Download or read book Unexpected Gifts written by Christopher L Heuertz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this heartfelt and thoughtful book, Christopher Heuertz writes of the dangers of isolation, the challenges we face when we join together and the struggles and joys that emerge from genuine community bonding. “Ironically, as much as we yearn for deep friendships and meaningful communities, many of us seem to be unable to find our way into them. Even if we know we’re made for community, finding one and staying there seems almost impossible. Though we hate to admit it, if we stay long enough in any relationship or set of friendships, we will experience failure, doubt, burnout, loneliness, transitions, a loss of self, betrayal, frustration, a sense of entitlement, grief, and weariness. Yet it’s these painful community experiences, these tensions we struggle to navigate, that hold surprising gifts.” —FROM THE PREFACE IN A STRIKINGLY confessional tone and vividly illustrated through story, Unexpected Gifts names eleven inevitable challenges that all friendships, relationships, and communities experience if they stay together long enough. Rather than allowing these challenges to become excuses to leave, Chris Heuertz suggests that things like betrayal, transitions, failure, loss of identity, entitlement, and doubt may actually be invitations to stay. And if we stay, these challenges can become unexpected gifts. *** Betrayal, failure, loss of identity, doubt. If your relationships have suffered from any of these pitfalls, this book will show you that staying together can create something more—even something beautiful. IN THIS HEARTFELT and thoughtful book, Christopher Heuertz writes of the dangers of isolation, the challenges we face when we join together, and the struggles and joys that emerge from genuine community bonding. Whether readers are forming a new community, searching for deeper community, or participating in a longtime community, they will find inspiration, caution, guidance, and encouragement as they discover the beauty of pressing in to the ambiguities of growing relationships in this tender and honest testimony about how we are woven together by grace.
Download or read book The Gifts of Community written by Anne Marie Durham and published by BalboaPress. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all feel the pull, that innate knowing that we were put here on this earth for some important purpose greater than ourselves. But how can we realize that calling in a world that seems so utterly broken and in perpetual turmoil? How can one person make a difference? How do we help others, when overcoming our own personal problems seems so overwhelming? It is simply by rediscovering our connectedness through community participation that both our inner and outer worlds begin to transform. The Gifts of Community reveals the mutual path to personal and community development, a path that has been well hidden behind cultural messages of competition and self-preservation. By sharing your gifts with others, you are gifted with all that you have felt has been missing in your life. You grow as a person, realize your dreams, develop your talents, and meet your soul partners. And as you realize this potential and begin to think in the mindset of community, the world around you will change for the better as well. Community is a grand-scale gift exchange. As you give good to others, good comes back to you.
Download or read book Spiritual Gifts the Beloved Community and Covenant written by Emily Provance and published by . This book was released on 2020-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God speaks to all people and gives us all spiritual gifts-and yet these gifts are not all the same. We are organizers, pray-ers, workers, carers, innovators, provocateurs, and healers. Why? Because we're made to fit together like puzzle pieces, as we name, affirm, and nurture spiritual gifts and ministries. In the author's view, this fitting together is at the heart of what it means to be a covenant people, a people given to the care of one another and charged with building the kingdom of God on Earth. It's easy to settle for less than covenant; it's scary to stretch for the wholeness of God's promise. We, collectively, face a choice of who to be. A version of this pamphlet was given as the 2019 Weed Lecture at Beacon Hill Friends House in Boston. Discussion questions included.
Download or read book Community written by Peter Block and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together. What Peter Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation. How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? What can individuals and formal leaders do to create a place they want to inhabit? We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding. As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Block outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging. In Community, Peter Block explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.
Download or read book Prophetic Community written by Kim M. Maas and published by Chosen Books. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All God's people have been given the ability not only to hear his voice, but to speak his words. Yet some still believe that the gift of prophecy ceased with the death of the New Testament apostles. Others believe that gifts are reserved only for those specially anointed and appointed. Grounded in Scripture, international speaker and author Kim Maas will help you understand · the history of the modern prophetic movement · key misunderstandings and misconceptions about prophecy · where prophetic community fits into God's kingdom plan When the body of Christ recognizes that we are called to be a prophetic community, the voice of God will be released with fresh power in the church and the family, in the halls of justice and of education, in places of business and of leisure, and in the streets of every neighborhood, city, and nation. Lives will be changed. Communities will be transformed. Culture will be influenced. And history will be made.
Download or read book Gifts in Open Hands written by Maren C. Tirabassi and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gifts in Open Hands contains a wealth of multicultural liturgies, prayers, affirmations, blessings, and poetry by people from the global community. These beautifully written pieces can be used in worship and celebration of sacraments, sacred seasons, and all other occasions in the life of the church.
Download or read book Gifts of Many Cultures written by Maren C. Tirabassi and published by Pilgrim Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GIFTS OF MANY CULTURES is a moving collection of liturgical resources from the global community. It is designed to enrich worship, encourage cross-cultural appreciation, facilitate church mission programming, and deepen spiritual understanding across the global community.
Download or read book The Giver written by Lois Lowry and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. This movie tie-in edition features cover art from the movie and exclusive Q&A with members of the cast, including Taylor Swift, Brenton Thwaites and Cameron Monaghan.
Download or read book The Gift written by Lewis Hyde and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting with the premise that the work of art is a gift and not a commodity, this revolutionary book ranges across anthropology, literature, economics, and psychology to show how the 'commerce of the creative spirit' functions in the lives of artists and in culture as a whole.
Download or read book The Abundant Community written by John McKnight and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " We need our neighbors and community to stay healthy, produce jobs, raise our children, and care for those on the margin. Institutions and professional services have reached their limit of their ability to help us. The consumer society tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside the community. We have become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbors. John McKnight and Peter Block show that we have the capacity to find real and sustainable satisfaction right in our neighborhood and community. This book reports on voluntary, self-organizing structures that focus on gifts and value hospitality, the welcoming of strangers. It shows how to reweave our social fabric, especially in our neighborhoods. In this way we collectively have enough to create a future that works for all. "
Download or read book We Need Each Other written by Bill Kauth and published by . This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our book is part of an emerging "gift culture" worldview. It is a manual for designing personal community based on the gifts that each person brings. Focusing on non-residential, place based and committed community, we present tools to support and fortify the longing of the human heart for intimate, conscious connection.
Download or read book The Spirituality of Community Life written by Ron McDonald and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find out how communities can help people transcend their individual needs to live richer, fuller lives The Spirituality of Community Life is a deeply personal analysis of community life and its importance in helping people develop to their full potential. Dr. Ron McDonald, a pastoral counselor, examines the dynamics of community life from the perspective of the participant in a variety of settings, including the classroom, sports teams, church groups, recreational groups, and the workplace. This unique book presents alternatives to a culture that creates competition, separation, and insecurity, focusing instead on communities that encourage civility, understanding, compromise, and altruism. The Spirituality of Community Life analyzes the need for community life and the obstacles to it found in American culture, where money and power rule and people conform to stay out of trouble. The book presents insights into the importance and manner of building communities instead of efficient organizations that are fueled by crisis. Topics examined include growth and size as mistaken ideals, early Christian community life, the “What Would Jesus Do?” phenomenon, the spiritual disease caused by fighting enemies, the place of art and dance in community life, and leadership. The Spirituality of Community Life looks at a variety of communities, including: hikers on the Appalachian Trail a college track and country team a seminary course on the Gospel of Mark a church health center a traditional Quaker meeting an open education elementary school a championship basketball team an annual meeting of pastoral counselors and much more The Spirituality of Community Life also examines the deeply spiritual nature of community life, including insights into early Christian community history and how community life was crucial in the lives of our greatest spiritual leaders. The book is essential for anyone seeking to be the kind of leader who can build and nurture communities.
Download or read book The Cycle of the Gift written by James E. Hughes, Jr. and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to giving well to family members Giving is at the core of family life--and with current law allowing up to $5,120,000 in tax-free gifts, at least through December 2012, the ultra-affluent are faced with the task of giving at perhaps largest scale in history. Beyond the tax saving and wealth management implications, giving to family members opens up a slew of thorny questions, the biggest of which is, "How do I prepare recipients of such large gifts?" With that question and others in mind, Hughes, Massenzio, and Whitaker have written The Cycle of the Gift in three main parts: "The Who of Giving," "The How of Giving," and "The What and Why of Giving." The first part focuses on the people most deeply involved in family giving, especially the recipients and givers (parents, grandparents, spouses, trustees). The second part, "The How of Giving," addresses the delicate balance of givers who want to maintain some level of control and recipients who want some level of freedom in accepting and growing their gifts. The final part, "The What and Why of Giving" describes various types of gifts, from money to business interests to values and rituals. The authors also introduce their "family bank" concept as a model that combines loans, trusts, and outright gifts. It embodies a framework and set of practices for long-term family growth. Even families without great wealth--or those who have already made large gifts to their children and grandchilren--can benefit from the human wisdom and practical advice found in The Cycle of the Gift.
Download or read book How We Show Up written by Mia Birdsong and published by Hachette Go. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Invitation to Community and Models for Connection After almost every presentation activist and writer Mia Birdsong gives to executives, think tanks, and policy makers, one of those leaders quietly confesses how much they long for the profound community she describes. They have family, friends, and colleagues, yet they still feel like they're standing alone. They're "winning" at the American Dream, but they're lonely, disconnected, and unsatisfied. It seems counterintuitive that living the "good life"--the well-paying job, the nuclear family, the upward mobility--can make us feel isolated and unhappy. But in a divided America, where only a quarter of us know our neighbors and everyone is either a winner or a loser, we've forgotten the key element that helped us make progress in the first place: community. In this provocative, groundbreaking work, Mia Birdsong shows that what separates us isn't only the ever-present injustices built around race, class, gender, values, and beliefs, but also our denial of our interdependence and need for belonging. In response to the fear and discomfort we feel, we've built walls, and instead of leaning on each other, we find ourselves leaning on concrete. Through research, interviews, and stories of lived experience, How We Show Up returns us to our inherent connectedness where we find strength, safety, and support in vulnerability and generosity, in asking for help, and in being accountable. Showing up--literally and figuratively--points us toward the promise of our collective vitality and leads us to the liberated well-being we all want.
Download or read book We Need Each Other written by Bill Kauth and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Practicing Our Faith written by Dorothy C. Bass and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve time-honored Christian practices that will help us, and the world, to flourish Practicing Our Faith offers help to Christians who are asking how our faith can help us discern what we might do and who we might become. How can we live faithfully and with integrity in a world where the pace of existence is so fast and life's patterns are changing all around us? Can we conduct our daily lives in ways that help us not just get by but flourish--as individuals, as communities, and as a society in concert with creation and in communion with God? These questions are on the hearts and minds of many seekers who are exploring spirituality today. They are also at the heart of Practicing Our Faith. Practices are those shared activities that address fundamental needs of humankind and creation and that, woven together, form a way of life. The twelve practices explored in this book are practices that human beings simply cannot do without, particularly at this time in history. This book will stimulate your imagination. It will encourage you to reflect. It initiates a conversation that will spread into many contexts, each of which presents unique opportunities for noticing, discussing, and living the practices of faith.
Download or read book The Gift written by Lewis Hyde and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the concept of gifts in anthropological terms and uses this approach to analyze the situation of creative artists and their gifts to society.
