Bruce Wilkinson, president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, takes readers to 1 Chronicles 4:10 to discover how they can release God's miraculous power and experience the blessings God longs to give each of us. The life of Jabez, one of the Bible's most overlooked heroes of the faith, bursts from unbroken pages of genealogies in an audacious, four-part prayer that brings him an extraordinary measure of divine favor, anointing, and protection. Readers who commit to offering the same prayer on a regular basis will find themselves extravagantly blessed by God, and agents of His miraculous power, in everyday life. About the Author: Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson is the founder and president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, an international organization dedicated to providing the finest biblical teaching, tools, and training. His books include Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, 30 Days to Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, The Prayer of Jabez and many other books. Bruce and his wife, Darlene, live in Atlanta, Georgia, and have three children.

    Or it could be something more mundane (but no less real) like resentment, loneliness, or disappointment. But there’s unfortunately no such thing as a painless life. In Glorious Ruin, best-selling author Tullian Tchividjian takes an honest and refreshing look at the reality of suffering, the ways we tie ourselves in knots trying to deal with it, and the comfort of the gospel for those who can’t seem to fix themselves—or others. This is not so much a book about Why God allows suffering or even How we should approach suffering—it is a book about the tremendously liberating and gloriously counterintuitive truth of a God who suffers with you and for you. It is a book, in other words, about the kind of hope that takes the shape of a cross.

    --Publishers WeeklyEvery day, millions of people lament the loss of civility, respect, and hope, and they wonder if it's possible to cultivate a love big enough to overthrow hate and heal our hurts. With courage, authenticity, and relevance, Jacqueline A. Bussie proclaims, Yes! It's possible! and urges readers to widen love's wingspan and to love as God loves--without limits or exceptions.In Love Without Limits, Bussie imparts practical solutions for people of faith who yearn to love across division and difference in these troubled times. Through poignant personal memoir, engaging theological reflection, inspiring true stories of boundary-busting friendships, creative readings of scripture, and surprising shout-outs to some of love's unsung heroes, Bussie challenges readers to answer God's call to practice a love so deep, it subverts the social order; so radical, it scandalizes the powerful; so vast, it excludes no one.

    And we cannot move toward being a more just nation without understanding the root causes that have shaped our culture and institutions.In this prophetic blend of history, theology, and cultural commentary, Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah reveal the far-reaching, damaging effects of the "Doctrine of Discovery." In the fifteenth century, official church edicts gave Christian explorers the right to claim territories they "discovered." This was institutionalized as an implicit national framework that justifies American triumphalism, white supremacy, and ongoing injustices. The result is that the dominant culture idealizes a history of discovery, opportunity, expansion, and equality, while minority communities have been traumatized by colonization, slavery, segregation, and dehumanization.Healing begins when deeply entrenched beliefs are unsettled. Charles and Rah aim to recover a common memory and shared understanding of where we have been and where we are going. As other nations have instituted truth and reconciliation commissions, so do the authors call our nation and churches to a truth-telling that will expose past injustices and open the door to conciliation and true community.

    Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers.Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice.It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus.

    Our world has been torn asunder by racial, ethnic, and ideological differences. It is seen in our politics, felt in our families, and ingrained in our theology. Sadly, the church has often reinforced these ethnic and racial divides. To cast off the ugliness of disunity and heal our fractured humanity, we must cultivate spiritual practices that help us pursue beautiful community. In The Beautiful Community, pastor and theologian Irwyn Ince boldly unpacks the reasons for our divisions while gently guiding us toward our true hope for wholeness and reconciliation. God reveals himself to us in his trinitarian life as the perfection of beauty, and essential to this beauty is his work as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gospel imperative to pursue the beautiful community--unity in diversity across lines of difference--is rooted in reflecting the beautiful community of our triune God. This book calls us into and provides tools for that pursuit.

    God made you for a reason, and The Battle and the Build will help you find your purpose and maximize your time, energy, and resources so you can best rise up to that reason.But this is not simply a book about having more discipline so you can live your dreams. The Battle and the Build is about pushing back the chaos and bringing about order to your life. It is about driving the evil dictator out of your heart and establishing the true King so you canovercome the deceptive strategies of sin aimed specifically at your weaknesses that bend your behaviors to broken ends,stop giving your heart to aimless affections and learn how to intentionally orient your life and loves around a God who cares for you,recognize that under your misdirected affections and motivations is a deep and good longing for God, anddiscover methods of overcoming personal shortcomings that do not rely on shame-based motivation.The writer of Hebrews declares we are called to “cast off all that hinders” and “run the race marked out for us.” We are called into the action! In our race we must both flee some things and pursue others. It’s not about being free of all struggles. Rather, we have been empowered to struggle well.

    The apostles taught it in their writings. And the Church has, through the last 2,000 years, sought to pursue this Christian spiritual life. In The Walk, Adam Hamilton focuses on five essential spiritual practices that are rooted in Jesus’ own walk with God and taught throughout the New Testament. Each of these practices is intended as part of our daily walk with Christ while also being an essential part of growing together in the church.In each chapter, Hamilton explores one of these practices, its New Testament foundation, and what it looks like to pursue this practice daily in our personal life and together in the life of the church. Deepen your walk with Christ as we explore the five essential practices of worship, study, serving, giving, and bearing witness to our faith.Additional components for a six-week adult study include a comprehensive Leader Guide and a DVD featuring the engaging teachings of author and pastor Adam Hamilton. Also available are resources for children and youth.

    And the gospel I inherited is divided."Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove grew up in the Bible Belt in the American South as a faithful church-going Christian. But he gradually came to realize that the gospel his Christianity proclaimed was not good news for everybody. The same Christianity that sang, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound" also perpetuated racial injustice and white supremacy in the name of Jesus. His Christianity, he discovered, was the religion of the slaveholder.Just as Reconstruction after the Civil War worked to repair a desperately broken society, our compromised Christianity requires a spiritual reconstruction that undoes the injustices of the past. Wilson-Hartgrove traces his journey from the religion of the slaveholder to the Christianity of Christ. Reconstructing the gospel requires facing the pain of the past and present, from racial blindness to systemic abuses of power. Grappling seriously with troubling history and theology, Wilson-Hartgrove recovers the subversiveness of the gospel that sustained the church through centuries of slavery and oppression, from the civil rights era to the Black Lives Matter movement and beyond.When the gospel is reconstructed, freedom rings for both individuals and society as a whole. Discover how Jesus continues to save us from ourselves and each other, to repair the breach and heal our land.

    Nikkel, president, Prison Fellowship International"The story of Lupton's ministry is one of the most inspiring in America. Those of us who are trying to accomplish something of value in urban settings look to him and his co-workers as models." —Tony Campolo, author of Stories That Feed Your SoulUrban ministry activist Robert Lupton moved into a high crime area of Atlanta intending to bring Christ’s message into the ghetto—but his humbling discovery of a spiritual life already flowering in the city’s urban soil forces the minister to reexamine the deepest parts of his own soul, confronting his own patronizing, materialistic attitudes and the biases he himself held against the urban poor.

    As a pastor and as a person with beloved family members living a gay lifestyle, Caleb had to face this issue with courage and grace. Messy Grace shows us that Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” doesn’t have an exception clause for a gay “neighbor”—or for that matter, any other “neighbor” we might find it hard to relate to. Jesus was able to love these people and yet still hold on to his beliefs. So can you. Even when it’s messy.

    We beat ourselves up over our failures and, in the process, pull away from God because we subconsciously believe He tallies our defects and hangs His head in disappointment. In this newly repackaged edition--now with full appendix, study questions, and the author's own epilogue, ""Ragamuffin" Ten Years Later," Brennan Manning reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth. The Father beckons us to Himself with a "furious love" that burns brightly and constantly. Only when we truly embrace God's grace can we bask in the joy of a gospel that enfolds the most needy of His flock--the "ragamuffins."Are you bedraggled, beat-up, burnt-out?Most of us believe in God's grace--in theory. But somehow we can't seem to apply it in our daily lives. We continue to see Him as a small-minded bookkeeper, tallying our failures and successes on a score sheet.Yet God gives us His grace, willingly, no matter what we've done. We come to Him as ragamuffins--dirty, bedraggled, and beat-up. And when we sit at His feet, He smiles upon us, the chosen objects of His "furious love."Brennan Manning 's now-classic meditation on grace and what it takes to access it--simple honesty--has changed thousands of lives. Now with a Ragamuffin's thirty-day spiritual journey guide, it will change yours, too.

    Dr. Alicia Britt Chole guides you through a study of Jesus’ uncommon and uncomfortable call to abandon the world’s illusions, embrace His kingdom’s realities, and journey cross-ward and beyond.Containing readings, refection questions, daily fasts, ancient quotes, and more, each day offers a meaningful consideration of Jesus’ journey and then invites you into a daily fast of heart-clutter—the stuff that sticks to your soul and weighs you down. You can begin your forty-day journey any time of the year, but you may find it especially meaningful as a Lenten preparation to live in awe of Jesus’ resurrection.Each daily, 1000-word entry includes a:Devotion based on Jesus’ lifeReflection question to guide journaling or group discussionHeart fast to inspire a tangible responseThought-provoking Lenten quoteOptional sidebar into the historical development of LentSuggested reading that takes you from John 12 to John 21Journaling space for reflectionIn the same way self cannot satisfy self no matter how long it feasts, self cannot starve self no matter how long it fasts. Decrease—like increase—is only holy when its destination is love. Dare to live awed by Christ’s resurrection!

    Some are true--but many are false. James Bryan Smith believes those thoughts determine not only who we are, but how we live. In fact, Smith declares, the most important thing about a person is what they think about God. The path to spiritual transformation begins here. Turning to the Gospels, Smith invites you to put your ideas to the test to see if they match up with what Jesus himself reveals about God. Once you've discovered the truth in Scripture, Smith leads you through a process of spiritual formation that includes specific activities aimed at making these new narratives real in your body and soul as well as your mind. At the end of each chapter you'll find an opportunity for soul training, engaging in spiritual practices that reinforce the biblical messages on your mind and heart. Because the best way to make a complete and lasting change is to go through the material in community, small group discussion questions also accompany each chapter. Those who are leading apprentice groups will also find additional help and opportunities to interact with other leaders at the Apprentice website, www.apprenticeofjesus.com. This deep, loving and transformative book will help you discover the narratives that Jesus lived by--to know the Lord he knew and the kingdom he proclaimed--and to practice spiritual exercises that will help you grow in the knowledge of our good and beautiful God.

    Yet in spite of these great challenges, Brueggemann calls us to journey together to the common good through neighborliness, covenanting, and reconstruction. Such a concept may seem overwhelming, but writing with his usual theological acumen and social awareness Brueggemann distills this challenge to its most basic issues: where is the church going? What is its role in contemporary society? What lessons does it have to offer a world enmeshed in such turbulent times? The answer is the same answer God gave to the Israelites thousands of years ago: love your neighbor and work for the common good. Brueggemann considers biblical texts as examples of the journey now required of the faithful if they wish to move from isolation and distrust to a practice of neighborliness, as an invitation to a radical choice for life or for death, and as a reliable script for overcoming contemporary problems of loss and restoration in a failed urban economy.