Our world has been torn asunder by racial, ethnic, and ideological differences. It is seen in our politics, felt in our families, and ingrained in our theology. Sadly, the church has often reinforced these ethnic and racial divides. To cast off the ugliness of disunity and heal our fractured humanity, we must cultivate spiritual practices that help us pursue beautiful community. In The Beautiful Community, pastor and theologian Irwyn Ince boldly unpacks the reasons for our divisions while gently guiding us toward our true hope for wholeness and reconciliation. God reveals himself to us in his trinitarian life as the perfection of beauty, and essential to this beauty is his work as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gospel imperative to pursue the beautiful community--unity in diversity across lines of difference--is rooted in reflecting the beautiful community of our triune God. This book calls us into and provides tools for that pursuit.

    Families and communities are increasingly fragmented, loneliness is skyrocketing, and physical and mental health are on the decline. Our unprecedented wealth doesn’t seem to be doing us much good. Yet, when we try to help poor people at home or abroad, our implicit assumption is that the goal is to help them to become like us. "If they would just do things our way, they’d be fine!"But even when they seem to pursue our path, they too find that the American Dream doesn’t work for them. What if we have the wrong idea altogether? What if the molds we are using to help poor people don’t actually fit any of us? What if the goal isn’t to turn other countries into the United States or to turn America’s impoverished communities into its affluent suburbs?In Becoming Whole (building on the best-selling When Helping Hurts), Brian Fikkert and Kelly M. Kapic look at the true sources of brokenness and poverty and uncover the surprising pathways to human flourishing, for poor and non-poor alike. Exposing the misconceptions of both Western Civilization and the Western church about the nature of God, human beings, and the world, they redefine success and offer new ways of achieving that success. Through biblical insights, scientific research, and practical experience, they show you how the good news of the kingdom of God reshapes our lives and our poverty alleviation ministries, moving everybody involved towards wholeness.

    With the introduction of the rigorous Common Core State Standards, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement and facilitating deeper learningCulturally responsive pedagogy has shown great promise in meeting this need, but many educators still struggle with its implementation. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.The book includes:*Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships*Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners*Prompts for action and valuable self-reflectionWith a firm understanding of these techniques and principles, teachers and instructional leaders will confidently reap the benefits of culturally responsive instruction.

    Teri James Bellis, one of the world's leading authorities on auditory processing disorder (APD), explains the nature of this devastating condition and provides insightful case studies that illustrate its effect on the lives of its sufferers.Millions of Americans struggle silently with APD. For many of them, holding a simple conversation can be next to impossible. As sound travels through an imperfect auditory pathway, words become jumbled, distorted, and unintelligible. As Dr. Bellis notes, the most profound impact of this highly specific impediment to auditory comprehension may be on the young. Facing a severely reduced ability to read, spell, comprehend, and communicate, children with APD are subject to anxiety, academic failure, and a damaged sense of self. Often, they are misdiagnosed. Discussing the latest and most promising clinical advances and treatment options, and providing a host of proven strategies for coping, Dr. Bellis takes much of the mystery out of APD. If you or anyone you know has difficulty comprehending spoken language, or if your child is struggling in school, this important book may have the answers you need.

    She is beautiful, intelligent and has a bright future ahead. She should be enjoying her last semester of college, but she recently found out her boyfriend of three years, Eric Thomas, hasn’t been faithful. Kennedy is emotionally drained from dealing with Eric and thinks that she will never find the love she’s always dreamed of. When she meets the notorious Jaheim King, Kennedy feels like he is out of her league, but she is drawn to him immediately. Jaheim King is a boss in every sense. From a young age, he was groomed to be a killer. Jaheim worked alongside his father and uncle as paid assassins for some of the most powerful crime organizations in the country and he has more money than he could ever spend. The only thing that is missing from his life is someone special, but when he meets Kennedy his world is turned upside down. They are from different worlds but the chemistry between them is undeniable. He is everything she’s ever wanted and after one brief encounter she feels like has known him all her life, but will falling in love distract her from chasing her dreams? Will she be able to handle dating the boss she feels like she was created for? Join Kennedy and Jaheim as they embark on an unforgettable journey.

    

    military conducted on President’s Kennedy’s body on the night of November 22, 1963. Hornberger’s new book, The Kennedy Autopsy 2, expands on his earlier work. In this new book, you will learn: The important role that Lyndon Johnson played in the U.S. military’s fraudulent autopsy on the president’s body. The significance of various meetings at the National Archives prior to the 1968 presidential race, where autopsy pathologists signed false affidavits relating to the inventory of autopsy photographs. An alternative explanation as to why Johnson suddenly decided to drop out of the 1968 presidential race. How and why Lee Harvey Oswald escaped the U.S. government’s Cold War anticommunist crusade. And much more.

    Not long after the police found the body, Jayce received a letter telling him to keep quiet or else. Scared for his life and the lives of those he cared about, Jayce decided to leave town and never come back.Sixteen years later, Jayce has the perfect life - a good job, fifty acres of Virginia mountainside, and a golden lab named Camo. For the first time in his life, things are going according to plan, but that all changes when a letter arrives by special delivery informing him of his mother's death. Hoping things have changed, Jayce takes a chance and returns to Silver Falls to settle his mother's estate. What awaits him is anything but a warm welcome.

    Operating under the perfect cover as a luxury hotelier, everything in Xavier’s life is running smoothly until he stumbles upon an unauthorized black-market operation happening right under his nose. What he finds when he goes to investigate the situation, however, changes his life and turns his world upside down forever. Sevyn Varella has been through hell and back for most of her life. Lacking true love, a sense of self, or anything of her own, Sevyn faces an entirely different set of problems when she is pulled into a world she knows nothing about because of her ex-boyfriend’s mistakes. With both her livelihood and life on the line, Sevyn thinks that her fate is sealed forever until she meets a man named Xavier who’s willing to show her that there’s more to life than tears, struggles, and heartbreak. With a blossoming love, shady cohorts, and foreign opposition that will do anything to get what they want, Xavier and Sevyn must figure out what’s most important to both of them moving forward. Is it money? Trust? Friendship? Or something else? These questions and more are answered in A Boss Purchased My Love.

    Your "smart but scattered" 4- to 13-year-old might also have trouble coping with disappointment or managing anger. Drs. Peg Dawson and Richard Guare have great news: there's a lot you can do to help. The latest research in child development shows that many kids who have the brain and heart to succeed lack or lag behind in crucial "executive skills"--the fundamental habits of mind required for getting organized, staying focused, and controlling impulses and emotions. Learn easy-to-follow steps to identify your child's strengths and weaknesses, use activities and techniques proven to boost specific skills, and problem-solve daily routines. Helpful worksheets and forms can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. Small changes can add up to big improvements--this empowering book shows how. See also the authors' Smart but Scattered Teens and their self-help guide for adults. Plus, an academic planner for middle and high school students and related titles for professionals.

    Too often the church has proven to be a source of pain rather than a place of hope. Forgive Us acknowledges the legitimacy of much of the anger toward the church. In truth, Christianity in America has significant brokenness in its history that demands recognition and repentance. Only by this path can the church move forward with its message of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.Forgive Us is thus a call to confession. From Psalm 51 to the teachings of Jesus to the prayers of Nehemiah, confession is the proper biblical response when God’s people have injured others and turned their backs on God’s ways. In the book of Nehemiah, the author confesses not only his own sins, but also the sins of his ancestors. The history of the American church demands a Nehemiah-style confession both for our deeds and the deeds of those who came before us.In each chapter of Forgive Us two pastors who are also academically trained historians provide accurate and compelling histories of some of the American church’s greatest shortcomings. Theologian Soong-Chan Rah and justice leader Lisa Sharon Harper then share theological reflections along with appropriate words of confession and repentance.Passionate and purposeful, Forgive Us will challenge evangelical readers and issue a heart-felt request to the surrounding culture for forgiveness and a new beginning.

    Awareness of these issues is most pronounced at developmental transitional points: learning to talk and walk, beginning to eat unassisted, going to school, developing secondary sexual physical features, leaving home, obtaining full-time employment, becoming engaged and then married, having a child for the first time, parenting an adolescent, watching children move away from home, retiring, experiencing decline in physical and mental health, and, finally, facing imminent death. Throughout, Balswick, King and Reimer contend that, since God has created human beings for relationship, to be a self in reciprocating relationships is of major importance in negotiating these developmental issues. Critically engaging social science research and theory, The Reciprocating Self offers an integrated approach that provides insight helpful to college and seminary students as well as those serving in the helping professions. Those preparing for or currently engaged in Christian ministry will be especially rewarded by the in-depth discussion of the implications for moral and faith development nurtured in the context of the life of the church.

    There are many more magical beings on Earth, and they live amongst us as humans that are in touch with a side of them that makes them powerful.
 Surreal’s parents give him the life that every kid dreams of. He grows up with friends that look at him as if he is a brother. He doesn’t like the title because of the big secret that he has kept from them, a secret that brings out too many questions that can’t be answered without putting them in danger. He gets away with it for years, until a pool party ends in a blood bath with most of his peers as the victims. With the secret out, he has to travel with a group of friends to get to the Olympian Stadium to connect with the primary source of his power to defend himself from the sons of Hades. Surreal is looking forward to the tough journey ahead. What he doesn’t count on is the new company of a human woman… so he thinks.
 Nova has been on her own since she was thirteen. She notices how different she is and decides to travel the road alone. Nova never knows where she is going until she gets to her destination. It is a pull that she can’t escape that draws her to a stranger that was walking across the street. When they touch accidentally, she feels something different, something that she has never felt before. The stranger promises her the comfort that she doesn’t know to exist. Being on the opposite end of people’s anger makes it hard to trust him. That all changes when she learns of the common trait they hold as a secret.
 Once upon a time, the world was ruled by the gods of lightning and of the seas. It would be their descendant that will protect them from the one dangerous enemy they couldn’t seem to kill.

    And as any good manager of a hotel, a store, a restaurant, or an attraction knows, the key to getting guests to come back is not actually the rooms or the product or the food itself; it's how guests feel when they're there. It's about hospitality. No matter how much effort and time we spend on excellence--stirring worship time, inspiring sermons, a good coffee blend in the foyer--what our guests really want when they come to our churches is to feel welcome, comfortable, and understood.Written by a church consultant and a hospitality expert, The Come Back Effect shows church, ministry, and even business leaders the secret to helping a first-time guest return again and again. Through an engaging, story-driven approach, they explain how service and hospitality are two different things, show how Jesus practiced hospitality, and invite leaders to develop and implement changes that lead to repeat visits and, eventually, to sustained growth.

    In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.