Millions more have left the church, brokenhearted and cynical. But God is waking up His people—people who will risk everything and sacrifice anything to become the dynamic, powerful Church seen in Scripture.  We Are Church calls Christ-followers, young and old, to hold fast to their biblical roots while seeking radical change. Scripture promises an exuberant and unstoppable Church. That wondrous early church of Acts can be our reality today—but not until we devote ourselves to her original priorities.   Read this book and be challenged, guided, and encouraged to passionately pursue God’s magnificent and beautiful vision for His Church. Come and claim your part in this body of believers that is not just possible—it’s promised.

    In fact, prayer in the church often gets subtly pushed to the side in favor of pragmatic practices that promise tangible results. Rather than being a hallmark of churches, dependence on prayer is usually emphasized only in times of major crisis--if at all. The latest book in the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series focuses on the necessity of regular prayer as a central practice in the local church. Examining what Jesus taught about prayer, how the first Christians approached prayer in the early church, and what steps can be taken to prioritize prayer in churches, this book is intended to awaken readers to the need and blessing of prayer in their personal lives and in the life of their local church.

    One of the most important safeguards against all forms of heresy is a robust appreciation for biblical theology--reading the Bible in a way that takes into account the whole storyline of redemptive history. Exhorting pastors and other church leaders to prioritize biblical theology in their own congregations, this book explains basic principles for reading the Bible that help pastors teach the big story of the Bible from every text. Understanding the Bible in Christ-centered terms shapes the church's teaching and mission, and protects the truth of the gospel around the world.

    As long-held beliefs on love, faith, and God are challenged by the aggregate of changes that have overhauled our world, many of us are left feeling confused and uncertain while old norms are challenged and redefined at breakneck speed.In Wrestling with God, Ronald Rolheiser offers a steady and inspiring voice to help us avow and understand our faith in a world where nothing seems solid or permanent. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as a storehouse of literary, psychological, and theological insights, the beloved author of Sacred Fire examines the fears and doubts that challenge us. It is in these struggles to find meaning, that Rolheiser lays out a path for faith in a world struggling to find faith, but perhaps more important, he helps us find our own rhythm within which to walk that path.

    In Spiritual Gifts: What They Are and Why They Matter, Dr. Thomas R. Schreiner, one of the world's leading New Testament scholars, answers these questions.Schreiner shares his personal experience related to spiritual gifts, but more importantly, he unpacks what the Bible has to say about them. In doing so, he brings a spirit of humility and charity, reminding us that though spiritual gifts are important, we can have unity in Christ even where we disagree.

     Journey with those around you—in your community, your church, or your small group—and take intentional steps toward living out the biblical principles that fueled a world-changing movement. Don’t settle for just going to church. Be the Church. With the Letters to the Church Study Guide, be challenged and guided to passionately pursue Christ and His magnificent, beautiful vision for His Bride. Designed to be used with the Letters to the Church Video Series (available separately).

    And the way we grow as disciples and lead others in spiritual growth depends on our contexts. Pastor José Humphreys recognizes how deeply our faith is tied to our particular stories in our particular places. Grounded in his own deep faith and wisdom, he writes out of his experiences as a Puerto Rican pastor who has planted a multiethnic church in East Harlem. In this book, he offers a framework to help church leaders take discipleship seriously in their places, calling them to show up, stay put, and see what God is doing in their midst. Combining spiritual formation with activism, vivid narrative with exhortation, and realism with hopefulness, Humphreys offers pastors and church planters a thoughtful look at discipleship in a complex world.

    The structure of the liturgies, language, and rhythm continue to communicate the gospel in word and sacrament today. They provide a deep sense of Gods call to worship and an appreciation for the Reformers as, first and foremost, men who wanted to help Gods people worship. This book will also be of great interest to theological scholars and students who wish to understand early Reformation leaders. A useful tool for individuals, Reformation Worship, can be used as a powerful devotional to guide daily prayer and reflection. Christians learn to worship from the generations of God's people who have worshipped before them. We sing psalms, because thousands of years ago, God's people sang them. Five hundred years ago, the leaders of the Reformation transformed Christian worship by encouraging the active participation and understanding of the individual worshiper. Christian worship today is built on this foundation. Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey have made worship resources from the Reformation era accessible by compiling the most comprehensive collection of liturgies from that era into newly translated modern English from the original German, Dutch, French, Latin, and early English. By providing a connection to Reformation worship, Gibson and Earngey hope that through their work readers will experience what John Calvin described to be the purpose of all church worship: To what end is the preaching of the Word, the sacraments, the holy congregations themselves, and indeed the whole external government of the church, except th

    A good father wouldn't make it so difficult to get to know him, would he? And if God is all-powerful, wouldn't he ensure that we never suffered? Either our understanding of God is incorrect, or our definition of good is inadequate.In a world that is messy and a church that is imperfect, it's easy to let our faith be lost. But that doesn't mean we have to lose God. It means we must consider the fact that perhaps our idealized expectations are just plain wrong. With transparency about his own struggles with cynicism and doubt, pastor Luke Norsworthy helps frustrated Christians and skeptics trade their confinement of God in an anemic definition of good for confidence in the God who is present in everything, including our suffering.

    A new expression of the church has been quietly growing. It's something of an experiment, but over the last ten years the church has been validating its ideas with sustained and growing results. At The Underground, being the church is not focused around a weekly gathering or church programs. It's about empowering individuals to respond to God's call to ministry and mission, especially to the poor and disadvantaged in our midst.While many churches talk about discerning calling and engaging in mission, very few are structured to make this their ministry focus. Underground Church is a new vision for the church rooted in its biblical mission to share the love of God and serve the poor. Sanders explores how to make structural changes, how to think about leadership, how to fund ministries, and how to truly engage people in God's mission. Filled with creative insights, he explains what it means to center the mission of the church around the callings of individuals to outward ministry - whether that involves leading Bible studies in the workplace, feeding the homeless, or working to free women and children from sex trafficking.This book will both tell the inspiring story of a church that is rethinking what church looks like while also outlining and uncovering the principles that transfer for every church and Christian community that hopes for more. It's the true story of a 10-year experiment that unpacks the possibilities of a church structured and streamlined for mission.

    We recognize that it is a human product, the fruit of centuries of Bible study and theological formulation, but I wonder if sometimes we forget that it is not a modern document in the strictest sense of the term. In fact, it could easily be argued that it is a late-medieval production, published at the very end of that era, just as the Enlightenment was to overwhelm European intellectual life. For this reason, it must be approached cautiously. If the perspicuous Word of God requires careful contextual study and interpretation, how much more so a document of human formulation? In reality, proper understanding of the Confession requires several things of us—familiarity with theological development throughout the preceding centuries, acquaintance with contemporary theological thought (especially in its Reformed variety), and an unwillingness to import twentieth- or twenty-first-century ideas into its words and phrases. This book is intended to assist the interpreter in doing these things.

    Todd Billings, “can change lives.”In this book Billings shows how a renewed theology and practice of the Lord’s Supper can lead Christians to rediscover the full richness and depth of the gospel. With an eye for helping congregations move beyond common reductions of the gospel, he develops a vibrant, biblical, and distinctly Reformed sacramental theol­ogy and explores how it might apply within a variety of church contexts, from Baptist to Presbyterian, nondenominational to Anglican.At once strikingly new and deeply traditional, Remembrance, Communion, and Hope will surprise and challenge readers, inspiring them to a new understanding of—and appreciation for—the embodied, Christ-disclosing drama of the Lord’s Supper.

    Young adults who were active and engaged in the local church are leaving the community behind after high school. What can we do? Responding to these concerning statistics, Sharon Galgay Ketcham reflects theologically on the church community and its role in forming faith. She exposes problems in the way leaders conceive of and teach about the relationship between individual faith and the local church, and offers fresh solutions in the form of values and practices that can shape a community into a place where faith will flourish in those both young and old.

    People there were shaken. With frequent reference to the Gospel of John, this book comprises the talks that Vanier gave.

    Through short and simple daily meditations, you will gain everything you need to begin sharing the Gospel, including the conviction that you can and should be evangelizing their faith.Based on the principles of evangelization taught by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS)—where Kevin Cotter is the senior director of curriculum—Called invites you to delve into powerful scenes from Jesus’ life, plus stories from the lives of saints such as Augustine, Mother Teresa, and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, as you explore how the call to discipleship is at the heart of scripture in ancient Israel, the life of Jesus, and the apostolic Church.Cotter leads you on this five-week journey as someone who understands the challenges of talking about faith with friends and the sacrifices needed to invest in others. He encourages you to step outside your comfort zone as you open your eyes to Jesus’ call to discipleship.Week One: As you reflect on Jesus’ initial call of his disciples and how he calls you to radically love and follow him in your everyday life, you deepen your relationship with God and complete the first stage of becoming his disciple.Week Two: You examine the characteristics of a daily commitment to discipleship—daily prayer, submission to God’s will, regular Confession, frequent reception of the Eucharist, acting in love.Week Three: You discover how our current culture, which places little value on faith, compares to the world Jesus faced. You develop, like Jesus, the desire to save our world and draw others to God.Week Four: You unpack the tools Jesus used to touch every person he came into contact with. Through Jesus’ example, you will become equipped with what you need to reach others for him.Week Five: You learn that you are called not just to be a disciple but to be one who makes disciples of others.You will come away with the understanding that being a disciple of Jesus is not optional for Catholics: it is essential to our identity as members of a missionary Church. Jesus showed us how to evangelize and called us to be his disciples. Now, more than ever, it is time to be just like him.

    Love Is GodOur culture's view of love--with no boundaries or judgments or conditions-- justifies whatever our hearts want and whatever our hearts feel, rejecting any authority that gets in the way. Falsely heralded as the only path to true selfexpression and self-realization, this kind of love diminishes--if not completely redefines--the holy love of God revealed in the Bible.In this book, Jonathan Leeman directs us toward a biblical definition of love by answering critical questions: How is love commonly misunderstood? What is God's love like and why is it offensive? And how does all of this relate to the church? In an age of consumerism, individualism, and tribalism, Leeman demonstrates how God showcases his holy love and authority to a watching world through the lives of his people living in true community with one another as the church.

    The purpose of this Handbook is to provide especially non-scholars with a relatively simple, easy-to-use reference work for learning about the most significant Christian traditions and denominations in the United States in the second decade of the twenty-first century. It contains descriptions of over 200 distinct Christian denominations that are “alive and well” in that decade as well as descriptions of the several major Christian traditions to which they belong—based on shared historical and theological roots and commitments. It is a helpful resource for clergy, laity, journalists, and researchers. The information for each denomination has been provided by the religious organizations themselves and focuses on the denominations' doctrines, statistics, and histories.The 14th edition is completely updated with current statistics, new denominations, and recent trends. The book has been made more useful and manageable by moving very small groups into broader articles while giving more detail and description to the large and influential denominations.

    What can undo the chaos? And how will Pentecost help God's children understand one another again? Building the Way to Heaven helps young readers to see God's plan of salvation unfold within the stories of the Tower of Babel and Pentecost.See biblical typology—the Old Testament people, symbols, and events that foreshadow the New Testament—come to life in Building the Way to Heaven. Ages 3 and up.

    State-sanctioned torture. Economic injustice. Ethical corruption. Even a cursory glance over daily news headlines shows a stark contrast between the American political state and the kingdom of heaven. Where, then, does the Christian’s ultimate allegiance lie?In I Pledge Allegiance David Crump issues a clarion call to Jesus’s twenty-first-century disciples, stirring them up to heed God's word and live out their kingdom citizenship here on earth. Closely examining the ethical teachings of Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament and using real-world examples to illustrate the vital issues at stake, Crump challenges Christians to embrace the radical, counterintuitive, upside-down way of Jesus—a way of living and thinking that turns the world’s values on their head, smashes through stale political and cultural conventions, and welcomes God’s kingdom into the very heart of our shared society.

    In Quietly Courageous, esteemed minister and congregational consultant Gil Rendle offers practical guidance to leaders--both lay and ordained--on leading churches today. Rendle encourages leaders to stop focusing on the past and instead focus relentlessly on their mission and purpose--what is ultimately motivating their work. He also urges a shift in perspectives on resources, discusses models of change, and offers suggestions for avoiding common pitfalls and working creatively today.

    This new edition of a bestselling resource, now updated and revised throughout, shows how Chapell's case for expository preaching reaches twenty-first-century readers.