Book picks similar to
Psalms Alive! by David Kitz


christian-non-fiction
non-fiction-challenge
spiritual-growth

The Opposite Life: Unlocking the Mysteries of God’s Upside-Down Kingdom


Alex Seeley - 2019
    God always has a better idea. And it most often requires us to move in the opposite direction.In The Opposite Life, pastor and author Alex Seeley explains the secret to living a powerful and abundant life through the upside-down kingdom of God. Each chapter unpacks the opposite-life principles that begin with our way of thinking and yield miraculous results. They includedeath vs. lifefear vs. faithlast vs. firstlove vs. hateworry vs. worshipgive vs. receiveimpossible vs. possibleWe all want the blessed life but sometimes go about it in the wrong way. God’s promises are conditional. He says follow Me, and I will change your weakness into strength, your foolishness into wisdom, and your nothing into everything.

After 50 Years of Ministry: 7 Things I'd Do Differently and 7 Things I'd Do the Same


Bob Russell - 2016
    When he retired forty years later, it was nearing 20,000.Though Bob's ministry was a clear success, he'd be the first to say it wasn’t perfect. In After 50 Years of Ministry he shares why. He reflects on the best of what he’s learned—sometimes the hard way—about ministry and leadership, like how to:Respond to criticismProtect your marriageStop comparing yourself to other pastorsHandle a staff moral failurePrioritize preaching in your scheduleBuild trust with your eldersMake the best use of downtimeHilarious, warm, and full of great stories and illustrations, After 50 Years of Ministry is sage advice from a faithful servant of God. If you are in leadership of any kind, don’t miss this chance to learn from one of the best.

Finding Your Way Back to God: Five Awakenings to Your New Life


Dave Ferguson - 2015
    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.

100 Bible Verses That Will Change Your Life: It's Time to Encounter the Father's Love


Mark Stibbe - 2019
    They tell a story of the God who made you, knows everything about you, and who loves you so much that He went to hell and back for you.If your daily life hasn’t been radically changed by the power of this love, then this book is for you.Author Mark Stibbe is passionate about awakening people to the reality of the Father’s extravagant love. These carefully  selected Bible verses from the Old and New Testaments will  gently guide you to experience the depth of God’s love in amazing new ways.

Emptied: Experiencing the Fullness of a Poured-Out Marriage


Wynter Pitts - 2019
    Jonathan and Wynter Pitts did. Until the reality of married life spilled into their expectations.Jonathan and Wynter invite you on a journey to explore a different approach to your happily-ever-after marriage. Join them for an honest look at the lessons learned as they navigated the ups and downs of early marriage while raising four daughters.Here you will...be encouraged to remove the pressure of a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses marriagelearn to let go of assumptions and embrace your role as servant-leader to your spouseexperience how God can pour His purpose, passion, and fullness into your relationshipEmptied is a way of life. It’s not about trying harder, it’s about thinking differently. Only when you are emptied of your own self-focused motivations can God pour new life into you for the abundant marriage and satisfying relationship you long for. Are you ready to approach your marriage poured out, ready to be filled up?

Welcoming the Future Church: How to Reach, Teach, and Engage Young Adults


Jonathan Pokluda - 2020
    As much sting as that statement has, it's hard to argue with. Yet many churches have no idea how to attract and retain younger generations.If you want to understand how to reach, teach, and empower young adults in your church, Jonathan "JP" Pokluda is ready to show you how. Sharing stories of successes and failures during his years of ministering to Millennials, JP offers you transferable principles that will help you mobilize the next generation toward Jesus. He encourages and equips you to- be real- teach the whole truth- hold traditions loosely- find young leaders- give the ministry away- and so much moreTomorrow's church is out there, waiting for you to care, to reach out, to understand their struggles, and to show them why today's church needs, wants, and cherishes them.

This Invitational Life


Steve Carter - 2016
    Inviting others to faith requires leaning in to your own story, overcoming fear, and stepping out. But the good news is for everyone, always. And you can help keep it going.Using Scripture and story, Steve Carter casts a vision for non-threatening conversations that point people to Christ. Most significantly, Steve shows that only through risking it all will we discover what God is truly like.

Be a Circle Maker: The Solution to 10,000 Problems


Mark Batterson - 2011
    It's a mechanism whereby God accomplishes great things in us.' Do you ever sense that there's far more to prayer, and to God's vision for your life, than what you're experiencing? It's time you learned from the legend of Honi the Circle Maker---a man bold enough to draw a circle in the sand and not budge from inside it until God answered his prayers for his people. What impossibly big dream is God calling you to draw a prayer circle around? In this powerful booklet, excerpted from THE CIRCLE MAKER, Batterson helps you uncover your heart's deepest desires and God-given dreams and unleash them through the kind of audacious prayer that God delights to answer.

Brazen: Be a Voice, Not an Echo


Sean Feucht - 2020
    After seven months of pouring my heart, soul and guts into something so demanding and so intense, this was the moment of truth. We were one of the most watched Congressional campaigns in America and everyone “knew” Super Tuesday was just a stepping stone to get to November. Then the finality of the words came. Second place. The end of the road.Sean Feucht never backed down from a challenge and running for US Congress was no exception. From birth, there was a call on his life to dream about the impossible, and then partner with God to see miracles come about. From going to the darkest corners of the earth to starting a world-wide prayer and worship movement, Sean has been brazen as he resolutely pursues the call of God on his life.Sean poignantly shares the deep losses in his life and how God showed up inexplicably to always show Himself to be faithful and good. In Brazen, he shares a vulnerable story of trust and how God always shows up even in your darkest hour and seemingly greatest loss. Be inspired to see your circumstances in a new way.

Dani: Throwaway Child: The True Story of Dani's Journey from Abuse to Freedom


B.D. Ethington - 2015
    Almost at the point of giving up, she turned to her minister and found someone who could help her unlock the mystery behind the nightmares. They pieced together Dani’s hidden past until they came to one horrible realization. . . She was still in danger. This true story will make you cringe, cry, get mad, want to hurt her abusers, and leave you wondering how one person could live through so much abuse and not go crazy. As the story unfolds, you will be led through a trail of abuse beginning at an early age and the courageous fight of a young woman to get away from her abuser. Dani: Throwaway Child is a book that demonstrates the courage and faith of a child to endure abuse while witnessing a loving God of miracles who is aware of the trials of His children.

Taming the Tongue: How the Gospel Transforms Our Talk


Jeff Robinson Sr.
    

Win from Within: Finding Yourself by Facing Yourself


John W. Gray III - 2018
    In Win FromWithin, John Gray helps readers identify how best to handle the most difficult, challenging and yet necessary battle that we all face-our inner struggle to overcome the worst versions of ourselves. He offers biblical lessons to aid in combatting bad habits and limiting patterns so that the best version of ourselves emerges. Win FromWithin gives practical application to the story recorded in Genesis of Jacob wrestling with the man at the River Jabbok, and through it readers will learn how to become the persons they were created to be. The persons God intended each of us to be develops as we face our inner battles. With examples from his own life as well as his ministerial counseling, Gray provides a pathway to awakening. He includes strategies for confronting the past, how we have been labeled, who people have said we are, even who we think we are, so that we can win the battle and be who God intends us to be. Jacob spent much of his life running and hiding from himself. At a certain point we, like Jacob, cannot run from our true selves anymore. We must stop and face ourselves if we are to become great. Win FromWithin helps us conquer our inner darkness and overcome such hindrances as fear, shame and guilt. This powerfully biblical self-help guide will push us toward victory over our inner struggles. Winning will make us the persons we have always wanted to be, the persons we have dreamed about becoming, the persons God created us to be.

Some Kind of Crazy: An Unforgettable Story of Profound Brokenness and Breathtaking Grace


Terry Wardle - 2019
     Terry Wardle grew up in the Appalachian coalfields of southwestern Pennsylvania, part of a hardscrabble family of coal miners whose cast of characters included a hot-tempered grandfather with a predilection for blowing up houses, a distant and disapproving father, and a mother who disciplined him with harsh words and threats of hellfire.After enduring a crazy childhood, Terry graduated to a troubled adolescence, and then on to what seemed like a successful transition into adulthood, earning multiple degrees and founding one of the country's fastest growing churches. But all was not well.All his life, he felt he was never enough. Plagued by a truckload of fear no matter what he accomplished, he fell down the ladder of success into the deepest ditch of his life--ending up in a psychiatric hospital. Fortunately, that's when he discovered that Jesus has no fear of ditches.In fact, Jesus does some of his best work with people who find themselves there. In sharing his remarkable journey, Terry offers hope that healing and wholeness are possible no matter how broken a life may be. His larger-than-life story will help you move forward along your own healing path.

The Titus 2 Woman


Susan Godfrey - 2011
    This type of woman is truly becoming an endangered species! It’s a sad fact, but modern churches are just not teaching the “aged women” to become Titus 2 mentors and women just are not stepping up to mentor the younger women in the church. This is part of the reason I think so many of the young women in today’s church are floundering and turning away from Godly womanhood. They are just not being taught how to be Godly women. Too many churches today are pushing a twisted form of womanhood that has more in common with feminism and worldly standards than Godly standards. It is truly a sad state!Just what traits does the Bible say a Godly woman should posses? Titus 2: 3-5 lays these traits out to us in a simple and plain way. The aged women likewise, that [they be] in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, [To be] discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. — Titus 2:3-5(KJV)When you look at these verses, you can plainly see that what God requires from a Godly woman. “The Titus 2 Woman” by Susan Godfrey, dissect these eleven qualities to help us understand exactly what is expected of us as we grow and mature as Christians.

Seek First: How the Kindgom of God Changes Everything


Jeremy R. Treat - 2019
    BUILD YOUR LIFE AROUND IT. In an age of distraction, everyone is looking for something that gives purpose and perspective on life. Jesus says it's the kingdom of God. But the kingdom is not just another religious idea. Rather, God's loving reign brings clarity and coherence to all of life - identity, work, play, relationships, justice, character - in a way that is profound and practical. Seek First brings theology to the streets, giving a vision for the kingdom that will truly change your life."Treat presents the message of the kingdom in a way that gives us a grander vision for life, whether in the workplace or on the basketball court." - CHRIS BROUSSARD, NBA analyst and sports broadcaster"Few books do as good a job as this one in showing us how giving up everything for Christ and his kingdom is the pathway to our greatest gain. Seek First is a gem!" - SCOTT SAULS, author and senior pastor, Christ Presbyterian Church"With insight and passion Treat reveals why we ought to reorient our lives and reprioritize our loves . . . practical and powerful." - MARIELLE WAKIM, editor, Los Angeles magazine"A prophetic and urgent note to the generations . . . a clearly written and much-needed book!" - KEVIN J. VANHOOZER, professor, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School