We set impossible standards and feel bad about ourselves when we don't reach them. Is beauty truly that difficult to attain? Or could it be that our idea of what's beautiful is simply too narrow?With engaging personal stories and dramatic before-and-after photography, filmmaker Rebecca Friedlander uncovers the true beauty of 12 women from various ethnicities and backgrounds, empowering us to shatter the lies of rejection, doubt, and low self-esteem. Utilizing compelling biblical truth and questions for personal reflection, Friedlander helps us identify our own personal battlegrounds, celebrate our uniqueness, and embrace God's definition of beautiful.Anyone who loves a great makeover story or who wants to explore their unique identity will love this eye-opening book. Let's stop letting the world define beauty and start being a voice that tells the world what true beauty actually looks like.

    A friend of hers had another idea. She challenged Becky to spend twenty minutes a day in praise. Becky thought, What if I’m not feeling thankful? But as she intentionally praised God, she began to experience new joy—and her relationship with God has never been the same. Now, in The Thirty-Day Praise Challenge, Becky guides you in praising God for twenty minutes every day for one month. Arranged topically, the book includes music selections to enhance your praise journey and creative ideas for continuing the habit of praise. As Becky writes, “If you take this challenge, your faith will grow more than you dreamed possible. You will experience more joy, less insecurity, more courage, less anxiety. Thirty days of praising God. Are you ready?”

    J.C. Ryle--the last of the great Puritans--tackles each of these subjects with a tenderness and tact which is unsurpassed. If it was difficult to be a young man in the days of the nineteeth century when Ryle first penned Thoughts for Young Men, it is all the more difficult to be a young man in the twenty-first century world of image-overload, radical individualism, and rampant sensuality. Thoughts for Young Men remains to this day the most relevent and helpful book on the subject in print.

    The world you live in promotes sex as the answer to just about everything. The pressure to go along with the crowd is greater than ever before, and it’s easy to compromise in little ways that are a lot more harmful than they seem. You and your friends may become caught up in destructive relationships or sexual activities without even knowing how you got there. You just want to be normal–to fit in, to be liked, to look attractive to the opposite sex. But are you paying too high a price? This counterpart to the award-winning Every Young Man’s Battle can help you:· learn how the sexual battle begins in your heart and mind· understand your hunger for attention from guys · recognize and avoid the potential pitfalls awaiting young women on the journey toward adulthood and possibly marriage· find out how the media, novels, fashion, internet chat rooms, and body and beauty obsessions influence your sexual choices–and what you can do about it· guard your mind, heart, and body against sexual and emotional compromise · develop a deeper, more satisfying level of intimacy with God Whether you have so far protected yourself emotionally and sexually, feel that you’ve been robbed of your purity, or have given in to temptation in some way, this book can help you achieve or reclaim sexual integrity. It can also guide you through the temptations and pressures of young adulthood while demonstrating how you can live your life to the fullest–without regrets.

    As much sting as that statement has, it's hard to argue with. Yet many churches have no idea how to attract and retain younger generations.If you want to understand how to reach, teach, and empower young adults in your church, Jonathan "JP" Pokluda is ready to show you how. Sharing stories of successes and failures during his years of ministering to Millennials, JP offers you transferable principles that will help you mobilize the next generation toward Jesus. He encourages and equips you to- be real- teach the whole truth- hold traditions loosely- find young leaders- give the ministry away- and so much moreTomorrow's church is out there, waiting for you to care, to reach out, to understand their struggles, and to show them why today's church needs, wants, and cherishes them.

    God never intended for us to act like "little girls," says Jan Silvious. His goal is for each of us to live as "big girls"-mature Christian women-who are capable of enjoying the richness of life He has planned.In Big Girls Don't Whine, Jan helps women:Move beyond the past and on to healthy relationships, Choose to be proactive rather than let life just "happen,"Discover their full potential,And become everything He made them to be.So how can we tell if we're living life as an immature 'little girl" or a confident "big girl?"A little girl…Is insecureBecomes the victim of circumstancesSays "I can't"ManipulatesA big girl…Is secureRests in God's sovereigntySays, "I can"CommunicatesIn Big Girls Don't Whine, Jan Silvious calls us to be real women in a real world, free to experience a life of full of potential and vision. This book is the how-to manual for making it happen.

    And there is no greater fear than that their children will walk away from God.After serving together in pastoral ministry and raising their now-grown children, Phil and Diane Comer know those hopes and fears well. Like all new parents, they were intimidated and unsure about how to take on the task of spiritually training their young children. But now, with all four of their children grown and establishing their own households of faith, Phil and Diane have embarked on a quest to help the next generation of parents raise passionate Jesus followers.Drawing on years of pastoral counseling, teaching, leading, and decades of watching families from the perspective of pastors and leaders in ministry, Phil and Diane instruct, guide, encourage, and offer hope and practical help to Christian parents.Raising Passionate Jesus Followers is a manual full of practical, biblically based, and time-tested guidelines that parents will be able to turn to again and again through every stage of their children's development, including . . .Formulating a planLaying the foundation, ages 0-5Doing the framing, ages 6-12Installing the functional systems, ages 13-17Completing the finish work, ages 18-22And keeping the front door open for your grown children

    We were stuck in a destructive relationship pattern we now refer to as the ‘fierce woman/fearful man’ cycle, and I had lost all hope for a peaceful marriage…” — LeRoy Wagner"What if I’m laid-back and my wife is… not? How can I lead when I feel emasculated?"If you find yourself asking questions like these, LeRoy can relate. In Men Who Love Fierce Women, he is gut-honest about his failures and frustrations as a husband, the realizations that saved his marriage,* and the requirements God places on every husband. With their insights combined, Kim and LeRoy equip men to rise up, handle conflict, love their wife, and lead their marriage, regardless of who has the stronger personality.

    It’s even harder without practical guidance on how to do it.From author James MacDonald:“I have written this book to actually help people change. It's for people who desperately want to change, a practical ‘How-to’ manual… The truths in this book are stained with my own tears of trying and failing and trying again to be the man God wants me to be. So I have written this with the urgency of a loving heart for you and your situation…James MacDonald is serious about the business of change according to God's Word, and he walks you through it in three phases:The Preparation for Change: choosing the right method and partnering with God to select the areas you need to see changeThe Process of Change: exploring the biblical method of saying no to sinful patterns and yes to the things God desires for youThe Power to Change: knowing how to experience the power of God personally and continuouslyIncludes study questions, exercises, and single sentence chapter summaries

    Culture tells us that in order to be liked we must masquerade as someone other than who we are. So, we lacquer ourselves with credit cards and plastic surgery and status updates hoping no one will see the person underneath. This "veneer" allows us to silence our real selves as it gives voice to the alter ego we'd like others to see. But, is this all there is to life or have we been duped? Does material success equal significance? Is our only identity the one we steal from Hollywood? God's idea of humanity is altogether different from the world's. There is a way to live that sees beauty in our imperfection and, as Tim and Jason put it, once we realize this we can strip our veneers and live an unveneered life of freedom, honesty, and beauty.

    We soar, struggle, scale and stumble, and often stand at the edge of cliffs, afraid to step into the unknown, unsure of where we will land. But instead of running away, we are called by God to stand firm, muster up what faith we can, and take a step. Because we were made to move mountains.In this inspiring book, Kristen Welch calls you to step out in faith and climb the mountain in front of you--not because you are good enough or adequate or able, but because God makes a way where there is no way. With heartbreaking and hopeful personal stories, Scripture, and questions for contemplation, she draws you out of fear and into a holy confidence, showing you that the mountain in your path was put there on purpose, so that you could exercise--and grow--your faith.

    While these are elements of popular culture, they aren’t all it has to offer. Pop culture may not cure diseases, topple political regimes, or make scientific breakthroughs, but it does play a vital role in the story of humanity.In fact, it’s pretty hard to define the human experience without it. And it’s impossible to create pop culture without the human experience. Popular podcaster Knox McCoy understands this, and so do the tens of thousands of listeners who tune in to hear him talk about pop culture every week on his wildly popular podcast, The Popcast with Knox and Jamie.In The Wondering Years, Knox explores this idea of connecting popular culture to his own experiences. Through hilarious yet poignant stories, he reflects on how pop culture has helped shape his life and carve out the foundation of his faith. While the three cultural tentpoles—the South, the Church, and Sports—defined many aspects of his East Tennessee upbringing, it was pop culture that most definitively influenced Knox and his sense of the world at large. Through books, television, music, and movies, Knox found many of the answers he was searching for about God and the universe and why we are all here. The Wondering Years is a hilarious look back at the key influences that shaped Knox’s formative years and his faith, a reminder of our own encounters with pop culture that have shaped each of our formative years and continue to influence us today.

    Perhaps nowhere does this impact our lives more profoundly than when we think about raising children--especially teenagers. Where parents often see a sweet boy or girl who has morphed into an incomprehensible bundle of hormones and angst, what we really ought to be seeing is an amazing young adult whose brain is under heavy construction. And changing the way we see our teens will revolutionize our relationships with them. Organized by what we hear teens say--things like "I'm bored," "You just don't understand," "Why are you freaking out?," "I hate my life!," or "Hold on . . . I just have to send this"--this book helps parents develop compassion for their teens and discernment in parenting them as their brains are progressively remodeled. Rather than seeing the teen years as a time to simply hold on for dear life, Dr. Jeramy and Jerusha Clark show that they can be an amazing season of cultivating creativity, self-awareness, and passion for the things that really matter.

    The book also includes fourteen brief meditations, which are drawn from Scripture and the writer’s and others’ personal experiences with prodigal children, such as Ruth and Billy Graham and Monica, the mother of Augustine. This unique book inspires parents in a sustained, daily prayer effort for their prodigal children.

    New from the author of the critically acclaimed Blue Like Jazz--and the man who taught him the things his dad never did--comes a gut-wrenching, honest look at growing up without a father.