We recognize the need to adapt, but are unsure of the way forward. This book offers practical ideas for engaging with secularized society and does so in a way that is enfranchising, helping churches rely on their members instead of one leader with a dynamic personality or specialist skills. Chester and Timmis contend that the solution is an "everyday church" doing everyday mission with no signage except our lives. They organize the book around a missional reading of 1 Peter, since Peter's first-century readers faced a similar situation as aliens and strangers. Gifted communicators and experienced pastors, these authors have proven their ability to be winsome and enlightening, especially in view of their success with Total Church and You Can Change.

    the Word of God.  In this book, Jonathan Leeman wants you to realize that the Word, working through God's Spirit, is responsible for the growth of God's church and we need to trust it! Leeman not only informs and equips the leadership of local churches for greatest effectiveness in their preaching ministry but explains how to translate that into the life of the church throughout the week. The book also deals with two errors – not trusting the Word (resulting in a pragmatic ministry philosophy) and not living in light of the Word (resulting in a ministry philosophy of ‘preaching is enough’).Reverberation explains the pulpit ministry and traces the theme of how the Word continues through the life of the church.  Both theological and practical, Reverberation focuses on how the church hears, responds, discusses, implements and is transformed by the Word.  No high-octane production, superstar personalities, or postmodern entreaties, just stuff that is really old, really good, and really powerful!

    Presenting real-life, first-person scenarios from young, female pastors in a variety of denominations, church sizes and ministries, this book is intended for young women in ministry, as well as those considering a ministerial calling. This is the first in a new series of books from our collaboration with The Young Clergy Women Project. The series will feature writing from young adult clergy women on topics that give meaning to their lives and ministries.

    Baptism in the Holy Spirit galvanized the young church, equipping and empowering the believers for action, particularly for proclamation. This transformative experience boosted courage, fostered fluency, and granted insights to ordinary men and women--and still does today.The Spirit gives particular gifts. Terry clarifies the distinction between pastors, apostles, and prophets. Every fellowship needs a pastor, someone who can keep the flock close to the Shepherd Himself. Beyond that there is the role of the apostle, whose calling is to act as the master builder. But we are all called to be a prophetic people, able to speak God's word into the current situation, bringing direction, comfort, solutions, and action.This warm and loving description of the work of the Spirit is a delightful articulation of the passion that has driven Terry's life and ministry.

    Snyder Belousek offers a comprehensive and critical examination of penal substitution, the most widely accepted evangelical Protestant theory of atonement, and presents a biblically grounded, theologically orthodox alternative. Attending to all of the relevant biblical texts and engaging with the full spectrum of scholarship, Belousek systematically develops a biblical theory of atonement that centers on restorative -- rather than retributive -- justice. He also shows how Christian thinking on atonement correlates with major global concerns such as economic justice, capital punishment, "the war on terror," and ethnic and religious conflicts. Thorough and clearly structured, this book demonstrates how a return to biblical cruciformity can radically transform Christian mission, social justice, and peacemaking.

    Topics include but are not limited to the invisible church—the church as God sees it; the visible church—the church as Christians on earth see it; the purity of church—the degree of freedom from wrong doctrine and conduct; the primary purpose of the church—ministry to God, believers, and the world; the power of the church—its God-given authority to carry on spiritual warfare, proclaim the gospel, and exercise church discipline; and spiritual gifts—abilities empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church. Written in a friendly tone, appealing to the emotions and the spirit as well as the intellect, Making Sense of the Church helps readers overcome wrong ideas, make better decisions on new questions, and grow as Christians.

    Part I outlines the history of the Love Feast, noting its prevalence in early church worship, its gradual decline, and its reemergence in the practices of several Pietist groups (e.g., the Moravians, Methodists, and Brethren). Particular focus is given to five elements of the celebration, that is: eucharistic preparation, feetwashing, the fellowship meal, the holy kiss, and the Eucharist proper. In Part II, Stutzman argues that the Love Feast is a valuable Christian practice and a celebration worth recovering in those traditions that may have forgotten the feast. Rather than prescribing a specific method for celebrating the Love Feast, Stutzman proposes that there are five key disciplines that today's Love Feasts should embody: submission, love, confession, reconciliation, and thanksgiving. This book encourages Christians from a range of traditions to experiment with reclaiming the Love Feast, with the hope that each celebration serves as an act of worship to God and an authentic expression of Christian discipleship. --As a young scholar, Paul Fike Stutzman offers careful exegesis of scripture and historical and theological texts on the Love Feast and Eucharist, traces the varieties of beliefs and practices associated with the Love Feast across the centuries, and invites readers--those familiar with the Love Feast as well as the uninitiated--into a provocative reconsideration of its significance for the postmodern church seeking to embody the gospel in a hungry world.-- --Ruthann Knechel Johansen author of The Narrative Secret of Flannery O'Connor: The Trickster As Interpreter --Rather than treat the Love Feast as a static artifact, like an insect in amber, he envisions a future in which the rite becomes an active, innovative, and integral part of the life of confession, reconciliation, and thanksgiving in the church. Paul Stutzman's book should go a long way towards recovering the inclusive celebration of the Love Feast for the people of God. Those who take Jesus seriously will give serious consideration to this book.-- --Frank Ramirez author of The Love Feast --In a book world teeming with Christian inspirational and practical treatises, Paul Fike Stutzman offers something rare. Recovering the Love Feast anchors a fresh vision of the practical disciplines of Christian living in a sweeping history of Love Feast practices. Historical, liturgical, and pastoral sensibilities rarely intersect so well.-- --Carl Desportes Bowman author of Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a Peculiar People --Using a theological and historical-theological approach, Paul Stutzman's Recovering the Love Feast invites readers to reconsider the ancient evidence for the Christian Love Feast and accompanying practices of feetwashing and the holy kiss. Stutzman adds a creative exploration of new interpretations in an effort to find meaning for these Christian practices in the present.-- --Jeff Bach Director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies Elizabethtown College Paul Fike Stutzman is the Pastor of Fraternity Church of the Brethren in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and two children. He received an MA in Religion from Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

    Having been almost exterminated by the atheist government, the Church of Albania has arisen, under the leadership of Archbishop Anastasios, to become a vibrant and growing member of the world Orthodox community. Fr. Luke Veronis and his family served as missionaries to Albania during some of the most crucial years of this resurrection. In these pages, Fr. Luke shares stories of those years—stories of desperate poverty and of heroism, of setbacks and triumphs, of heartbreak and miracles—and calls us all to answer the Lord’s Great Commission: Go Forth!

    It's how I became born again among Evangelicals, was empowered by the sacrament among Catholics, received the baptism of the Spirit among Pentecostals, and was transformed by social justice ministries among Oldline Reformers. But it's also about how the Church has divided by these four very ways people meet Jesus, sabotaging both its credibility and mission. In fact, this division in the Body of Christ reflects the same shame-based spirit of religion that fueled both the Pharisees and the 9/11terrorists. Above all, this book is about how Jesus is battling to heal His broken Body unto today, and through it, this broken world. It's time we joined Him. His victory--and ours--demands it. GOD HAS A PLAN-ARE YOU READY? Chapters: 1. "Are You a Christian?" Toward a Spiritual Ecumenism 2. Platypus Christian: A Strange but Holy Mixture 3. From Blah to "Aha!" Rediscovering a Whole Faith The Evangelical Witness 4. A Time to Die, A Time to Be Born-Again The Sacramental Witness 5. Nothing but the Blood: Getting Ready for Communion 6. A Protestant Confession: Power in the Sacrament The Pentecostal Witness 7. Faith Encounters of the Third Kind: God's Larger Reality 8. Who Is Holy Spirit? Meeting the Active Presence of God Today 9. Healing Emotional Wounds: Seeing the Past as Jesus Sees It 10. Cleaning Lady to the Rescue: Power to Heal Bodies The Social Justice Witness 11. From Pier to Ocean: Adventuring into the World with Jesus 12. Of Jogging and Cat Food: Meeting Jesus Where It Hurts 13. The Mirror of Prejudice: Overcoming Personal & Corporate Racism 14. Jesus Is Our Peace: The Alternative to Warmaking Healed by God 15. Blackmailed by Shame, Freed by Grace and Truth Epilog - Rise and Jog SOUND BITES * I found myself sneaking from camp to camp, learning from Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Oldline social reformers, yet being careful not to reveal in any one church my sympathies for the others. * Most people don't want to be healed--at least, not as badly as they want to cover their shame. * God's love is not a zero-sum game. There's plenty to go around. You don't have to condemn someone different in order to affirm yourself. You just have to know how much your Father loves you. * To look forward to communion with excitement--as my friend looked forward to being with his wife again--you must believe that Jesus will actually be there at the table with you, alive and active, even in your behalf. * Biblical faith redefines safety--indeed, peace itself--not as the absence of threat, but the presence of Jesus. * Those who have little of the world's resources reflect the deeper reality that we all have nothing except what God has graciously given us. * Material comfort and security are good insofar as they are seen as the undeserved gifts of a graceful, loving God, and evil insofar as they separate us from the needs of others and make us unresponsive to their suffering. * Christians are not called to fit into this world, but to change it. * Moses came to tell us what to do; Jesus came to show us Who does it.

    A Pentecostal ecclesiology is essentially the working-out of the ramifications of that key event. The book takes a more ontological understanding of the relationship between the Spirit and the church than would Protestant and evangelical ecclesiologies. In this respect, it has more in common with Orthodoxy.It is further argued that this realignment away from Protestantism and evangelicalism towards Orthodoxy, far from removing Pentecostals from their roots, actually brings them much closer to the heart of Pentecostal spirituality.

    McBride constructs a groundbreaking theology of public witness for Protestant church communities in the United States. In contrast to the triumphal manner in which many Protestants have engaged the public sphere, The Church for the World shows how the church can offer a nontriumphal witness to the lordship of Christ through repentant activity in public life.After investigating current Christian conceptions of witness in the United States, McBride offers a new theology for repentance as public witness, based on Bonhoeffer's thought concerning Christ, the world, and the church. McBride takes up Bonhoeffer's proposal that repentance may be reinterpreted non-religiously, expanding and challenging common understandings of the concept. Finally, she examines two church communities that exemplify ecclesial commitments and practices rooted in confession of sin and repentance. Through these communities she demonstrates that confession and repentance may be embodied in various ways yet also discerns distinguishing characteristics of a redemptive public witness.The Church for the World offers important insights about Christian particularity and public engagement in a pluralistic society as it provides a theological foundation for public witness that is simultaneously bold and humble: when its mode of being in the world is confession of sin unto repentance, the church demonstrates Christ's redemptive work and becomes a vehicle of concrete redemption.

    Here is the biblical depth needed for the contemporary church's reflection on and practice of its missional identity."—Richard Bauckham, University of St. Andrews, Scotland; Ridley Hall, Cambridge"A book that stands out from the crowd and merits careful attention, A Light to the Nations is a much-needed and well-crafted basic text for the biblical study of the missional church. Based on careful reading and interpretation of an impressive range of biblical scholars, Goheen's book engages the scholarly voices that merit serious interaction, lays out the major themes of a biblical theology of the missional church, and offers an integrative approach that will stimulate further investigation. Certainly it will become a staple of college and seminary syllabi dealing with the church and its mission. Pastors, congregations, and mission agencies will find in this book biblical orientation for faithful mission in a time of rapid and challenging change."—Darrell L. Guder, Princeton Theological Seminary"A Light to the Nations masterfully calls readers to a renewed missional imagination. Goheen traces the missional theme through Scripture, enabling us to see that his vision is not really new but the rediscovery of the robust, missional ecclesiology that has always characterized the people of God at their best. Goheen leads us into an expansive vision of what it means to be God's called, eschatological people embodying the new creation. If you long to understand what it really means to be a missional church, not as a simple slogan but as our deepest identity, then this book is the indispensable road map. I heartily recommend it!"—Timothy C. Tennent, Asbury Theological Seminary"Based on the whole biblical narrative, this book is a powerful presentation of what it takes for a missional church in the twenty-first century to be 'A Light to the Nations.' It is both compelling and persuasive!"—Gerald H. Anderson, Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, CT