Doesn’t God work in the nighttime as well? In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us “in the dark.” She argues that we need to move away from our “solar spirituality” and ease our way into appreciating “lunar spirituality” (since, like the moon, our experience of the light waxes and wanes). Through darkness we find courage, we understand the world in new ways, and we feel God’s presence around us, guiding us through things seen and unseen. Often, it is while we are in the dark that we grow the most.With her characteristic charm and literary wisdom, Taylor is our guide through a spirituality of the nighttime, teaching us how to find our footing in times of uncertainty and giving us strength and hope to face all of life’s challenging moments.

    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.

    They represent a new world, a new kingdom, a new outlook.Tim Chester brings to light God's purposes in the seemingly ordinary act of sharing a meal--how this everyday experience is really an opportunity for grace, community, and mission. Chester challenges contemporary understandings of hospitality as he urges us to evaluate why and who we invite to our table. Learn how you can foster grace and bless others through the rich fare being served in A Meal with Jesus.

    Looking to right the balances, Kevin DeYoung presents a popular-level treatment of sanctification and union with Christ, helping readers to see what matters most—being like Jesus. He shows how one can be like Christ in being joined to Christ. The market is ready for DeYoung’s timely book, ready to avoid legalism and ambivalence, and they are ready for someone to articulate the inextricable relationship between grace and holiness.

    Over 750,000 people in 80 countries have been trained to make disciples through organizations he has led. Through studying the life of Christ and His disciple-making methods, Dann developed 4 Chair Discipling, a simple picture for others to follow. Jesus’ last words on earth had a few very specific instructions: Go, make disciples, baptize, and teach.But what does that mean for us today? Well, it’s not easy. But it is simple. Teacher and leader Dann Spader explains disciple-making as a process of moving people through four chairs, from someone seeking to know more about Christ to someone who makes disciples themselves.Chair 1: Come and See (John 1:39)Chair 2: Follow Me (John 1:43)Chair 3: Become a Fisher of Men (Matthew 4:19)Chair 4: Go and Bear Fruit (John 15:16)In the process of His four-year ministry, Jesus realized that different people are at different stages of growth and development, and He works to challenge each of them to the next level. In 4 Chair Discipling , you’ll get a clear and simple picture of how to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and do the same thing.

    Taken from the biblical image of the shepherd, the pastor by virtue of his or her professional calling cultivates wise judgment in order to hear the hurting and offer guidance, reconciliation, healing, sustaining presence, and empowerment to those in need. This book will outline the quintessential elements pastors need to wisely minister in today's context by discussing four major kinds of lostness: grief, illness, abuse, and family challenges. The purpose of the Abingdon Essential Guides is to fulfill the need for brief, substantive, yet highly accessible introductions to the core disciples in biblical, theological, and religious studies. Drawing on the best in current scholarship, written with the need of students foremost in mind, addressed to learners in a number of contexts, Essential Guides will be the first choice of those who wish to acquaint themselves or their students with the broad scope of issues, perspectives, and subject matters within biblical and religious studies.

    Simple, powerful and applicable insights show you how to be on mission and recognize where Jesus is already at work in your neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. You will feel both relief and hope. You may even hear yourself say, "I can do this!" as you start responding to the everyday opportunities Jesus is placing in your path.

    This book is more than just a book you will read; it is a resource you will come back to over and over again.

    In The New Conspirators Tom surveys the landscape of creative Christianity, where streams of renewal are flowing freely from diverse sources:The emerging church Contemporary monastic movements The missional church The mosaic movement Individuals and communities of faith are coalescing in, and drawing energy from, these four streams to retrofit the church as it leads, serves and gives witness to the kingdom of God in the turbulent times facing us. Read the book and you'll want to-and be prepared to-join God's conspiracy to create a better future.

    Gain assurance of God's provision for parenting success and discover ways to seize the countless opportunities to deepen communication, learn, and grow with your teens.

    God intends for this compelling vision of His people singing—a people joyfully joining together in song with brothers and sisters around the world and around his heavenly throne—to include you. He wants you,he wants us, to sing.

    But this message also creates human beauty--beautiful relationships in our churches, making the glory of Christ visible in the world today.In this timely book, Pastor Ray Ortlund makes the case that gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture. In too many of our churches, it is the beauty of a gospel culture that is the missing piece of the puzzle. But when the gospel is allowed to exert its full power, a church becomes radiant with the glory of Christ.

    Through their different lenses� one as a preacher and one as a funeral director� Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch alternately discuss several challenges facing the good funeral, including the commercial aspects that have led many to be suspicious of funeral directors, the sometimes tense relationship between pastors and funeral directors, the tendency of modern funerals to exclude the body from the service, and the rapid growth in cremation. The book features forewords from Patrick Lynch, President of the National Funeral Directors Association, and Barbara Brown Taylor, highly praised author and preacher. It is an essential resource for funeral directors, morticians, and pastors, and anyone else interested in current funeral practices.

    In this short book, a highly respected biblical counselor and successful author offers practical guidance for all Christians--pastors and laypeople alike--who want to develop their "helping skills" when it comes to walking alongside hurting people.Written out of the conviction that friends are the best helpers, this accessible introduction to biblical counseling will equip believers to share their burdens with one another through gentle words of wisdom and kind acts of love. This book is written for those eager to see God use ordinary relationships and conversations between ordinary Christians to work extraordinary miracles in the lives of his people.

    But since most pastoral guidebooks available today date back to 1980 or earlier, this new resource by Mac Brunson and James W. Bryant will offer fresh experience-based encouragement to all pastors in their pursuit of excellence and development in their God-called profession.Among the twenty chapters are "The Pastor and His Call," "The Pastor and His Family," "The Pastor and His Staff," "The Pastor and Worship," "The Pastor and Finances," "The Pastor, Wedding, and Funerals," "The Pastor, Politics, and Moral Issues," and "The Pastor and His Denomination."