In Holy Subversion, Trevin Wax challenges such behavior by urging a return to the subversive lifestyle of the earliest Christians. Their proclamation and demonstration that "Jesus is Lord" directly opposed the Caesar worship of their day.Today, Christians in the West must choose between Jesus and our "Caesars" self, success, money, leisure, sex, power. What would it look like, asks Wax, if today's church reclaimed the communal, subversive nature of the gospel, intentionally undermining all contenders for our devotion? How would the message that "Jesus is Lord" change our thinking about our jobs, our families, and our church participation? Here this gifted pastor-theologian offers help in taking our faith public, dethroning modern-day Caesars, honoring the Lordship of Christ, and understanding the church as the ultimate counterculture-an embodiment of Christ's supremacy over all.

    You may have carefully reviewed boxes of personality profiles, stories, and videos, but does that qualify as a relationship?What about your relationship with God?Reframe challenges you to reframe yourself, God and the relationship that connects you--and, from there, to embrace irreversible spiritual change. You are created in God's image; you have His DNA embedded into your very core. The world and your life are engineered so that they will not work without Him. Come and be ruined for anything else but a life-giving collaborative adventure with the Almighty God.

    In recent years, Christian ministries have increasingly prioritized urban areas. Big cities and suburbs are considered more strategic, more influential, and more desirable places to live and work. After all, they're the centers for culture, arts, and education. More and more people are leaving small places and moving to big ones. As a ministry strategy, focusing on big places makes sense. But the gospel of Jesus is often unstrategic. In this book, pastor Stephen Witmer lays out an integrated theological vision for small-place ministry. Filled with helpful information about small places and with stories and practical advice from his own ministry, Witmer's book offers a compelling, comprehensive vision for small-place ministry today. Jesus loves small places, and when we care deeply about them and invest in them over time, our ministry becomes a unique picture of the gospel--one that the world badly needs to see.

    "Contrarian thinking at its best simply asks, Is this really true? It speaks up when the politically correct answer or the conventional wisdom doesn't match reality - when things simply don't work the way everyone says they should."- Larry OsborneIf you don’t fit the mold…If you’re tired of adjusting to other people’s definitions of spirituality…If traditional spiritual disciplines just aren’t working for you…If all the standard answers aren’t enough…...but your deepest desireis to know God more…Here's Spirituality for the Rest of Us

    He envisioned his followers as life-giving neighbors, bosses, employees, and friends, the kind of people who return insults with kindness and persecution with prayers. Rooted in biblical convictions, they would extend love, empathy, and care to one another as well as to those who don't share their beliefs. Over time their movement would become irresistible to every nation, tribe, and tongue. Irresistible Faith is a blueprint for pursuing this vision in our current moment, of redeemed individuals and a renewed community working for a restored world. This is a way of being that gives a tired, cynical world good reason to pause and reconsider Christianity--and to start wishing it was true.

    Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful, that there is a moment of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich even when it contains a splinter of sadness. It’s the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, audacious, earthy. This is what I’ve come to believe about change: it’s good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean that it’s incredibly painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God’s hand, which is where you wanted to be all long, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be. I’ve learned the hard way that change is one of God’s greatest gifts, and most useful tools. Change can push us, pull us, rebuke and remake us. It can show us who we’ve become, in the worst ways, and also in the best ways. I’ve learned that it’s not something to run away from, as though we could, and that in many cases, change is a function of God’s graciousness, not life’s cruelty.” Niequist, a keen observer of life with a lyrical voice, writes with the characteristic warmth and honesty of a dear friend: always engaging, sometimes challenging, but always with a kind heart. You will find Bittersweet savory reading, indeed. “This is the work I’m doing now, and the work I invite you into: when life is sweet, say thank you, and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you, and grow.”

    That’s what this book helps you do in a profound, strategic, and life-changing way. Author C. J. Mahaney exposes our human tendency to look at the Savior’s death (and at everything else!) through our own subjective feelings and impressions, rather than from the standpoint of objective truth. By nature we always begin with ourselves rather than with God. But by following the God-first "Divine Order" in how we think—and by asking "What do I believe?" instead of "How do I feel?"—we’re freed up to embrace the right truth in the right way. The right feelings quickly follow, and they’re reliable because they’re anchored in truth.The Secret to Sustaining Joy Do you desire more passion for Christ? Then learn to see His death not from our point of view, but from God’s. Author C. J. Mahaney puts you at our Savior’s side—and into His soul—during the most emotionally wrenching moments of His final hours. As you better understand the true nature of His struggle, you’ll grasp more than ever the staggering significance of why Jesus died…and fully experience His sacrifice as a personal act of love for you. Allow the deepest truths of Calvary to stir your passion for Christ our mediator into a flame that burns your whole life long. Story Behind the BookThere’s nothing more overpowering than to climb Calvary ’s hill in childlike attentiveness and wonder, with all our distractions and wrong assumptions cleared away. This book was written that we might be gripped by gratitude and enflamed in passion for the Savior, Christ our Mediator, who suffered the Father’s righteous wrath for us.From the Hardcover edition.

    What's more, you'll learn why the Bible can be trusted and how to answer common criticisms of the Bible.Used in conjunction with Tim Challies and Josh Byers' bestselling book, Visual Theology, this unique resource helps you connect the truth of the Bible to your life, showing how God's eternal truth leads to life change and transformation.A Visual Theology Guide to the Bible:Is written by authors Tim Challies and Josh Byers, each of whom have a deep desire to convey the deepest truths of the Bible in a fresh, beautiful, and informative wayWill help you develop a plan to read and study the ScripturesIs a follow-up to Visual Theology and expands on the timeless, historic, biblical truths presented in that bestselling bookWill help you grow in godliness by practicing what you learnIs perfect for new believers, long-time Christians, students, small groups, pastors, church leaders, and anyone else interested in seeing the Bible afresh

    Winner has written an engrossing reflection of literary grace and spiritual wisdom with Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis.As she lives through a failed marriage and the loss of her mother, Winner finds her Christian faith slipping away. Through reading religious works and tomes and being counseled by leaders of the church, she learns she must find the courage to trust in God in order to to find His presence.Elegantly written and profound, Still offers reflections on how murky and gray the spiritual life can be while, at the same time, shows us how to see the light we do encounter more clearly.

    What Jesus started was a movement that began small, with intimate conversations designed to build disciples into apostles who would go out in the world and seed it with God's kingdom vision. That movement grew rapidly and spread wide as people recognized the truth in it and gave their lives to the power of it. That movement is still happening today, and we are called to play our part in it.

    He shares practical ways for church leaders to move beyond the building walls and take the kingdom to those who need it most. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Scott argues that every believer, not just the leaders, can fill their city, workplace, and family with the beauty and power of Christ.   When believers become scattered servants, the Holy Spirit will equip them to advance the kingdom and change lives through their hearts and hands.

    The path toward the liberated existence we all long for is found in a truth as simple to say as it is hard to do: love people, even the difficult ones, without distinction and without limits.Driven by Bob’s trademark storytelling, Everybody, Always reveals the lessons Bob learned--often the hard way--about what it means to love without inhibition, insecurity, or restriction. From finding the right friends to discovering the upside of failure, Everybody, Always points the way to embodying love by doing the unexpected, the intimidating, the seemingly impossible. Whether losing his shoes while skydiving solo or befriending a Ugandan witch doctor, Bob steps into life with a no-limits embrace of others that is as infectious as it is extraordinarily ordinary. Everybody, Always reveals how we can do the same.

    As a result, they focus a lot on what Jesus has done to appease God's wrath for sin. But how does Jesus Christ actually feel about his people amid all their sins and failures? This book draws us to Matthew 11, where Jesus describes himself as "gentle and lowly in heart," longing for his people to find rest in him. The gospel is primarily about God's heart drawn to his people, a heart of tender love for the sinful and suffering. These chapters take readers into the depths of Christ's very heart for sinners, diving deep into Bible passages that speak of who Christ is and encouraging readers with the affections of Christ for his people. His longing heart for sinners will comfort and sustain readers in their up-and-down lives.

    It’s as if they are trying to navigate with mere fragments of a map?different parts of the good news?and so they fail to see the whole picture. Daniel Montgomery, lead pastor of the fast-growing Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, and Mike Cosper, founder of Sojourn Music, argue that we need to put the collective fragments together, recovering the whole gospel for the whole church, and taking it into the whole world.

    Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined.