Download or read book Uncovering Spiritual Narratives written by Suzanne M. Coyle and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This book was released on 2014 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All cultures use story as a way to make sense of life. Yet for many, only a single story line is seen as the "real truth." Using narrative therapy as a caregiving approach can help individuals uncover multilayered narratives that are far more complex and liberating. Drawing on theological approaches and real life experiences, Coyle creates a contextual pastoral theology that helps caregivers find the power of God in people's stories.
Download or read book Recalling Our Own Stories written by Edward P. Wimberly and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How religious caregivers can find spiritual renewal in their own story Recalling Our Own Stories, which author Edward P. Wimberly describes as "a spiritual retreat in book form," is designed to help clergy and religious caregivers face the challenges of ministry. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners who assist these clergy and caregivers in meeting the challenges of their work. Wimberly enables caregivers to map out and come to grips with cultural expectations of their profession. He also helps readers explore and edit the mythologies that make up their self-image, attitudes toward others, expectations about their performance and role, and convictions about ministry. Finally, he provides a model for spiritual and emotional review grounded in narrative psychology and spiritual approaches. As Wimberly explains, this book offers a way to renew our motivation for ministry by reconnecting to our original call, visualizing again how God has acted and remains intricately involved in our lives. Wimberly demonstrates how religious caregivers, often facing burnout, can tap the sources of renewal that reside in the faith community.
Download or read book Re Storying Your Faith written by Suzanne M. Coyle and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2013-11-29 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-Storying Your Faith has caught our culture’s imagination from nouveau experiences of spirituality through channeling and meditation to traditional spiritual practices of personal devotions, scripture reading, and prayer. Building on Christian spirituality, this spiritual practice of re-storying our faith offers people an everyday experience of discovering multiple faith stories to give meaning to their spiritual journey. Built into this process is a way of discovering individual uniqueness as well as sharing discovered stories in faith communities, whether it is a Sunday school class or a group of like-minded friends. ,
Download or read book Finding a Spiritual Home written by Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, PhD and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012-07-12 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jewish community has lost some of the most sensitive spiritual souls of this generation. They are Jews who were looking for God and found spiritual homes outside of Judaism. Their journeys traversed the Jewish community, but nothing there beckoned them. The creation of synagogue-communities in which the voices of seekers can be heard and their questions can be asked will challenge many loyalist Jews. It will upset and enrage them. But it would also enrich them. —from Chapter 18 In this fresh look at the spiritual possibilities of American Jewish life, Rabbi Sidney Schwarz presents the framework for a new synagogue model—the synagogue community—and its promise to transform our understanding of the synagogue and its potential for modern Judaism. Schwarz profiles four innovative synagogues—one from each of the major movements of Judaism—that have had extraordinary success with their approach to congregational life and presents practical ways to replicate their success. Includes a discussion guide for study groups and book clubs as well as a new afterword by the author describing developments in synagogue change projects since the book was first published.
Download or read book Tell Me a Story written by Scott McClellan and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you know what makes a story great? All the best stories have a few things in common. First, we need the voice of a narrator or a storyteller. Then, add interesting characters, throw them into a risky setting, and get ready for a good dose of conflict. Give those characters a purpose or goal, and that's then the real action begins. Story is our calling. It is also the next generation’s best chance of identifying with the Church and changing the world. As we become storytellers, we learn to see the world in terms of stories being lived and told. We discover deeper insights into God, ourselves, and others. God’s story is happening. We are right in the middle of a page-turner—and God is in it with us. Start seeing your life as a part of God’s story and make some great adventures happen right now!
Download or read book Experiencing Spirituality written by Ernest Kurtz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great master once said, “The shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story.” In Experiencing Spirituality, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham take readers on a journey through storytelling as a means of self-discovery. Recounting and interpreting great wisdom stories from all ages and all cultures, as well as telling many of their own, the authors shed light on such experiences as awe, wonder, humor, confusion, and forgiveness. In story after story, seekers look to those whose lives reveal a special quality—sometimes called spirituality—and ask the masters what they must do to attain that same quality. The answer is simple: “Come, follow me, and see how I live.” Experiencing Spirituality teaches through the example of human experience.
Download or read book Uncovering Violence written by Amy Cottrill and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being through the crucible of trauma, cultural conflict, and warfare. But the more obvious acts of physical or sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible often overshadow its subtler forms throughout Scripture and belie the variety of perspectives on violence embedded in biblical narratives. This hinders readers' ability to recognize the full spectrum of human engagement with violence, both in texts and in their lived experiences. Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project seeks to provide a theoretical vocabulary for the various forms that violence can take—including textual violence, interpretive violence, moral injury, and slow violence—and to offer a fresh ethical reading of violence in the biblical text. Focusing on four narratives from the Hebrew Bible, Cottrill uses the approach of narrative ethics to lay out the many ways that stories can make moral claims on readers, not by delivering a discrete "lesson" or takeaway but by making transformative contact with readers and involving them in a more embodied dialogue with the text. Exploring the narratives of Jael’s killing of Sisera, the toxic masculinity of Samson, environmental devastation and failures of legal systems in Ruth, and Abigail’s mediation with King David, Uncovering Violence presents strategies for reading that allow for this close encounter. In doing so, it helps prepare readers to better recognize, interpret, and even respond to violence and its many effects within and beyond the text.
Download or read book The Magnificent Story written by James Bryan Smith and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Bryan Smith, author of the bestselling book the Good and Beautiful series, brings us this spiritual formation resource full of field-tested material and practices for both individuals and groups. Uncover the magnificent story of beauty, goodness, and truth that will satisfy the ultimate longings of your heart.
Download or read book Empowering Couples written by Duane R. Bidwell and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Couples can make significant progress toward resolving their own problems when they receive appropriate guidance from a caring person. This book outlines five tasks focused on identity, agency, and meaning that spiritual caregivers can use to empower couples for significant change in just three to five conversations. This form of "empowering guidance" is a dimension of pastoral conversation rather than formal counseling. Critically integrating desert spiritual theology with empirical data about successful marriages, Bidwell advocates for mutuality and partnership within covenanted relationships, which allows partners to create an alliance strong enough to resist the forces that threaten relationships--especially the negative influences of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and withdrawal.
Download or read book Making Sense of God written by Timothy Keller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.
Download or read book Tell Me a Story SAMPLER written by Scott McClellan and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2012-12-13 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enjoy these SAMPLE pages from Tell Me a Story- Jesus called His followers witnesses. We are, in fact, witnesses to His unfolding story. This story is not only our calling-it's the next generation's best chance of identifying with the Church and changing the world. As we become storytellers, we learn to see the world in terms of stories being lived and told. We discover deeper insights into God, ourselves, and others. Through story we uncover a better framework for understanding abstract concepts such as purpose and conflict, as well as more concrete aspects of our lives such as work, technology, communication, and community. Story touches every part of our lives because it's the form factor of our lives-story is inside all of us, and we're all inside a story.
Download or read book Sacred Stories Spiritual Tribes written by Nancy Tatom Ammerman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nancy Tatom Ammerman examines the stories Americans tell of their everyday lives, from dinner table to office and shopping mall to doctor's office, about the things that matter most to them and the routines they take for granted, and the times and places where the everyday and ordinary meet the spiritual. In addition to interviews and observation, Ammerman bases her findings on a photo elicitation exercise and oral diaries, offering a window into the presence and absence of religion and spirituality in ordinary lives and in ordinary physical and social spaces. The stories come from a diverse array of ninety-five Americans — both conservative and liberal Protestants, African American Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Wiccans, and people who claim no religious or spiritual proclivities — across a range that stretches from committed religious believers to the spiritually neutral. Ammerman surveys how these people talk about what spirituality is, how they seek and find experiences they deem spiritual, and whether and how religious traditions and institutions are part of their spiritual lives.
Download or read book Spiritual Storytelling written by Richard Peace and published by Navpress Publishing Group. This book was released on 1996 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Peace teaches the art of telling the story of one's personal spiritual journey as a Christian discipline. The Spiritual Disiplines Series explores and explains how use of spiritual disciplines can deepen both our walk with God and our community with other believers. The Series is designed for group involvement.
Download or read book The Illusion of God s Presence written by John C. Wathey and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential feature of religious experience across many cultures is the intuitive feeling of God's presence. More than any rituals or doctrines, it is this experience that anchors religious faith, yet it has been largely ignored in the scientific literature on religion.Starting with a vivid narrative account of the life-threatening hike that triggered his own mystical experience, biologist John Wathey takes the reader on a scientific journey to find the sources of religious feeling and the illusion of God's presence. His book delves into the biological origins of this compelling feeling, attributing it to innate neural circuitry that evolved to promote the mother-child bond. Dr. Wathey argues that evolution has programmed the infant brain to expect the presence of a loving being who responds to the child's needs. As the infant grows into adulthood, this innate feeling is eventually transferred to the realm of religion, where it is reactivated through the symbols, imagery, and rituals of worship. The author interprets our various conceptions of God in biological terms as illusory supernormal stimuli that fill an emotional and cognitive vacuum left over from infancy. These insights shed new light on some of the most vexing puzzles of religion, like the popular belief in a god who is judgmental and punishing, yet also unconditionally loving; the extraordinary tenacity of faith; the greater religiosity of women relative to men; religious obsessions with sex; the mysterious compulsion to pray; the seemingly irrepressible feminine attributes of God, even in traditionally patriarchal religions; and the strange allure of cults. Finally, Dr. Wathey considers the hypothesis that religion evolved to foster reproductive success, arguing that, in an age of potentially ruinous overpopulation, magical thinking has become a luxury we can no longer afford, one that distracts us from urgent threats to our planet.Deeply researched yet elegantly written in a jargon-free and accessible style, this book presents a compelling interpretation of the evolutionary origins of spirituality and religion.
Download or read book Pre Post Racial America written by Sandhya Rani Jha and published by Chalice Press. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those people. Their issues. The day's news and the ways we treat each other, overtly or subliminally, prove we are not yet living in post-racial America. It's hard to talk about race in America without everyone very quickly becoming defensive and shutting down. What makes talking race even harder is that so few of us actually know each other in the fullness of our stories. A recent Reuters poll found 40% of White people have no friends of other races, and 25% of people of color only have friends of the same race. Sandhya Rani Jha addresses the hot topic in a way that is grounded in real people's stories and that offers solid biblical grounding for thinking about race relations in America, reminding us that God calls us to build Beloved Community. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter provide starting points for reading groups.
Download or read book Your Story Matters written by Leslie Leyland Fields and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your Story Matters presents a dynamic and spiritually formative process for understanding and redeeming the past in order to live well in the present and into the future. Leslie Leyland Fields has used and taught this practical and inspiring writing process for decades, helping people from all walks of life to access memory and sift through the truth of their stories. This is not just a book for writers. Each one of us has a story, and understanding God's work in our stories is a vital part of our faith. Through the spiritual practice of writing, we can "remember" his acts among us, "declare his glory among the nations," and pass on to others what we have witnessed of God in this life: the mysterious, the tragic, the miraculous, the ordinary. With a companion video curriculum from RightNow Media, this is a "why not" book as opposed to a "how to" book. Leslie asks each of us an important question: "Why not learn to tell your story, in the context of the grander story of God?"
Download or read book Hidden Treasure written by Gangaji and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring new book from one of our greatest living spiritual teachers. All of these stories teach us that we aren't who we think we are. How we have defined ourselves is not the truth of ourselves. What we think we must have is already present, and when we think we have lost the value of our lives, it is still here if we know where to look. -from Hidden Treasure In this life-changing book, renowned spiritual teacher Gangaji uses the telling of her own life story to help readers uncover the truth of their own. Antoinette (Toni) Roberson Varner was given the name Gangaji by her teacher Sri H. W. L. Poonja in 1990. Before that meeting, she had pursued many paths to enlightenment. Brought up in the 1950s in the racially divided south, she married young and had a daughter. Following the dissolution of her first marriage, she moved to Northern California and immersed herself fully in the spiritual culture that was flourishing there-but all her efforts to achieve lasting fulfillment ultimately fell short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganges, she met Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened her mind to the eternal presence of being. In Hidden Treasure, Gangaji guides readers to the realization that once they can uncover and speak the truth about themselves, deep and lasting contentment is entirely possible.
