions, discussion questions, and resource listings.

Download or read book The Drama of Preaching written by Eric B. Watkins and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preaching is dramatic. Through it, we hear the voice of the living God as he speaks to us both through the reading and the preaching of the word of God. But where do the hearers of sermons fit into the drama? This book suggests ways in which the drama metaphor may help to address age old questions about the centrality of the gospel and the place of the hearer in preaching. As God in Christ is the central character in the biblical drama of redemption, he also calls hearers to understand their role in creatively, yet faithfully living according to the biblical script. Thus, no sermon is complete until God's redemptive work is powerfully proclaimed, and his people are instructed in how they too are participating in the Missio Dei. In this work, Hebrews 11 is employed as a means of showing how God not only reveals his redemptive work to his people, but also through them. As postmodernism sets the stage of contemporary preaching, The Drama of Preaching interacts with some of the particular challenges preachers face in engaging postmodern listeners, that they might not only be hearers, but doers of the preached word.

Download or read book Why I Love the Apostle Paul written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Besides Jesus, no one has kept me from despair, or taken me deeper into the mysteries of the gospel, than the apostle Paul." —John Piper No one has had a greater impact on the world for eternal good than the apostle Paul—except Jesus himself. For John Piper, this impact is very personal. He does not just admire and trust Paul. He loves him. Piper gives us thirty glimpses into why his heart and mind respond this way. Can a Christian-killer really endure 195 lashes from a heart of love? Can a mystic who thinks he was caught up into heaven be a model of lucid rationality? Can an ethnocentric Jew write the most beautiful call to reconciliation? Can a person who lives with the unceasing anguish of empathy be always rejoicing? Can a man's description of the horrors of human sin be exceeded by his delight in human splendor? Can a man with a backbone of steel be as tender as a nursing mother? If we know this man—if we see what Piper sees—we too will love him. Paul's testimony is a matter of life and death. Piper invites you into his relationship with Paul in the hope that you will know life, forever.

Download or read book Organizing Love in Church written by Tim Adeney and published by . This book was released on 2015-04-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us have the instinct that a church won't automatically develop a culture of love for God, his people, and his world. This book puts words to that instinct.Chapter 1 outlines the kinds of loving fellowship, discipleship, and mission we hope for in a church. Chapter 2 explores why these expressions of love generally don't 'just happen', and why some common approaches to church -- including Sunday gatherings and Bible studies -- don't necessarily foster a loving community. And chapter 3 makes some concrete suggestions for how better to promote love in church.

Download or read book How the Nations Rage written by Jonathan Leeman and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can the church move forward in unity amid such political strife and cultural contention? As Christians, we’ve felt pushed to the outskirts of national public life, yet even within our congregations we are divided about how to respond. Some want to strengthen the evangelical voting bloc. Others focus on social justice causes, and still others would abandon the public square altogether. What do we do when brothers and sisters in Christ sit next to each other in the pews but feel divided and angry? Is there a way forward? In How the Nations Rage, political theology scholar and pastor Jonathan Leeman challenges Christians from across the spectrum to hit the restart button by shifting our focus from redeeming the nation to living as a nation already redeemed rejecting the false allure of building heaven on earth while living faithfully as citizens of a heavenly kingdom letting Jesus’ teaching shape our public engagement as we love our neighbors and seek justice When we identify with Christ more than a political party or social grouping, we can return to the church’s unchanging political task: to become the salt and light Jesus calls us to be and offer the hope of his kingdom to the nations.

Download or read book Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel written by Eugene England and published by Mormon Arts & Letters. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, c1986.

Download or read book Discerning Your Call to Ministry written by Jason K. Allen and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2016-08-19 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The church has needed this book for a long time.” — Russell Moore If you are considering the ministry, there are two mistakes to avoid. The first is taking up a calling that isn’t yours. The second is neglecting one that is. Discerning Your Call to Ministry will help you know the difference. A tool for seminary students, pastors-in-training, and even current pastors, it serves to confirm or prompt deep thought about the calling to ministry through 10 probing questions, including: Do you desire the ministry? Does your church affirm your calling? Do you love the people of God? Are you willing to surrender? Pastoral dropout rates are high, and seminary admission rates are declining—signs that many of us don’t quite know what we’re signing ourselves up for. Author Jason Allen, a former pastor and the president of North America’s fastest growing seminary, gives readers a better picture of the calling. Presenting a series of diagnostic questions informed by Scripture, church history, and his own experience, he helps those seeking ordination or ministry positions make confident decisions about their service to God, one way or the other.

Download or read book True Love Dates written by Debra K. Fileta and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is possible to find true love through dating. In True Love Dates, Debra Fileta encourages singles not to "kiss dating goodbye" but instead to experience a season of dating as a way to find real love. Through powerful, real-life stories and Fileta's personal journey, this book offers profound insights from the expertise of a professional counselor. Christians are looking for answers to finding true love. They are disillusioned with the church that has provided little practical application in the area of love and relationships. They're bombarded by Christian books that shun dating, idolize courting, fixate on spirituality, and in the end, offer little real relationship help. True Love Dates provides honest help for dating by providing a guide into vital relationship essentials. Debra is a professional Christian counselor who reaches millions with her popular blog, Truelovedates.com, and her book offers sound advice grounded in Christian spirituality. She delivers insight, direction, and counsel when it comes to entering the world of dating and learning to do it right the first time around. Drawing on the stories and struggles of hundreds of young men and women who have pursued the search for true love, Fileta helps readers bypass unnecessary pain while focusing on the things that really matter in the world of dating.

Download or read book How We Love Expanded Edition written by Milan Yerkovich and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2009-01-20 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know the last fight you had with your spouse began long before you even met? Are you tired of falling into frustrating relational patterns in your marriage? Do you and your spouse fight about the same things again and again? Relationship experts Milan and Kay Yerkovich explain why the ways you and your spouse relate to each other go back to before you even met. Drawing on the powerful tool of attachment theory, Milan and Kay explore how your childhood created an “intimacy imprint” that affects your marriage today. Their stories and practical ideas help you: * identify your personal love style * understand how your early life impacts you and your spouse * break free from painful patterns that keep you stuck * find healing for the source of conflict, not just the symptoms * create the close, nourishing relationship you dream about Revised throughout with all-new material and additional visual diagrams, this expanded edition of How We Love will bring vibrant life to your marriage. Are you ready for a new journey of love? Note: The revised and expanded How We Love Workbook is available separately.

Download or read book When God Builds a Church written by Bob Russell and published by Howard Books. This book was released on 2015-06-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pastor Bob Russell shares the ten principles upon which Southeast Christian Church, one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America, was founded. He shares not only the story of one of the most amazing churches in America, but also what your church can become if you follow the principles and allow God to build your church. Can the church truly be the "city on a hill that cannot be hidden" that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount? Can it grow large enough to attract throngs of seekers and yet be loving enough to care for each individual that comes? Bob Russell, pastor of Southeast Christian Church—one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America—says that it most certainly can. But it can only be done when we are submissive to God's will and allow Him to build that church. In the pages of this far-sighted, uncompromising book, Bob Russell and his son Rusty share the ten principles upon which this remarkable church was founded. Throughout the book, you will see God's mighty power at work in a church that began in 1962 with only 50 members and has now grown to over 14,000 and has become a bustling "city on a hill" whose beaming faith powerfully impacts its community and the world. This book shares not only the story of one of the most amazing churches in America but also the story of what your church can become as you follow these ten time-tested principles and allow God to build your church.

Download or read book Church Membership written by Jonathan Leeman and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Leeman addresses the commonly asked (and often unanswered) question of, "Why should I join a church?" in a time when many are shunning the practice of organized religion. By offering a brief, straightforward explanation of what church membership is and why it's important, Leeman gives the local church its proper due and builds a case for committing to the local body. Church Membership is a useful tool for churches to distribute en masse to new and potential members of their congregation. This volume is part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series. Look for upcoming, quick-read formats of the following marks of a healthy church: expositional preaching, biblical theology, the gospel, conversion, evangelism, church discipline, discipleship and growth, and church leadership.

Download or read book The Loveliest Place written by Dustin Benge and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2022-02-25 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Christians Can Rediscover the Beauty and Glory of the Church Dear. Precious. Lovely. The Bible describes the church in extraordinary ways, even using beautiful poetry and metaphors. How does this compare to how Christians today describe the church? Unfortunately, many believers focus more on its mission, structure, or specific programs than on its inherent beauty. It's time to spark a renewed affection for the church. In The Loveliest Place, Dustin Benge urges Christians to see the holy assembly of God's redeemed people in all its eternal beauty. He explains what makes the church lovely, including the Trinitarian relationship, worship, service, and gospel proclamation. For those who have never learned to view the church as God sees it, or have become disillusioned by its flaws, this book is a reminder that the corporate gathering of believers is a reflection of God's indescribable beauty. This is the third book in the Union series, which invites readers to experience deeper enjoyment of God through four interconnected values: delighting in God, growing in Christ, serving the church, and blessing the world. Part of the Union Series: Inviting readers to experience deeper enjoyment of God; other volumes include Rejoice and Tremble and Deeper Concise Version Also Available: The Loveliest Place is the full version of Why Should We Love the Local Church? Looks Beyond Methodology: Focuses on the beauty, not just the biblical function, of the church