Struggles, discouragement, and John's improper expectations of what God was "supposed" to do for his life caused John to leave his faith and the Lord's body, the church. John went back into every form of sin imaginable: alcoholism, drug abuse, adultery, and pornography - just as a dog returns to its vomit. John's shame and guilt, his failure to provide for his family, and the loss of all hope that God could ever forgive him brings John to a terrifying moment... holding a shotgun to his chin. He starts to pull the trigger. Can God forgive this wretch of a man? Is it possible for John to be restored and to be able to return to Jesus Christ? This raw, gritty, true story grabs the reader from beginning to end. It is a story about the real life of a discouraged Christian, and it is a story of hope, love, and the redemption found through the grace of God!

    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!"

    Kent Edwards recalls a story that late pastor J. Vernon McGee told about seeing children in South Africa playing a game of marbles in the dust with real diamonds. The precious stones were being handled with no regard for their true worth. Edwards fears the same thing happens today when preachers offer Scriptural truth to listeners without being completely overwhelmed by its greatness themselves in the process.Deep Preaching is his call to "rethink" preaching. Edwards helps preachers learn to preach the word in ways that will powerfully change the lives of hearers. He contends that sermons "need not settle comfortably on the lives of the listeners like dust on a coffee table." He encourages preachers to join him in casting off the lines that moor their ministries to the status-quo and make every effort to steer their preaching out of the "comfortable shallows." He urges them to preach deep sermons rather than superficial ones, moving "beyond the yawn-inspiring to the awe-inspiring, from the trite to the transforming."

    In those moments, we are utterly dependent on God for well-timed help. If he doesn't come through, we're finished. For forty years, two million Israelites were in the wilderness, and God fed them supernaturally every morning with manna, teaching people who doubted him he can be trusted with everything they needed to survive. This is a lesson we need to learn too. In personal stories and applications of biblical lessons, Manna reveals how God specializes in making a way where there is no way. He proved it every day to the nation of Israel, never missing a day of being faithful. He was never late, and he was never early. He was always just in time. And he will be for you.

    Increasing numbers of us don't believe in God anymore. We don't expect miracles. We've grown up and left those fairytales behind, culturally and personally.Yet five hundred years ago the world was very much enchanted. It was a world where God existed and the devil was real. It was a world full of angels and demons. It was a world of holy wells and magical eels. But since the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the Enlightenment, the world, in the West at least, has become increasingly disenchanted.While this might be taken as evidence of a crisis of belief, Richard Beck argues it's actually a crisis of attention. God hasn't gone anywhere, but we've lost our capacity to see God.The rising tide of disenchantment has profoundly changed our religious imaginations and led to a loss of the holy expectation that we can be interrupted by the sacred and divine. But it doesn't have to be this way. With attention and an intentional and cultivated capacity to experience God as a living, vital presence in our lives, Hunting Magic Eels, shows us, we can cultivate an enchanted faith in a skeptical age.

    Believer's can reach out in faith, take back what belongs to them and begin to live in success, happiness, and liberty.

    For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:19–20).  Are there things in your personal life, your loved ones’ lives, or your church life that desperately need to change for the better? Have you been yearning for real spiritual breakthrough in the challenging situations you face? Have you ever considered that God is just waiting for His people to cry out to Him in prayer together? The prayer of agreement is one of the most powerful gifts that God has provided for victory in our Christian lives. He has promised us that He will respond to this time of focused prayer as we seek His face together. Join Jim and Cathy Maxim and Daniel Henderson for twenty-one days of agreeing prayer, and see how different things can be as believers go to God together to experience a time of intimacy and intercession that will forever change the way we pray, think, and act regarding the gift of prayer. More than just a book printed on paper, this 21-day movement is interactive. At the end of each devotional reading, you can visit www.acts413.net and join Jim, Cathy, and Daniel for a powerful time of agreeing prayer. Enter God’s presence with them daily, praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to sweep through your circumstances with the breakthrough that you need in your life, and in the lives of those you love.

    This concise survey of the impact and outworking of God's grace in the life of the believer will revitalize the most threadbare faith.

    RAPTURED Additional Information Will sinful humanity have to endure the reign of the beast before the full wrath of God falls upon them?

    An infant died in her care at the same time the unknown science of Shaken Baby Syndrome hit the media. Swept up in a media frenzy, Edmunds was accused of killing the child through SBS. She was stripped from her children and husband and sent to prison where she would fight for freedom 13 years before she was finally exonerated after updated science showed her innocence. Audrey was and is an all-American mother from the Heartland who shares her story of hope and redemption in the face of unrelenting odds. Built as the ideal reader's club book, It Happened to Audrey includes questions that challenge all readers to think of the possibilities in today's ever-changing world. Edmunds is ultimately released from prison in the middle of a blizzard and reunited with her now grown children.

    In his personal, intimate, engaging, humorous style, Altrogge takes us on a journey through God's word, bringing us into close contact with the God of sharp edges and brilliant light. Altrogge introduces afresh to the untamable God of the Bible.

    Still providing helpful and insightful information about theEpiscopal ethos with a certain amount of whimsy and complete accessibility, this revision maintains the best features of the original work, but adds an update and an expansion on the church today.In addition to updating out-of-date references and correcting a few inaccuracies, the revision highlights Episcopal diversity—including more women and people of color in the biographical material—as well as focusing more on Episcopalians rather than Anglicans. Some new illustrations are included as well.Some material originally presented in tabular form has been adapted into a more accessible narrative format. This includes new sections on church governance, the origins of religious belief, and a capsule summary of church history. The glossary has also been expanded.The goal is to provide a book suitable for a wide range of uses and settings: for Sunday schools, confirmations, inquirer classes—and for everyone from visitors to vestries. The revision brokers an incredible compendium of information in an informal, user-friendly, and accessible format.For lifelong Episcopalians, newcomers, and those wishing to sample and explore thebeliefs and organization of the denomination.

    Belet wages war against one of the worst sins of his (and our) time - backbiting - better known to us as detraction (telling the faults of others without cause). Most of us do not realize how evil this sin is. In fact, many of us don't think it's a sin at all. After ruining someone's reputation, or satisfying our anger (and yes, our hatred) by spewing out every bad thing we can say about someone, we justify ourselves by saying, "Well, it's true!" We even think we are acting justly by giving someone what they deserve.. Due to our lack of charity and also to our pride, little do we see things from God's point of view, to whom these are vile sins - a form of hatred of neighbor - a failure to do the two things necessary - to love God and our neighbor (Matt. 22:37-40). In explaining this sin of backbiting, properly called detraction, Fr. Belet quotes the best men of Western Civilization: Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Seneca, Pliny, the Roman Emperor Constantine, King David, Isaiah, Saints James, Luke, Matthew, Paul, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Cassian, Gregory the Great, Augustine, Bernard, Thomas Aquinas, and many others. A very helpful book for those who wish to know to meaning of backbiting---and how to avoid it.

    We have tremendous influence in the home; corporate world; the church; and society as a whole. But some how we have begun to lose sight of power and influence that we posses. God gave us the ability not only to birth life, but to speak life to every circumstance and situation that we face. It's time for us as women of God to embrace our purpose and power. Its time to stop bashing others and talking bad about ourselves. We have to take our words and communication more seriously. Just as Eve was a gift to Adam, we are a gift to the body of Christ. Its time for us to unleash the power of God's word in our lives.