Book picks similar to
The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive by Patrick B. Reyes
theology
leadership
church-and-ministry
faith
Don't Label Me: An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times
Irshad Manji - 2019
Civility isn't the reason to repair our caustic chasms. Diversity is.Don't Label Me shows that America's founding genius is diversity of thought. Which is why social justice activists won't win by labeling those who disagree with them. At a time when minorities are fast becoming the majority, a truly new America requires a new way to tribe out.Enter Irshad Manji and her dog, Lily. Raised to believe that dogs are evil, Manji overcame her fear of the "other" to adopt Lily. She got more than she bargained for. Defying her labels as an old, blind dog, Lily engages Manji in a taboo-busting conversation about identity, power, and politics. They're feisty. They're funny. And in working through their challenges to one another, they reveal how to open the hearts of opponents for the sake of enduring progress. Readers who crave concrete tips will be delighted.Studded with insights from epigenetics and epistemology, layered with the lessons of Bruce Lee, Ben Franklin, and Audre Lorde, punctuated with stories about Manji's own experiences as a refugee from Africa, a Muslim immigrant to the U.S., and a professor of moral courage, Don't Label Me makes diversity great again.
Little House on the Freeway: Help for the Hurried Home
Tim Kimmel - 1987
Your relationships with your friends, your family, and your God are suffering.Ready for a change of pace? Here’s help. Little House on the Freeway takes a look at the breakneck speed at which we live and reveals how to not only put on the brakes, but how to get off the freeway altogether. With a special section, “101 Ways to Give Rest to Your Family” and a new chapter that addresses the perils of the Internet, this timeless classic about the importance of quality family time has been updated to rescue a whole new generation from hurry.Don’t let busyness, productivity, or the tempation to “keep up with the Joneses” keep you from the peace and incredible quality of relationships God created for you.“Hurry and busyness are everyday parts of modern life. True priorities of things that matter most may be lost. Little House on the Freeway offers biblical insights and principles to our hurried existence–help from the Word of God for the life being lived in the fast lane.” -Billy Graham
Conversion and Discipleship: You Can't Have One without the Other
Bill Hull - 2016
The end result is that the disciple becomes the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus did.How the church understands salvation and the gospel is the key to recovering a biblical theology of discipleship. Our doctrines of grace and salvation, in some cases, actually prevent us from creating an expectation that we are to be disciples of Jesus. A person can profess to be a Christian and yet still live under the impression that they don’t need to actually follow Jesus. Being a follower is seen as an optional add-on, not a requirement. It is a choice, not a demand. Being a Christian today has no connection with the biblical idea that we are formed into the image of Christ.In this ground-breaking new book, pastor and author Bill Hull shows why our existing models of evangelism and discipleship fail to actually produce followers of Jesus. He looks at the importance of recovering a robust view of the gospel and taking seriously the connection between conversion—answering the call to follow Jesus—and discipleship—living like the one we claim to follow.
Glory in the Ordinary: Why Your Work in the Home Matters to God
Courtney Reissig - 2017
In this life-giving book, Courtney Reissig encourages moms with the truth about God's perspective on their work: what the world sees as mundane, he sees as magnificent. Discussing the changing nature of stay-at-home work and the ultimate meaning of our identity as image bearers, Reissig combats common misunderstandings about the significance of at-home work—helping us see how Christ infuses purpose into every facet of the ordinary.
Improving Your Serve
Charles R. Swindoll - 1981
In this classic volume, Charles Swindoll uniquely shows the important aspects of authentic servanthood, such as:What it takes to serve unselfishlyWhy a servant has such a powerful influenceWhat challenges and rewards a servant can expectHe offers clear guidelines on developing a servant's heart and challenges you to realize the rich rewards promised in a life of authentic Christian servanthood.
Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion
Rebecca McLaughlin - 2019
But even so, the Christian faith includes many controversial beliefs that non-Christians find hard to accept. This book explores 12 issues that might cause someone to dismiss orthodox Christianity--issues such as the existence of suffering, the Bible's teaching on gender and sexuality, the reality of heaven and hell, the authority of the Bible, and more. Showing how the best research from sociology, science, and psychology doesn't disagree with but actually aligns with claims found in the Bible, these chapters help skeptics understand why these issues are signposts, rather than roadblocks, to faith in Christ.
What Is a Healthy Church Member?
Thabiti M. Anyabwile - 2008
In this new work, pastor Thabiti Anyabwile attempts to answer the natural next question: What does a healthy church member look like in the light of Scripture?God intends for us to play an active and vital part in the body of Christ, the local church. He wants us to experience the local church as a home more profoundly wonderful and meaningful than any other place on earth. He intends for his churches to be healthy places and for the members of those churches to be healthy as well. This book explains how membership in the local church can produce spiritual growth in its members and how each member can contribute to the growth and health of the whole.
My Practices of Mothering: the things I actually do to enjoy mothering tinies
Sarah Bessey - 2014
And a few years ago, I began to write through the stuff that I do (or try to do) to enjoy the day-to-day life with a houseful of tinies. Three years later, it remains one of the most popular series of posts I've ever done at my blog. And now it's an e-book. The book isn't about "advice" or making a one-size-fits-all version of motherhood. It certainly isn't about heaping more guilt or or unattainable standards on anyone. Mothering is very, very hard work. It's constant. It's tiring. I've found that mothering tinies exposed the parts of my heart that I could keep politely hidden from general society. It could break me in the morning, but by evening, I would feel like I've never been more fulfilled or happy in my life. It can also be monotonous (that’s something not too many people will tell you – me? I’ll tell you.) And do you have any idea how many loads of laundry a family of five can generate? (Hint: EPIC AMOUNTS OF LAUNDRY.) But the truth is: I enjoy mothering. I enjoy it a lot. In fact, I love this which surprised me. Even the daily quotidian rhythms of it are good, good, good. I even enjoyed those years when I couldn't leave the house without someone sympathetically commenting "Wow, your hands are full." Not because I have it all figured out and do things right all of the time (I don’t). Not because I’m the best mother in the world (I’m not). Not because my tinies are absolutely perfect and the gold standard of childhood (they’re not - trust me). And not because every day is filled with rainbow-and-unicorns-and-cupcakes (I wish). No, the reason I enjoy mothering tinies on the day-to-day grind is mainly because I do this stuff. And it helps me. I call them Practices because that’s what us Christians have often called spiritual disciplines, but really they’re just things I do over and over again, kneading them like yeast into my life. Everyone has their own "practices." Most of mine come from my own parents but then I picked up a few others from books or friends or mentors. And my practices may not work for you and your family. After all, this is just what worked for me, right then, in that season. As my tinies grow up, my practices shift and change and evolve, as they should. Your own practices will do that, too.
A Year Up: Rediscovering America and the Talent Within
Gerald Chertavian - 2012
In 2000, Chertavian dedicated his life to closing that divide and Year Up was born.Year Up is an intensive program that offers low income young adults training, mentorship, internships, and ultimately real jobs—often with Fortune 500 companies. 85 percent of program graduates are employed or in full-time college within four months of graduation. Today, Year Up serves more than 1,300 students in nine cities across the nation.Following a Year Up class from admissions through graduation, A Year Up lets students share—in their own words—the challenges, failures, and personal successes they’ve experienced during their program year. This deeply moving and inspirational story also explains Chertavian’s philosophy and the program’s genesis, offering a road map for real change in our country and a beacon for young adults who want the opportunity to enter the economic mainstream.
Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
Nancy R. Pearcey - 2004
She reveals the strategies of secularist gatekeepers who use this division to banish biblical principles from the cultural mainstream, stripping Christianity of its power to challenge and redeem the whole of culture.How can we overcome this divide? Unify our fragmented lives? Recover authentic spirituality? With compelling examples from the struggles of real people, Pearcey shows how to liberate Christianity from its cultural captivity. She walks readers through practical, hands-on steps for developing a full-orbed Christian worldview. Finally, she makes a passionate case that Christianity is not just religious truth but truth about total reality. It is total truth.This new Study Guide Edition of Total Truth is filled with fresh stories, examples, and illustrations. Based on questions and comments raised by readers of the book, it is ideal for individual or group study.
Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture
Anthony M. Esolen - 2017
This is a book about how to get started.Providence College professor Anthony Esolen, blunt and prophetic, makes the case that the decay of Western civilization is alarmingly advanced.Our sickly, sub-pagan state resembles a bombed-out city. We have to assess the damage, but merely lamenting it does no good. There is work to be done. The first step is the restoration of truth. America's most powerful institutions - including the government - are mass producers of deceit. We have to recognize the lies and clear our minds of cant.Our culture produces only the drab or the garish. We must restore beauty in art, architecture, music, and worship. There are two things wrong with our schools everything our children don't learn in them, and everything they do learn. Public schools are beyond reform; we have to start over. Our universities are as bad as our schools. A few can be saved, but for the most part, we must build new ones. In fact, this is already being done. We have to support these efforts as if our children's souls depended on it.Repudiating the Sexual Revolution, that prodigious engine of misery, requires more than zipping up. The modern world has made itself ignorant about sex in particular that there are two of them and they're profoundly different. We must restore manhood and womanhood.In our servile economy, we raise bureaucrats not craftsmen. We must rediscover how to make things that are beautiful and lasting the products of human work. And we must dispense with the rent-seekers the proliferating middlemen whose own work contributes nothing. We have turned sports into a job for our children. Instead of playing we work out.A genuine civilization is based on celebration. We must restore play to human life, seeing all the other days of the week in light of the Sabbath. The gigantic scale of government has made us a nation of idiots, incapable of attending to public affairs and the common good. We must insist that the Constitution is not whatever judges say it is, complying with but not obeying their edicts while we reclaim our freedom of religion one outdoor procession, one public lecture, one parish picnic at a time. We must love this world, but we have here no abiding city. The great division is between those who place all their hope in the present life and those who know that we are pilgrims. There is no retreat, but take courage we have our map.Let us begin.
The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus
Dorothy Day - 2017
Unlike larger collections and biographies, which cover her radical views, exceptional deeds, and amazing life story, this book focuses on a more personal dimension of her life: Where did she receive strength to stay true to her God-given calling despite her own doubts and inadequacies and the demands of an activist life? What was the unquenchable wellspring of her deep faith and her love for humanity?
Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship
Joshua Harris - 2000
But if you're looking for an intentional, God-pleasing game plan for finding a future spouse, Joshua Harris delivers an appealing one. A compelling new foreword, an all-new "8 Great Courtship Conversations" section, and updated material throughout makes this five-year revision of the original Boy Meets Girl a must-have! Harris illustrates how biblical courtship--a healthy, joyous alternative to recreational dating--worked for him and his wife. Boy Meets Girl presents an inspiring, practical example for readers wanting to pursue the possibility of marriage with someone they may be serious about.Are you ready for "romance with purpose"? If you're fed up with self-centered relationships that end in disillusionment, it's time to rethink romance. Finding the loving, committed relationship you want shouldn't mean throwing away your hopes, your integrity, or your heart.In Boy Meets Girl, Joshua Harris --the guy who kissed dating goodbye--makes the case for courtship. As old-fashioned as it might sound, courtship is what modern day relationships desperately need. Think of it as romance chaperoned by wisdom, cared for by community, and directed by God's Word.Filled with inspiring stories from men and women who have rediscovered courtship, Boy Meets Girl is honest, romantic, and refreshingly biblical. Keep God at the center of your relationship as you discover how to:- Set a clear course for your romance - Get closer without compromise - Find support in a caring community - Deal with past sexual sin - Make the right decisions about your future New! Courtship Conversations Eight ideas for great dates that will help grow and guide your relationship.Story Behind the Book"I wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye to challenge singles to drop the worldly approach to serial dating and reconsider the way they pursued romance in light of God's Word. Since then, I've received letters asking questions like, So, what comes between friendship and marriage? and, How can you know when you are ready for marriage? Boy Meets Girl answers those questions. Now as a happily married man I can look back on my courtship with Shannon and see from personal experience that God is faithful. If you trust Him enough to wait on romance in dating, He will lovingly guide you as you pursue it in courtship...right to that wonderful moment when you kneel together at the altar." -- Joshua Harris
Not My Girl
Christy Jordan-Fenton - 2014
Based on the true story of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, and complemented by evocative illustrations, Not My Girl makes the original, award-winning memoir, A Stranger at Home, accessible to younger children. It is also a sequel to the picture book When I Was Eight. A poignant story of a determined young girl’s struggle to belong, it will both move and inspire readers everywhere.
Too Small to Ignore: Why Children Are the Next Big Thing
Wess Stafford - 2005
Wess Stafford, for a major paradigm shift: Children are too important and too intensely loved by God to be left behind or left to chance. Children belong to all of us and we are compelled to intervene on their behalf. We must invest in children–all across the world. There are strategic, persuasive reasons–beyond love and kindness–to invest in children. Today they may snuggle into your lap, if you let them. But tomorrow you may not have access to them in the corridors of power they might occupy. Now is the time to shape the future.Dr. Stafford issues an urgent call for change. His adventures as a boy raised in a West African village provide an often-humorous and always-captivating backdrop to his profound and inspiring challenges. Wess lived the reality of “it takes a village to raise a child” and calls us to “be that loving village for children everywhere.”This book will encourage you to turn your good, loving intentions into strategic actions and empower you to help change the world–and the future–forever: one child at a time.