But often we get ensnarled. We can only imagine culture as a war, a gritty ideological and religious struggle where every arena is bloody with strife: art, philosophy, cuisine, music, literature, science. But at its foundation, culture is about building, not conflict. The time has come for us to beat our swords into plowshares. By realizing the Bible's vision for a cultivated earth, we can build a more comprehensive, radical, holistic culture, resistant to compromise and dedicated to a Trinitarian aesthetic. What does this culture look like? It is the development of the earth into a global fabric of gardens and cities in harmony with nature-a glorious garden-city. Plowing in Hope provides a positive, clear, and colorful introduction to this transformational topic."David Hegeman's approach is refreshingly different. He maps out a positive theology of culture building rooted in Creation and extending into the New Jerusalem. His wonderful little book, based on sound Biblical exegesis, presents a compelling case for why and how we should build a culture that magnifies God and ennobles men." -David Ayers, Grove City College, Pennsylvania

    Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often essential to it.With compelling examples from the Bible and today, Bird paints an enticing picture of the counterintuitive, countercultural life that God wants for us. He helps readers delight in all of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside-down, allowing us to experience true freedom, not from our weaknesses but in the midst of them.

    The Dynamic 2-5-14 Strategy to Defeat the Darkness Within"This book is for the tired, the defeated, the frustrated, and the ashamed.  For the hurt and broken, those walking in powerlessness and fear.  For all who have found truth but are failing miserably at living it.  For those walking in bondage and limitations imposed by forces over which they seem to have no control.  For those secretly wondering why their lives don't portray the overcoming reality God has purposed.  For those to whom it seems a strong unseen hand holds them to a course they feel incapable of changing."  (From Chaper 1)The 2-5-14 strategy gives answers to the 2 ways the enemy has access to your life, the 5 doors to legal ground that gives Satan his rights and the 14 spirits that are the roots of common human problems.

    But too often he is viewed as an Americanized shepherd boy on a Sunday school felt board or a New Testament saint alongside the Virgin Mary. Not only does this neglect one of the Bible’s most complex stories of sin and redemption; it also bypasses the gritty life lessons inherent in the amazing true story of David.  Mark Rutland shreds the felt-board character, breaks down the sculpted marble statue, and unearths the real David of the Bible. Both noble and wretched, neither a saint nor a monster, at times victorious and other times a failure, David was through it all a man after God’s own heart.

    This understanding is essential to you as an individual leader and to the church as a whole. It will --Significantly improve your relational skills --Enhance your effectiveness in ministry --Diminish senseless conflict and division --Build a healthier church --Promote evangelism If you lead or teach people in any capacity in the body of Christ, this book will help you become a more loving leader or teacher.

    This book will help you to see the person you are and the person you can become. Open your heart and mind, and your life will change gracefully.

    Sharing her own story of God's life-changing answers to bold prayers--a miraculous journey through infertility, miscarriages, and giving birth to triplets--Julia challenges you to take God at His Word and see Him move like never before. Humorous, practical, and filled with biblical insights, this book will give you the courage to pray big things and watch expectantly for God's even bigger answers.

    We've settled for "good enough" and days that run together in an unmemorable blur. We long for something to shake us up, but we're exhausted by the thought of it too.In her warm, vulnerable style, bestselling Proverbs 31 author Suzanne Eller shows how living and loving without limits has nothing to do with your own efforts--and it has everything to do with God's Holy Spirit. Unpacking the promises and teachings Jesus shared with the disciples about the Holy Spirit, Suzanne shows how you can stop settling and start truly living. When you learn to unwrap the gift of his presence, you'll find the world-changing, foundation-shaking, soul-stirring life of passion and purpose God is waiting to give you.

    Yet often our most deeply felt longings—for meaning, for love, for significance—end up leading us away from, instead of toward, our Creator and the person he made us to be.  Finding Your Way Back to God shows you how to understand and listen to your longings in a whole new way. It’s about waking up to who you really are, and daring to believe that God wants to be found even more than you want to find him. It’s about making the biggest wager of your life as you ask God to make himself known to you. And it’s about watching what happens next.

    Funny, sarcastic, touching, and, yes, nostalgic, this is a novel of character to be enjoyed by all ages.--"Library Journal."

    There is great hope for Malaysia if many more Hannahs could be replicated in politics.Dr. Daniel HoSenior Pastor, DUMC, Petaling JayaHannah’s story grips you with its refreshing honesty. From finding God to rediscovering her confidence, to the miracle of her marriage proposal and her amazing journey into politics, it speaks about God. It fired me to pray for such a generation to rise up and rebuild our land! It will inspire you to always seek God’s best in the face of many “good” options; for it is in surrender to Him that the best will be given to us.Dr. Philip LynSenior Pastor, Skyline SIB, Kota KinabaluHannah Yeoh Tseow Suan is the Speaker of the Selangor State Legislative Assembly and State Assemblyman for Subang Jaya, Selangor. Hannah won the N31 state seat in the General Elections 2008 as a DAP candidate at the age of 29. She was elected as the Speaker at the age of 34, making her the first woman and youngest Speaker in Malaysia. She obtained her Bachelor of Laws from University of Tasmania. She is married to Ramachandran M, an IT entrepreneur. They are now proud parents of two baby girls Shay Adora Ram and Kayleigh Imani Ram. The couple is passionate about nation-building and seeks to inspire Malaysians to play their respective parts in establishing a righteous nation free from corruption and racial discrimination.

    This book is contemporary and tackles an issue that is at the heart of true Christianity. A book on this topic is refreshing and challenging, and deserves a twenty-first century treatment.

    Follow the notorious insurrectionist, Barabbas, coming of age in the days when Romans ruled the ancient land of Cana surrounding the Sea of Galilee. The Lost Gospel of Barabbas invites the reader to join the young Barabbas as he faces his own demons and begins the journey down the road that will lead him to his ultimate destiny. A road of love, anguish and revenge.

    Some didn’t make it out alive. After hearing whispers that seemed almost too awful to believe, BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Christine Kenneally embarked on a years-long journey to find out what really went on in these institutions. What she discovered was even more horrifying than the legend: the systematic abuse and even the alleged murder of children by nuns. Her searing report, which is part investigation, part true crime drama, part ghost story, cracks open a secret history of American life — and adds a vast new dimension to the Catholic church’s mistreatment of children. From a world shrouded in secrecy, Kenneally tells the story of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont, and of Sally Dale, the plucky redhead who was the apple of the nuns’ eyes. Until they decided to make an example of her, administering daily torments, isolating her from the rest of the world, and convincing her that she would never escape. Of all the children who passed through St. Joseph’s, she may have been there the longest. The horrors she suffered and the deaths she said she witnessed did not come into full view until the day, decades later, when she attended a St Joseph’s reunion. Then the past came flooding back like a torrent. Along with scores of other survivors, and guided by an idealistic young lawyer, Sally somehow found the courage to come forward and tell the world what she had experienced. She wanted more than anything else to be heard and believed. But she was going up against one of the most powerful institutions in the world, and she was in for the fight of a lifetime. The legal battle that ensued upended every assumption that the people of Burlington had. Could memory be trusted? Could forgetting be forgotten? Could a pleasant community turn a blind eye to evil? And could nuns, the very women charged with protecting these most vulnerable members of society, have instead tortured or even killed them? The Catholic sex abuse scandal – which most recently yielded a grand jury report on how the church hid the crimes of hundreds of priests — shattered the silence that for so long had protected the church. But the truth about what went on inside its orphanages has somehow remained all but unspoken, even as other countries have undertaken huge national inquiries. In the US, there has been no reckoning. The orphanages’ dark secrets, like the dead children who haunt survivors’ dreams, still lay buried. Until now. Through painstaking reporting, based in thousands of pages of documents — many of them secret — and interviews with survivors, Kenneally connects what happened at St. Joseph’s to similar accounts that emerged from seven countries across three continents, revealing a terrible matrix of corroboration.