Now, in the book PASSION & PURPOSE: Believing the Church Can Still Change the World (Clear Day Publishing), Jimmy Seibert, Senior Pastor of Antioch Community Church and Founder & President of Antioch Ministries International, tells the firsthand account of a church that is cultivating a global impact. With an intentional focus on intimacy with Jesus, discipleship, church planting and evangelism, Antioch Ministries International has become one of the fastest growing evangelical movements in the country as well as a common case study among students of church planting and mission work. Based out of the Antioch Community Church of Waco, TX, the Antioch Ministries International movement is spearheaded by Seibert. After deciding to follow Jesus at any cost, Seibert started Antioch Community Church in one of poorest, most crime-ridden and drug-infested part of Waco. Along with a small group of likeminded believers, Seibert embarked on a journey to simply say "yes" to the next thing God was doing. The result has been an astounding adventure of walking with the Holy Spirit, building intimate community, and living with radical intentionality. "God has called us to be a people who passionately pursue Him with all our hearts and are deeply committed to His purposes. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now after 26 years, we feel like we can tell our story with integrity," explains Seibert, when asked about the timing of this book about Antioch and his personal journey. Seibert speaks with humility. A leader who has purposefully avoided the spotlight, Seibert prefers the role of teacher who seeks to encourage and motivate the church. "We have a heart for the body of Christ to believe in the church again, and to know that Jesus is enough." The once small gathering has turned into a network of 78 churches around the world in 24 nations, with 30 churches in the United Stated alone. At the original Waco, Texas home base, more than 3,000 people now attend regularly, with 170 Lifegroups meeting in members' homes across the city. Since its infancy, the church has focused on growing in relational and spiritual depth at home, and sending the message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The movement has inspired hundreds of Antioch members to leave their lives of comfort to proclaim the Gospel around the world, often in remote and even hostile environments. Currently, Antioch has more than 200 long-term missionaries who are active around the globe. In 2001, two of Antioch's missionaries who were in Afghanistan, Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, were arrested and held prisoner by the Taliban. The captivity-and the missionaries' miraculous rescue-became a major international news story after the 9/11 attacks, bringing Antioch's evangelical intentionality into the international conversation. PASSION & PURPOSE: Believing the Church Can Still Change the World chronicles the movement's humble beginnings, shares testimonies of powerful encounters with God along the way, and inspires with its rock-solid belief that the local church is God's "Plan A" for reaching the corners of the earth with the good news of Jesus Christ. The book explains Antioch's vision to be a people with "a passion for Jesus and His purposes in the earth." Early responses to PASSION & PURPOSE have begun pouring in. The book foreword is written by Max Lucado who has been acquainted with Seibert and the vision for Antioch Community Church for many years., In the foreword, Lucado states, "To visit Antioch Community Church is to visit the book of Acts; To hear their passion is to hear the heart of God; To listen to their stories of global impact makes you realize...it can happen today!"

    Is God all-powerful? Is God good? How can God allow so much innocent human suffering?These questions, taken together, have been called the "theodicy problem," and in this book Thomas Long explores what preachers can and should say in response. Long reviews the origins and history of the theodicy problem and engages the work of major thinkers who have posed solutions to it. Cautioning pastors not to ignore urgent theodicy-related questions arising from their parishioners, he offers biblically based approaches to preaching on theodicy, guided by Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares and the "greatest theodicy text in Scripture" -- the book of Job.

    In this warm and poignant collection, Barbara Brown Taylor’s humor and wisdom delve into the meaning of Christian symbols and history—both her own, growing up in the Mid-West and Georgia, and the Church’s, from its earliest beginnings in the Near East. Seamlessly, Taylor weaves together reflections on her vocation with the long-standing struggles of the Church to hear, respond, and remain faithful to its mission of holy love. She moves effortlessly from reflection to homily, concluding the volume with thirteen sermons illustrative of the answered call. This rich meeting of memoir, theology, and sermon stands at the center of Taylor’s work, bringing into one book the origins and the vision of her remarkable preaching life.But her voice is not sentimental. Instead, Taylor explores Christian meanings and histories in order to hear and speak, in the present, for God. “God has given us good news in human form and has given us the grace to proclaim it,” she writes, “but part of our terrible freedom is the freedom to lose our voices, to forget where we were going and why. While that knowledge does not yet strike me as prophetic, it does keep me from taking both my ministry and the ministry of the whole church for granted.” This book on the calling to preach is itself a call to reawaken to the activating presence of God.

    Here he traces the broad sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the prophetic vision and not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing.

    You may think of this group as millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—but millennials resist this label for good reason: the national narrative on them is pejorative, patronizing, and just plain wrong.Here's what we do know: Of Americans with a church background, 76 percent are described as "religious nones" or unaffiliated—and it's the fastest growing segment of the population. Close to 40 percent of millennials fit this religious profile. Roughly 80 percent of teens in evangelical church high school youth groups will abandon their faith after two years in college. It's unlikely that the evangelical church can survive if it is uniformly rejected by millennials, and yet: Millennial pastors and youth ministers are disempowered; their perspective is often not taken seriously by senior church leadership. Most millennial research is framed in categories rejected by millennials; that is, left-brained, analytical communication is lost on right-brained, intuitive millennials. Evangelicals' bias toward rational left-brained thinking makes the church seem tone-deaf. What's next? Read on. John Seel suggests survival strategies—communication on-ramps for genuine human connection with the next generation. It can be done.

    Leaders shouldn’t fire members from the responsibilities given to them by Jesus—they should train them! When members are trained, the church grows in holiness and love, discipleship and mission.  Complacency and nominalism are diminished. Jesus gives every church member an office in the church’s government: to assume final responsibility for guarding the what and the who of the gospel in the church and its ministry.  Similarly, Jesus gives leaders to the church for equipping the members to do this church-building and mission-accomplishing work. In our day, the tasks of reinvigorating congregational authority and elder authority must work together.  The vision of congregationalism pictured in this book offers an integrated view of the Christian life.  Congregationalism is biblical, but biblical congregationalism just might look a little different than you expect. It is nothing less than Jesus’ authorization for living out his kingdom rule among a people on mission.

    Albert Mohler became the youngest president in the 153-year history of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the driving force behind the school's transformation into a thriving institution with an international reputation characterized by a passionate conviction for truth. In the process he became one of the most important and prominent Christian voices in contemporary culture.What will it take to transform your leadership?Effective leaders need more than administrative skills and vision. They need to be able to change the hearts and minds of those they lead. Leadership like this requires passionate beliefs that can stand up to pressure from without and within.Now for the first time, Dr. Mohler reveals 25 principles to crystallize your convictions, revolutionizing your thinking, your decision-making, your communication, and ultimately those you lead.

    You've trained and dreamt of doing large things in famous ways as fast as you can for God's glory. But pastoral work keeps requiring your surrender to small, mostly overlooked things over long periods of time.You stand at a crossroads. Jesus stands with you. You were never meant to know everything, fix everything, and be everywhere at once. That's his job, not yours.So what now? Let the apprenticeship begin.

    Christian leaders and directors of religious movements throughout the world have recommended this simple, powerful, and beautiful story to their members and staff. You will want to join the thousands who have been profoundly touched by this incomparable story.

    It's a book for pastors who want the truth about the state of our churches. It presents a clear-spoken, hopeful vision for a future of sharing our faith in Christ. It gives us a way to get there?without formulas, but hand-in-hand with God! Easy to read, witty, thoughtful and genuinely spiritual, Unbinding the Gospel is based on a four-year research project on superb evangelism. Author, pastor, and lawyer Martha Grace Reese interviewed over 1000 people in some of the most successful evangelistic congregations in the country. Grounded in thorough research, the book sparkles with practicality. It is enthusiastically endorsed by Brian McLaren, John Thomas, George Hunter, Todd Hunter, Sharon Watkins, Wes Granberg-Michaelson and Cliff Kirkpatrick. Richard Peace, professor of evangelism at Fuller Seminary says, This should be required reading in all mainline churches. Our continued existence may depend upon it!

    Sauls shares his own stories and those of other leaders from Scripture and throughout history to remind us that we are human, we are sinners, and we need Jesus to help us thrive as people and leaders.   For Christian leaders—both inside and outside of the church—weaknesses that are left unchecked can lead to a downfall that is both public and painful. They want to lead with character and live like Jesus, but ambition, isolation, criticism, envy, anticlimax, opposition, restlessness, and insecurity can get in the way. From Weakness to Strength provides leaders with tools to draw near to Jesus and stay encouraged and hopeful, even (and especially) when sin and struggle get in the way.

    But there is one area that remains largely untouched, and that is the church. Now comes a major new call for multiracialcongregations in every possible setting--a call that is surprisingly controversial, even in the twenty-first century. In United By Faith, a multiracial team of sociologists and a minister of the Church of God argue that multiracial Christian congregations offer a key to opening the still-locked door between the races in the United States. They note, however, that a belief persists--even in African-American andLatino churches--that racial segregation is an acceptable, even useful practice. The authors examine this question from biblical, historical, and theological perspectives to make their case. They explore the long history of interracialism in the church, with specific examples of multiracialcongregations in the United States. They cite examples ranging from the abolitionist movement to an astonishing 1897 camp meeting in Alabama that brought together hundreds of whites and blacks literally into the same tent. Here, too, is a critical account of the theological arguments in favor ofracial separation, as voiced in the African-American, Latino, Asian-American, Native-American, and white contexts. The authors respond in detail, closing with a foundation for a theology suited to sustaining multiracial congregations over time. Faith can be the basis for healing, but too often Christian faith has been a field for injury and division. In this important new book, readers will glimpse a way forward, a path toward once again making the church the basis for racial reconciliation in our still-splintered nation.

    What does it look like to help others become more like Christ?In this concise guide, pastor Mark Dever outlines the who, what, where, when, why, and how of discipling--helping others follow Jesus.Following the pattern found in Scripture, this book explains how disciple-making relationships should function in the context of the local church, teaching us how to cultivate a culture of discipling as a normal part of our everyday lives.Part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series.

    In this new work, pastor Thabiti Anyabwile attempts to answer the natural next question: What does a healthy church member look like in the light of Scripture?God intends for us to play an active and vital part in the body of Christ, the local church. He wants us to experience the local church as a home more profoundly wonderful and meaningful than any other place on earth. He intends for his churches to be healthy places and for the members of those churches to be healthy as well. This book explains how membership in the local church can produce spiritual growth in its members and how each member can contribute to the growth and health of the whole.

    The basic theme is that we need provocative churches which raise the question asked by the onlookers in Acts 2:12: What does it all mean?