Download or read book Tony Evans Book of Illustrations written by Tony Evans and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picture this: it’s Saturday afternoon, and you’re putting the finishing touches on tomorrow’s sermon. You’ve been thinking, researching, and praying about this message all week, and thankfully, feel prepared. That is, except for one small detail—you aren’t sure how to begin. For more than 30 years, Tony Evans has been connecting with audiences around the world. Now his tools are available for you. Don’t leave your listeners to connect the dots. Let Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations help you illustrate your point in a way they can’t forget.
Download or read book A Prisoner of Jesus Christ written by Jimmy E Windham and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story of a young boy who grew up with a deep desire for love and acceptance. Instead he was harshly abused and mistreated by his alcoholic preacher father and older brother. He grew into a violent man whose life consisted of fights, and scrapes with law enforcement. He learned to run when things got really tough. Often, he sought the will of God for his life, rising from being a victim to an overcomer several times, however drugs and alcohol always pulled him back down. He had a beautiful wife and children that he loved dearly, but when things got tough, he'd walk away into the ready arms of alcohol and other women. This would be his undoing. Finally, one day in 1984, a shootout left a man dead and him in the county jail on a murder charge. Thinking his life was over, he attempted to end his life, but two ministers of God felt led to pray with him, thus preventing his death. Finally, in an honest attempt to be set free from his guilt and pain, he cried out to God, and God saved him and set him free. He found that God was not finished with him and discovered his life had just begun. This story is a must read for evangelical use or prison ministry, for it points those who are going astray including those already in jails or prisons to the cross of Calvary and to a loving, forgiving Savior who will set them free too. Jimmy Windham has been in a maximum-security prison in the South Carolina prison system for over 34 years. Though his life and testimony have won many men to Christ; he still requests prayers for the strength of Christ in his everyday life. Bro. Jimmy is still in prison, but by God's anointing on his life, he is standing in faith and still testifying of God's delivering power over sin and brokenness.
Download or read book Doing Time with God Stories of Healing and Hope in Our Prisons written by MR Bill Dyer and published by . This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True crime stories provide the foundation of this prison memoir. Bill Dyer was robbed and shot at an ATM. In Doing Time with God, you go into prison with him and other victims of violence to meet with convicted felons who will be facing their worst and greatest realizations, before they are released. Nothing is predictable when victims and offenders come together and share their stories of the true crimes that have devastated their lives...and reshaped them. Victim-survivors remember their losses and feel their pain; Offenders come face-to-face with the hurt they have caused, and open wounds from their own past. Walls of defensiveness and fear are knocked down by empathy and compassion, vulnerability and tears. Raw emotions flow. The way to peace is often intense, turbulent, and heartbreaking. Even when it's not pretty, the journey is beautiful in its honesty... miraculous in the way it unfolds...divine in how it transforms lives. This Amazing Process Opens the Heart, Touches the Soul, and Renews the Mind
Download or read book Christ in the Communist Prisons written by Richard Wurmbrand and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Captive in Iran written by Maryam Rostampour and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh knew they were putting their lives on the line. Islamic laws in Iran forbade them from sharing their Christian beliefs, but in three years, they’d covertly put New Testaments into the hands of twenty thousand of their countrymen and started two secret house churches. In 2009, they were finally arrested and held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, a place where inmates are routinely tortured and executions are commonplace. In the face of ruthless interrogations, persecution, and a death sentence, Maryam and Marziyeh chose to take the radical—and dangerous—step of sharing their faith inside the very walls of the government stronghold that was meant to silence them. In Captive in Iran, two courageous Iranian women recount how God used their 259 days in Evin Prison to shine His light into one of the world’s darkest places, giving hope to those who had lost everything and showing love to those in despair.
Download or read book With Christ in Prison written by George M. Anderson (S.J.) and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many cases, we hear these men tell their stories in their own words - stories that describe not only the struggle to cope with grim physical realities but also the struggle of the spirit in communion with Christ." "The book is organized around a series of themes, such as Arrest and Trial, Voluntary Incarceration, Physical Suffering, Brothers, Prayer in Prison and Daily Order, with examples from the experiences of the men to illustrate these aspects of their lives as prisoners. It also provides an introduction to the Society of Jesus, exploring the philosophy of St. Ignatius of Loyola, his Spiritual Exercises, and the training that young men receive."--Jacket.
Download or read book Time of Grace written by Ken Lamberton and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2015-11-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I hole up in my own cozy cubicle and write, considering ways to make the approaching Thanksgiving holiday not just another day in this place. In prison, hope faces east; time is measured in wake-ups.” Time of Grace is a remarkable book, written with great eloquence by a former science teacher who was incarcerated for twelve years for his sexual liaison with a teenage student. Far more than a “prison memoir,” it is an intimate and revealing look at relationships—with fellow humans and with the surprising wildlife of the Sonoran Desert, both inside and beyond prison walls. Throughout, Ken Lamberton reflects on human relations as they mimic and defy those of the natural world, whose rhythms calibrate Lamberton’s days and years behind bars. He writes with candor about his life, while observing desert flora and fauna with the insight and enthusiasm of a professional naturalist. While he studies a tarantula digging her way out of the packed earth and observes Mexican freetail bats sailing into the evening sky, Lamberton ruminates on his crime and on the wrenching effects it has had on his wife and three daughters. He writes of his connections with his fellow inmates—some of whom he teaches in prison classes—and with the guards who control them, sometimes with inexplicable cruelty. And he unflinchingly describes a prison system that has gone horribly wrong—a system entrapped in a self-created web of secrecy, fear, and lies. This is the final book of Lamberton’s trilogy about the twelve years he spent in prison. Readers of his earlier books will savor this last volume. Those who are only now discovering Lamberton’s distinctive voice—part poet, part scientist, part teacher, and always deeply, achingly human—will feel as if they are making a new friend. Gripping, sobering, and beautifully written, Lamberton’s memoir is an unforgettable exploration of crime, punishment, and the power of the human spirit.
Download or read book When We Visit Jesus in Prison A Guide for Catholic Ministry written by Dale S. Recinella and published by ACTA Publications. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive resource combines Catholic Church teaching, the best in current sociological and psychological thinking on incarceration, and the reflections and stories of a trained and certified Catholic lay chaplain who has been doing prison ministry for over twenty years. While When We Visit Jesus in Prison is an essential guide for those entrusted with this ministry, it is also invaluable for the ordinary Catholic striving to understand the needs of incarcerated men and women and to have a deeper appreciation for the Works of Mercy.
Download or read book Prison Ministry written by Lennie Spitale and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2002 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empowering any pastor, educator, or lay leader in doing effective prison ministry by providing a thorough inside-out view of prison life.
Download or read book God in Captivity written by Tanya Erzen and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening account of how and why evangelical Christian ministries are flourishing in prisons across the United States It is by now well known that the United States’ incarceration rate is the highest in the world. What is not broadly understood is how cash-strapped and overcrowded state and federal prisons are increasingly relying on religious organizations to provide educational and mental health services and to help maintain order. And these religious organizations are overwhelmingly run by nondenominational Protestant Christians who see prisoners as captive audiences. Some twenty thousand of these Evangelical Christian volunteers now run educational programs in over three hundred US prisons, jails, and detention centers. Prison seminary programs are flourishing in states as diverse as Texas and Tennessee, California and Illinois, and almost half of the federal prisons operate or are developing faith-based residential programs. Tanya Erzen gained inside access to many of these programs, spending time with prisoners, wardens, and members of faith-based ministries in six states, at both male and female penitentiaries, to better understand both the nature of these ministries and their effects. What she discovered raises questions about how these ministries and the people who live in prison grapple with the meaning of punishment and redemption, as well as what legal and ethical issues emerge when conservative Christians are the main and sometimes only outside forces in a prison system that no longer offers even the pretense of rehabilitation. Yet Erzen also shows how prison ministries make undeniably positive impacts on the lives of many prisoners: men and women who have no hope of ever leaving prison can achieve personal growth, a sense of community, and a degree of liberation within the confines of their cells. With both empathy and a critical eye, God in Captivity grapples with the questions of how faith-based programs serve the punitive regime of the prison, becoming a method of control behind bars even as prisoners use them as a lifeline for self-transformation and dignity.
Download or read book Down in the Chapel written by Joshua Dubler and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold and provocative interpretation of one of the most religiously vibrant places in America—a state penitentiary Baraka, Al, Teddy, and Sayyid—four black men from South Philadelphia, two Christian and two Muslim—are serving life sentences at Pennsylvania's maximum-security Graterford Prison. All of them work in Graterford's chapel, a place that is at once a sanctuary for religious contemplation and an arena for disputing the workings of God and man. Day in, day out, everything is, in its twisted way, rather ordinary. And then one of them disappears. Down in the Chapel tells the story of one week at Graterford Prison. We learn how the men at Graterford pass their time, care for themselves, and commune with their makers. We observe a variety of Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and others, at prayer and in study and song. And we listen in as an interloping scholar of religion tries to make sense of it all. When prisoners turn to God, they are often scorned as con artists who fake their piety, or pitied as wretches who cling to faith because faith is all they have left. Joshua Dubler goes beyond these stereotypes to show the religious life of a prison in all its complexity. One part prison procedural, one part philosophical investigation, Down in the Chapel explores the many uses prisoners make of their religions and weighs the circumstances that make these uses possible. Gritty and visceral, meditative and searching, it is an essential study of American religion in the age of mass incarceration.
Download or read book The Shot Caller written by Casey Diaz and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When you feel like you've made too many missteps to go forward, how do you find the strength to carry on? Join Casey Diaz as he tells the remarkable story of God's heart for second chances. The son of El Salvadorian immigrants, Casey Diaz was brought to Los Angeles at the age of two. An abusive, impoverished family life propelled Casey into the Rockwood Street Locos gang at just eleven years old. Casey was willing to do anything to be number one, but years of chasing rival gang members led to a dramatic ambush and arrest by the LAPD. By age sixteen, Casey was sentenced to more than twelve years in solitary confinement in California's toughest prison as one of the state's most violent offenders. He thought his life was over--but as the days in solitary wore on, Casey realized someone else was calling the shots. What happened next can only be described as a miracle. Join Casey as he shares how we can all: Embrace the incredible gift of God's redeeming love Change our lives for the better Find our God-given purpose A visceral insider's look at the violent world of gangs and prison life, The Shot Caller is a remarkable demonstration of God's reckless, unending grace, and desire to reach even the worst of sinners--no matter where they are. Praise for The Shot Caller: "When I read about the life of Casey Diaz, I see so much of my own life. This is a story of a tough young man who lost his way, and of a loving God who never forgot him, no matter where he was. I know you will be inspired by Casey's story. I hope you, too, will surrender to the love of Jesus Christ." --Nicky Cruz, bestselling author of Run Baby Run
Download or read book Imprisoned with ISIS written by Petr Jasek and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It Was Supposed to be a Four-Day Visit It turned into a 445-day imprisonment. And if God had not intervened, he would have been there for the rest of his life. In December 2015, Petr Jasek traveled to Khartoum, Sudan, to evaluate how The Voice of the Martyrs—a ministry he had served with since 2002—could help and encourage persecuted Sudanese Christians. Pleased with his meetings with local pastors and other Christians, Petr checked in for his flight home to the Czech Republic. But before he could board the plane, he was summoned for questioning by Sudanese security agents. They wanted to know more about his activities in the country—activities that, if disclosed, could endanger the Christians with whom he had met. Petr soon realized he was facing much more than a routine security screening. The guards took his computer, phone, and camera before quickly discovering his second passport. Later, his interrogators showed him photos of each meeting he had arranged during his four days in Sudan; he had been under surveillance from the moment he arrived. Taken into custody, Petr knew he would not be returning to his family anytime soon. Charged with espionage, waging war against the state, and undermining the constitution, he was locked up with ISIS fighters, convicted after a lengthy trial, and sentenced to life in prison. Now Petr shares the harrowing but inspiring story of how God sustained his strength and courage while giving him a new purpose during his ordeal—and then opened the prison doors and set him free.
Download or read book Chained in Christ written by Craig S. Wansink and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Paul, who imprisoned Christians, his own incarceration ironically became a way in which he understood his mission. Paul's convictions and his rhetoric were often shaped during those times when chains constrained him from travelling. By examining a wide variety of sources-such as ancient novels, dream interpretations and moral tractates-Wansink first describes prison conditions and the daily life of prisoners, in the Graeco-Roman world. Subsequent exegetical chapters focus on two epistles Paul wrote from prison: Philippians and Philemon. This book replaces a 'docetic' view of Paul's incarceration with an original insight into how prison would have shaped his interaction with the Philippians and Philemon.
Download or read book The Convict Christ written by Jens Soering and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inmate for life, Jens Soering tells stories of prison life that are shocking and inspiring. He confronts us with Jesus's challenge to love not only the least amongst us but those who are perceived as the worst amongst us. Anyone interested in what goes on behind the walls of our nation's prisons--and in seeing the face of Christ in everyone--will value this authentic, harrowing, and visionary search for redemption. The subject of a recent profile in The New Yorker Jens Soering has been incarcerated in Virginia since 1990. He is the author of The Way of the Prisoner and An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse.
Download or read book Confessions and Testimony of a Christian Prisoner written by Ray Amato and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-04-19 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unknowingly to me, the writing of this book commenced decades ago while traveling my thirty-five state territories as a tractor trailer driver. Listening to volumes of the Bible on cassette tapes, I often felt compelled to pull over and write on various issues as they occurred to me. Across the years, I improved, but not until I became a serious reader did I develop my present style through the influence of various prolific authors: GK Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, John MacArthur, and others. This book is a collection of theological essays, poetry, and short stories, some of which are true stories of my road trips and life experiences. In a backsliding state, however, some old bad habits revisited, landing me in prison. As I entered my first jail cell, it was vacant except for a beautiful leather-bound NKJ version of the Bible and a copy of a Strong's Concise Concordance of the Bible still sealed in cellophane wrap. That, my friends, I needn't say but I will anyway is an unheard of incident in 10 million vacant jail cells. So now I had just what I would need to polish my previous work, the time, pardon the pun, and the equipment. For my familiarity with the Bible was exhaustive, but only on tape so the concordance was what I would need to find my way around. This was to me a sign from God clearer than words. In addition to reading and writing, I lead Bible study in county jail, and eventually in state prison I shared my work from the pulpit at our chapel. It was then that I felt lead to compose this book; however, it was the Holy Spirit's help and energy who made it happen. I pray that it produces the ends to which it is sent multiplying the faithful among men in Christ Jesus. Remember to pray for the men and women who have lost their way.
Download or read book A Prisoner of Jesus Christ written by Jimmy E Windham and published by Paperback Press. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story of a young boy who grew up with a deep desire for love and acceptance. Instead he was harshly abused and mistreated by his alcoholic preacher father and older brother. He grew into a violent man whose life consisted of fights, and scrapes with law enforcement. He learned to run when things got really tough. Often, he sought the will of God for his life, rising from being a victim to an overcomer several times, however drugs and alcohol always pulled him back down. He had a beautiful wife and children that he loved dearly, but when things got tough, he'd walk away into the ready arms of alcohol and other women. This would be his undoing. Finally, one day in 1984, a shootout left a man dead and him in the county jail on a murder charge. Thinking his life was over, he attempted to end his life, but two ministers of God felt led to pray with him, thus preventing his death. Finally, in an honest attempt to be set free from his guilt and pain, he cried out to God, and God saved him and set him free. He found that God was not finished with him and discovered his life had just begun. This story is a must read for evangelical use or prison ministry, for it points those who are going astray including those already in jails or prisons to the cross of Calvary and to a loving, forgiving Savior who will set them free too. Jimmy Windham has been in a maximum-security prison in the South Carolina prison system for over 34 years. Though his life and testimony have won many men to Christ; he still requests prayers for the strength of Christ in his everyday life. Bro. Jimmy is still in prison, but by God's anointing on his life, he is standing in faith and still testifying of God's delivering power over sin and brokenness.
