You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church... and Rethinking Faith


David Kinnaman - 2011
    Now the bestselling author of "unChristian" trains his researcher's eye on these young believers. Where Kinnaman's first book "unChristian" showed the world what outsiders aged 16-29 think of Christianity, "You Lost Me" shows why younger Christians aged 16-29 are leaving the church and rethinking their faith. Based on new research, "You Lost Me" shows pastors, church leaders, and parents how we have failed to equip young people to live "in but not of" the world and how this has serious long-term consequences. More importantly, Kinnaman offers ideas on how to help young people develop and maintain a vibrant faith that they embrace over a lifetime.

Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible


Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 1959
    He affirms that the Lord's Prayer is the primary prayer of the Christian, which he asserts contains every prayer that a Christian ought to pray. Bonhoeffer also makes a startling but wise claim that jolts us out of the narrowness of our focus in prayer: "The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart." Thus we find the book of Psalms to be a rich treasury of prayers that are part of God's inspired word, and therefore a true place to learn how God would have us pray.

Playing with Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in Your Soul


Walt Russell - 2000
    With an intelligent, engaging style, Russell puts the tools in your hands that enable you to study different styles of biblical writing in depth. And this fuller understanding of God's Word unleashes a heart-transforming power that burns away your defenses like fire, bringing radical change to your life.

Scrappy Church: God's Not Done Yet


Thom S. Rainer - 2018
    We’ve got plenty of churches without them!” “The church brought another one of their campuses near us. It’s totally unethical what they are doing.” “We can’t reach young families. They all go to the big church that has all the children’s and student stuff.” “We don’t have the money or the people the other churches have.”   Bestselling author Thom S. Rainer (I Am a Church Member, Autopsy of a Deceased Church) has heard comments like these hundreds, if not thousands, of times. They are statements of hopelessness. They are statements of despair. They are statements of defeat.   Church leaders don’t want to feel this way. They desire to break out of the mediocrity of the same, lame, and tame existence of their churches. They want their churches to make a difference.   There is hope. God’s hope. God’s possibilities.  What does a scrappy church look like? Let’s take a look together.

Me Too: Experience the God Who Understands


Jon Weece - 2016
    So was His.If you've ever tried to pick up the shattered pieces of your life and put them back together again without help, you know it's an impossible task. When you lose your job, when divorce divides your family, when a loved one commits suicide, or when cancer claims a friend, it's easy to lose perspective and abandon hope.According to Jon Weece, Christianity does not require you to smile through your pain, much less praise God for tormenting you. God doesn't enjoy your suffering. But he does understand it--and he knows exactly how to fix it.That's what Me Too is all about: A God who turned the ugliness of the cross into a spectacle of eternal beauty. An all-powerful Lord who will do the same with the pain of this world. An eternal Father who specializes in wiping away tears and putting you back together again. If you'll allow him.

The Leader's Journey: Answering the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation


Jim Herrington - 2003
    The Leader's Journey provides a blueprint and the practical tools needed to transform the lives of pastors and congregational lay leaders so that they can become truly effective leaders. Blending the best of sound psychological research, solid Biblical principles, and proven congregational experiences-- authors Jim Herrington, Robert Creech, and Trisha Taylor offer step-by-step guidance for engaging in the personal transformation journey as part of effective congregational leadership.

Practice of Prayer


Margaret Guenther - 1997
    Guenther also discusses basic matters of Christian practice, such as making a confession, intercession, going on retreat, simplifying our lives, using a journal to pray, finding a spiritual director, and praying through times of desolation when God does not seem to be listening.

Family Worship: In the Bible, in History & in Your Home


Donald S. Whitney - 2005
    But as Donald S. Whitney makes clear, the daily worship of God by families at home is a practice rooted in the Bible and common throughout Christian history. How can people unfamiliar with family worship lead it in their own homes? How do busy households in today's culture recover faithfulness in family worship? This practical book shows you how simple and easy it can be.

Pray Big Things: The Surprising Life God Has for You When You're Bold Enough to Ask


Julia Jeffress Sadler - 2019
    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.

The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice


Mark Labberton - 2007
    But something has gone wrong with our worship. Too often, worship has become a place of safety and complacency. It can be a narrowly private experience in which solitary individuals express their personal adoration. Even when we gather corporately, we often close our eyes to those around us, focusing on God but ignoring our neighbour.But true biblical worship does not merely point us upward it should turn us outward as well.In this prophetic wake-up call for the contemporary church, pastor Mark Labberton reconnects Christian worship with social justice. From beginning to end, worship must do justice and seek righteousness, translating into transformed lives that care for the poor and the oppressed.Begin today to move beyond the comfort of safe worship to authentic worship that challenges injustice.Market/Audience- Worship team participants and leaders- Pastors- Book clubs and book club readersFeatures and Benefits- Recovers the biblical unity of worship and justice- Shows how social justice and care for the poor can flow out of action- A passionate, prophetic and profoundly biblical call to action

Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God


Bob Kauflin - 2008
    This book focuses readers on the essentials of God-honoring worship, combining biblical foundations with practical application in a way that works in the real world. The author, a pastor and noted songwriter, skillfully instructs pastors, musicians, and church leaders so that they can root their congregational worship in unchanging scriptural principles, not divisive cultural trends. Bob Kauflin covers a variety of topics such as the devastating effects of worshiping the wrong things, how to base our worship on God's self-revelation rather than our assumptions, the fuel of worship, the community of worship, and the ways that eternity's worship should affect our earthly worship.Appropriate for Christians from varied backgrounds and for various denominations, this book will bring a vital perspective to what readers think they understand about praising God.

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals


Shane Claiborne - 2010
    Designed to help individuals, families, and congregations pray together across denominations, this book of common prayer will help you and your community join together each day with the same songs, scriptures, and prayers. Composed under an advisory team of liturgy experts, these three influential and inspiring authors have created Common Prayer--a tapestry of prayer that will help the church be one as God is one.This universal prayer book allows readers to greet each day together, remembering significant dates and Christian heroes in church history, as well as important historic dates in the struggle for freedom and justice. There are morning prayers for each day of the year, evening prayers for each of the seven days of the week, a midday prayer to be repeated throughout the year, and prayers for special occasions. In addition, there are morning prayers for Holy Week.Common Prayer also includes a unique songbook composed of music and classic lyrics to more than fifty songs from various traditions, including African spirituals, traditional hymns, Mennonite gathering songs, and Taize chants. Tools for prayer are scattered throughout to aid those who are unfamiliar with liturgy and to deepen the prayer life of those who are familiar with liturgical prayer.Ultimately, Common Prayer makes liturgy dance, taking the best of the old and bringing new life to it with a fresh fingerprint for the contemporary renewal of the church.

Leading from the Inside Out: The Art of Self-Leadership


Samuel D. Rima - 2000
    Encourages and equips those in authority to master self-leadership principles and realize their full leadership potential.

Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace


James B. Torrance - 1996
    In a day when refinement of method and quality of experience are the guiding lights for many Christians, James Torrance points us to the indispensable who of worship, the triune God of grace. Worship is the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Son's communion with the Father, writes Torrance. This book explodes the notion that the doctrine of the Trinity may be indispensable for the creed but remote from life and worship. Firmly rooted in Scripture and theology, alive with pastoral counsel and anecdote, Torrance's work shows us just why real trinitarian theology is the very fiber of Christian confession.

Experiential Worship: Encountering God with Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength


Bob Rognlien - 2004
    From Christ, we learn that biblical worship involves our: • Volition (heart)• Emotion (soul) • Intellect (mind) • Body (strength) Experiential Worship shows you how to create a place where worshipers come face-to-face with the Father.• Indexed for easy reference• Ideal for churches of all sizes