According to a recent study by Ranier Research, 70 percent of youth leave church by the time they are 22 years old. Barna Group estimates that 80 percent of those reared in the church will be “disengaged” by the time they are 29 years old. Unlike earlier generations of church dropouts, these “leavers” are unlikely to seek out alternative forms of Christian community such as home churches and small groups. When they leave church, many leave the faith as well.Drawing on recent research and in-depth interviews with young leavers, Generation Ex-Christian will shine a light on this crisis and propose effective responses that go beyond slick services or edgy outreach. But it won’t be easy. Christianity is regarded with suspicion by the younger generation. Those who leave the faith are often downright cynical. To make matters worse, parents generally react poorly when their children go astray. Many sink into a defensive crouch or go on the attack, delivering homespun fire-and-brimstone sermons that further distance their grown children. Others give up completely or take up the spiritual-sounding “all we can do is pray” mantra without truly exploring creative ways to engage their children on matters of faith. Some turn to their churches for help, only to find that they frequently lack adequate resources to guide them. This is where Generation Ex-Christian will lend a hand. It will equip and inspire parents, church leaders, and everyday Christians to reawaken the prodigal's desire for God and set him or her back on the road to a dynamic faith. The heart of the book will be the raw profiles of real-world, young ex-Christians. No two leavers are identical, but upon close observation some categories emerge. The book will identify seven different kinds of leavers (the postmodern skeptic, the drifter, the neopagan, etc.) and offer practical advice for how to connect with each type. Shrewd tips will also intersperse the chapters alerting readers to opportunities for engagement, and to hidden landmines they must sidestep to effectively reach leavers.

    Boubo is eager to show that he’s not a baby anymore. He wants everyone to know he’s on his way to being a “big kid” and, to prove his case, he is proud to demonstrate his newfound abilities: He can ride a bike, order for himself in a restaurant, and much more!Little Big Boubo portrays a unique stage of child development with empathy and humor, and is a delightful celebration of a parent’s love.

    They were wrong.“What if I don’t want to marry?” Lillian held her breath. She had never said the words out loud. “Not want to marry?” Her aunt frowned. “What else would you do?” Set in a Ugandan village, Lilian has learned to shrink herself to fit other people’s ideas of what a girl is. In her village a girl is not meant to be smarter than her brother. A girl is not meant to go to school or enjoy her body or decide who to marry. Especially if she is poor.

    With the Better Allies® approach, it's something anyone can do.Since originally publishing Better Allies in 2019, Karen Catlin has amassed dozens of new scenarios and insights through her talks, workshops, and community interactions. In this fully revised second edition, you'll learn to spot situations where you can create a more inclusive culture, along with straightforward steps to take and changes to make. Catlin, a highly-sought after expert on allyship, will walk you through: * Attracting and hiring a diverse workforce* Cultivating an environment where coworkers feel welcome, respected, and supported* Amplifying and advocating for others* Giving effective and equitable performance feedback* Using more inclusive language* Running inclusive conferences and eventsRead this book to learn the Better Allies® approach, level-up your ally skills, and create a culture where everyone can do their best work and thrive.

    The ghost of a young murdered girl flits through every scene linking the pain and anguish of all the characters struggling to cope with urban life.

    Calcines was a child of Fidel Castro's Cuba; he was just three years old when Castro came to power in January 1959. After that, everything changed for his family and his country. When he was ten, his family applied for an exit visa to emigrate to America and he was ridiculed by his schoolmates and even his teachers for being a traitor to his country. But even worse, his father was sent to an agricultural reform camp to do hard labor as punishment for daring to want to leave Cuba. During the years to come, as he grew up in Glorytown, a neighborhood in the city of Cienfuegos, Eduardo hoped with all his might that their exit visa would be granted before he turned fifteen, the age at which he would be drafted into the army.In this absorbing memoir, by turns humorous and heartbreaking, Eduardo Calcines recounts his boyhood and chronicles the conditions that led him to wish above all else to leave behind his beloved extended family and his home for a chance at a better future.

    And Alex and Brett Harris are leading the charge.Do Hard Things is the Harris twins' revolutionary message in its purest and most compelling form, giving readers a tangible glimpse of what is possible for teens who actively resist cultural lies that limit their potential.Combating the idea of adolescence as a vacation from responsibility, the authors weave together biblical insights, history, and modern examples to redefine the teen years as the launching pad of life. Then they map out five powerful ways teens can respond for personal and social change.Written by teens for teens, Do Hard Things is packed with humorous personal anecdotes, practical examples, and stories of real-life rebelutionaries in action. This rallying cry from the heart of an already-happening teen revolution challenges a generation to lay claim to a brighter future, starting today.

    God was all about rules.—from Chapter Five Too many young Catholics experience their faith as Mark Hart did: They rarely miss Mass even if they don't understand it; they have a Bible even if they never read it; they go to confession even if they aren't particularly repentant. Is that your experience of Catholicism? Is yours a faith of Thou Shalt Nots? If so, forget about a dreary life of mindless obedience to rules you don't understand. It's time to enter into the transforming light of your Creator who invites you to live from the still center of his undying love. The author's humorous and hard-hitting reflections drive home the point that God isn't calling the reader to be a good person—someone who merely obeys the rules—but a new person in Jesus Christ.The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.

    This companion to the landmark PBS miniseries vividly and candidly tells how the story of Latino Americans is the story of our country.Author and acclaimed journalist Ray Suarez explores the lives of Latino American men and women over a five-hundred-year span, encompassing an epic range of experiences from the early European settlements to Manifest Destiny; the Wild West to the Cold War; the Great Depression to globalization; and the Spanish-American War to the civil rights movement.Latino Americans shares the personal struggles and successes of immigrants, poets, soldiers, and many others—individuals who have made an impact on history, as well as those whose extraordinary lives shed light on the times in which they lived, and the legacy of this incredible American people.

    It’s the ubiquitous style of dress comprising hoodies, sneakers, and T-shirts. In the beginning, a few brands defined this style; fewer still survived as streetwear went mainstream. They are the OGs, the “heritage brands.” The Hundreds is one of those persevering companies, and Bobby Hundreds is at the center of it all.The creative force behind the brand, Bobby Kim, a.k.a. Bobby Hundreds, has emerged as a prominent face and voice in streetwear. In telling the story of his formative years, he reminds us that The Hundreds was started by outsiders; and this is truly the story of streetwear culture.In This Is Not a T-Shirt, Bobby Hundreds cements his spot as a champion of an industry he helped create and tells the story of The Hundreds—with anecdotes ranging from his Southern California, punk-DIY-tinged youth to the brand’s explosive success. Both an inspiring memoir and an expert assessment of the history and future of streetwear, this is the tale of Bobby’s commitment to his creative vision and to building a real community.

    Indian Ernie, as he came to be known on the streets, here details an era of challenge, prejudice, and also tremendous change in urban policing. Drawing from his childhood, army career, and service as a veteran patrol officer, Louttit shares stories of criminals and victims, the night shift, avoiding politics, but most of all, the realities of the marginalized and disenfranchised.Louttit spent his entire career (including as a Sergeant) patrolling the streets of Saskatoon's west side, an area until recently beset by poverty, and terrible social conditions. Here, he struggled to bring justice to communities where the lines between criminal and victim often blurred. Though Louttit's story is characterized by conflict, danger, and violence, he argues that empathy and love for the community you serve are the greatest tools in any officer's hands, especially when policing society's less fortunate.While his story is based on his experiences in Saskatoon, it is equally applicable to the challenges faced in any community where marginalized people live. It is an exciting, passionate, easy to read, and highly accessible story aimed at a broad audience.

    You stop for the experience surrounding the cup of coffee.Too many of us line up for God out of duty or guilt. We completely miss the warmth and richness of the experience of living with God. If we'd learn to see what God is doing on earth, we could participate fully in the irresistible life that he offers.You can learn to pay attention like never before, to identify where God is already in business right in your neighborhood. The doors are open and the coffee is brewing. God is serving the refreshing antidote to the unsatisfying, arms-length spiritual life-and he won't even make you stand in line.

    Otherness, the simple fact of being different in some way, has come to be defined as in and of itself evil. Miroslav Volf contends that if the healing word of the gospel is to be heard today, Christian theology must find ways of speaking that address the hatred of the other. Reaching back to the New Testament metaphor of salvation as reconciliation, Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion.Increasingly we see that exclusion has become the primary sin, skewing our perceptions of reality and causing us to react out of fear and anger to all those who are not within our (ever-narrowing) circle. In light of this, Christians must learn that salvation comes, not only as we are reconciled to God, and not only as we "learn to live with one another," but as we take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to the other, of enfolding him or her in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God.Is there any hope of embracing our enemies? Of opening the door to reconciliation? Miroslav Volf, a Yale University theologian, has won the 2002 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon, 1996). Volf argues that exclusion of people who are alien or different is among the most intractable problems in the world today. He writes, It may not be too much to claim that the future of our world will depend on how we deal with identity and difference. The issue is urgent. The ghettos and battlefields throughout the world in the living rooms, in inner cities, or on the mountain ranges testify indisputably to its importance. A Croatian by birth, Volf takes as a starting point for his analysis the recent civil war and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, but he readily finds other examples of cultural, ethnic, and racial conflict to illustrate his points. And, since September 11, one can scarcely help but plug the new world players into his incisive descriptions of the dynamics of interethnic and international strife.Exclusion happens, Volf argues, wherever impenetrable barriers are set up that prevent a creative encounter with the other. It is easy to assume that exclusion is the problem or practice of barbarians who live over there, but Volf persuades us that exclusion is all too often our practice here as well. Modern western societies, including American society, typically recite their histories as narratives of inclusion, and Volf celebrates the truth in these narratives. But he points out that these narratives conveniently omit certain groups who disturb the integrity of their happy ending plots. Therefore such narratives of inclusion invite long and gruesome counter-narratives of exclusion the brutal histories of slavery and of the decimation of Native American populations come readily to mind, but more current examples could also be found.Most proposed solutions to the problem of exclusion have focused on social arrangements what kind of society ought we to create in order to accommodate individual or communal difference? Volf focuses, rather, on what kind of selves we need to be in order to live in harmony with others. In addressing the topic, Volf stresses the social implications of divine self-giving. The Christian scriptures attest that God does not abandon the godless to their evil, but gives of Godself to bring them into communion. We are called to do likewise whoever our enemies and whoever we may be. The divine mandate to embrace as God has embraced is summarized in Paul’s injunction to the Romans: Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you (Romans 15:7).Susan R. Garrett, Coordinator of the Religion Award, said that the Grawemeyer selection committee praised Volf s book on many counts. These included its profound interpretation of certain pivotal passages of Scripture and its brilliant engagement with contemporary theology, philosophy, critical theory, and feminist theory. Volf s focus is not on social strategies or programs but, rather, on showing us new ways to understand ourselves and our relation to our enemies. He helps us to imagine new possibilities for living against violence, injustice, and deception. Garrett added that, although addressed primarily to Christians, Volf's theological statement opens itself to religious pluralism by upholding the importance of different religious and cultural traditions for the formation of personal and group identity. The call to embrace the other is never a call to remake the other into one s own image. Volf who had just delivered a lecture on the topic of Exclusion and Embrace at a prayer breakfast for the United Nations when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center will present a lecture and receive his award in Louisville during the first week of April, 2002.The annual Religion Award, which includes a cash prize of $200,000, is given jointly by Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville to the authors or originators of creative works that contribute significantly to an understanding of the relationship between human beings and the divine, and ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity, or meaning, either individually or in community. The Grawemeyer awards given also by the University of Louisville in the fields of musical composition, education, psychology, and world order honor the virtue of accessibility: works chosen for the awards must be comprehensible to thinking persons who are not specialists in the various fields."

    In the follow-up to his critically acclaimed account of Guardiola’s first full season at Bayern, Pep Confidential, Perarnau now lifts the lid on the Catalan’s whole tenure in Bavaria.Pep Guardiola: The Evolution takes the reader on a journey through three action packed seasons as Bayern smashed domestic records yet struggled to emulate that dominance in Europe, analysing Guardiola’s management style through key moments on and off the field.Perarnau reveals how Guardiola improved as a manager at Bayern despite failing to land the ultimate prize in European football, examines his decision to leave Germany to take up the challenge at Manchester City and how his managerial style will continue to evolve in thePremier League.This is more than the story of three seasons with one of the biggest clubs in the game. It is a portrait and analysis of a manager and the footballing philosophies that have beguiled the world.

    If the parents only knew . . .