Designed to help readers recognize, ritualize, reflect on, and reorient themselves.

    The result, as in all good unions, is mutual enrichment and deeper life. --Jack Shea, author of Stories of God Now available in paperback, this moving and enlightening book presents us with a compelling vision of what can happen when we take the opportunity to connect stories and rituals--a vision of individuals and communities transformed through a deeper sense of connection to our loved ones, our communities, and God. Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley reveal how when stories and rituals work together, they have the potential to be both mighty and dangerous--mighty in their ability to lift us up and help us make these connections beyond ourselves and dangerous in challenging us to learn to live with complexity and contradiction. They show how much more meaningful a baptism, wedding, or funeral can be when liturgy is made to include and recognize the personal stories of those involved. Suddenly, these familiar life-cycle rituals are infused with new life as their participants become connected in a narrative web linking past and present, human and divine. Newly created rituals can also help us connect our stories to the divine story, giving meaning to what we experience and bringing us closer to God. Ministers, worship leaders, and pastoral caregivers can use this approach to storytelling and ritual to find ways to bring together worship and pastoral care, diminishing fragmentation and fostering coherence in their religious communities.

    The days are getting shorter while our to-do lists are getting longer. The pace of life gets faster and the demands increase.  We attempt to fight back with caffeinated drinks and candy bars hoping to get it all done before we crash. This is false energy…but Jon Gordon gives us the real thing.  Gordon encourages us to become Energy Addicts using a few or all of the simple, effective physical, mental, and spiritual strategies in this book, including:Eat early and well, hydrate, exercise, nap, connect with natureNeutralize energy vampires, master the flow of money, embrace the energy of silenceConnect (with others and yourself), lead with your heart, learn to love and challenge lifePractical, common-sense, sometimes counterintuitive, Jon Gordon shows how we can become addicted to positive energy and habits, making small changes in our lives that will produce big results.

    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

    Anchored in Biblical truth, spiritual guidance and life experience, this collection of essays covers a wide range of matters: spiritual formation, pastoral duties, personal restoration and renewal, difficult issues and troublesome people.

    He has seen the bone-weary effort his single mum mustered to raise three kids and pay the bills. A poor boy who grew into a middle class man, his spending habits and attitude to money are still informed by growing up without it.Money is one of the most fraught subjects; it raises powerful emotions in all of us. Too much money often corrupts people - too little can make people feel desperate.In On Money, Morton examines the meaning of money and exposes the lie behind the government's mantra: have a go, get a go.

    You may think of this group as millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—but millennials resist this label for good reason: the national narrative on them is pejorative, patronizing, and just plain wrong.Here's what we do know: Of Americans with a church background, 76 percent are described as "religious nones" or unaffiliated—and it's the fastest growing segment of the population. Close to 40 percent of millennials fit this religious profile. Roughly 80 percent of teens in evangelical church high school youth groups will abandon their faith after two years in college. It's unlikely that the evangelical church can survive if it is uniformly rejected by millennials, and yet: Millennial pastors and youth ministers are disempowered; their perspective is often not taken seriously by senior church leadership. Most millennial research is framed in categories rejected by millennials; that is, left-brained, analytical communication is lost on right-brained, intuitive millennials. Evangelicals' bias toward rational left-brained thinking makes the church seem tone-deaf. What's next? Read on. John Seel suggests survival strategies—communication on-ramps for genuine human connection with the next generation. It can be done.

    The approach, which focuses on intersecting inequalities, illustrates how racism, social class, ageism and heterosexism can compound the consequences of gender inequality. Although it focuses primarily on women and men in the United States, international issues and data are incorporated throughout.

    . . . My plan for doing this is to recover the doctrine of pneumatology (the study of spiritual beings/phenomena) for our theology of preaching, resulting in a renewed emphasis on the powerful combination of Word and Spirit working together as the catalyst for powerful expository preaching.”Heisler thoroughly examines how the Holy Spirit illuminates and empowers the preacher, opens the hearts of the hearers, and applies the message to their lives. Indeed, to ignore the Holy Spirit’s role in sermon preparation and delivery would be a considerable oversight.

    He is all we have, and He is all the next generation need. This little book sets out how it is that we can introduce young Christians, new Christians, and underdiscipled Christian to the Author and Perfecter of our faith and what it looks like to live out this faith in real life.

    This illustrated book describes how these multi-disciplinary centers of learning existed in several forms such as forest universities, brick-and-mortar universities and temple universities.It examines the funding for these citadels of learning and their graduation ceremonies. The process by which India's ancient systems of education helped to fuel a knowledge revolution around the world with its manuscripts, forming the basis for monographs and academic papers, is explained with references. The marauding incursions by Muslim invaders, which disrupted the idyllic world of university learning in India, followed by European colonization, which led to further erosion and degeneration of India's traditional learning systems, have been taken up in some detail. Readers will get a snapshot view of India's education system down the ages from ancient to modern times.

    Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today’s young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be “app-dependent” versus “app-enabled” and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era.Gardner and Davis are concerned with three vital areas of adolescent life: identity, intimacy, and imagination. Through innovative research, including interviews of young people, focus groups of those who work with them, and a unique comparison of youthful artistic productions before and after the digital revolution, the authors uncover the drawbacks of apps: they may foreclose a sense of identity, encourage superficial relations with others, and stunt creative imagination. On the other hand, the benefits of apps are equally striking: they can promote a strong sense of identity, allow deep relationships, and stimulate creativity. The challenge is to venture beyond the ways that apps are designed to be used, Gardner and Davis conclude, and they suggest how the power of apps can be a springboard to greater creativity and higher aspirations.

    the smoke rises ... the band starts playing. It's a familiar scene, as youth ministers everywhere use entertaining and trendy approaches to draw in teens. But when the lights come on and the fog clears, what do we find?Far too many teenagers raised in Christian homes drift away from the church after high school. Why is this true? Could it be because youth groups, in seeking to elevate experience over truth, have left teens dissatisfied and hungry for that truth?Brian Cosby demonstrates a ministry approach that nurtures teens and brings them back for more--one solidly grounded in Christ and patterned after the means of grace: the Word, sacraments, prayer, service, and community. Learn how much teenagers not only need a deeper ministry, but want one too.

    But the greatest advantage is this: You will know that you are doing more than providing exciting activities -- you are changing lives for eternity.A New Strategy for Youth MinistryAndy Stanley and Stuart Hall, both respected and effective leaders in the Christian Community, have developed a ground-breaking, dynamic plan for youth ministry of the coming decades. The Seven Checkpoints for Youth Leaders and the companion The Seven Checkpoints Student Journal presents a plan for a student's entire career in a youth group.The challenges facing our youth grow every year. Quick fixes and short-term programs will not provide the life-strengthening results needed for the teens of today. This revolutionary approach promises and delivers what is needed in the world of youth ministries around the country today.So what are you waiting for? You have a life to build. Open up this book and get the seven.

    Completely updated and revised, it provides the most up-to-date perspectives and research on a complete range of the theoretical, practical, and background concepts with which modern midwives should be familiar. In addition, it offers numerous summary boxes and flowcharts and provides clear guidance on how to critically appraise valuable research.Covers the full scope of theoretical and practical issues with which a newly qualified midwife must be familiarOffers critical appraisal boxes related to recent research to help the reader understand how to analyse available research, in ways they are already required to think for assignment work.Includes summary boxes and flowcharts to make the text more quickly and easily accessible to the readerOver 150 new illustrations and 30 new colour photographsAnatomy and physiology chapters have been placed at the beginning of the book.Two new chapters - Exercises for Pregnancy, Labour and the Puerperium and Childbirth.More emphasis has been placed on the puerperium, presenting the mother and midwife as partners in determining postnatal care.Discusses the new midwifery regulatory body, examining changes in legislation from a practical perspective.The chapter on antenatal investigations examines the dilemmas faced by potential parents and the challenges that adverse outcomes present to the midwife.Includes a color plate section with over 40 full-color photographs.Includes 160 new two-color line illustrations.Offers critical appraisal boxes related to recent research.