Do you want more from your church experience?Does the pure gospel put you in a place of awe?Are you ready to rethink church as you know it?  Sit with Pastor Francis Chan and be reminded that you are a part of something much bigger than yourself, something sacred.   In his most powerful book yet, Chan digs deep into biblical truth, reflects on his own failures and dreams, and shares stories of ordinary people God is using to change the world.   Chan says, “We’ve strayed so far from what God calls Church. We all know it. We know that what we’re experiencing is radically different from the Church in Scripture. For decades, church leaders like myself have lost sight of the inherent mystery of the Church. We have trained people sitting in the pews to become addicted to lesser things. It’s time for that to change.”   When Jesus returns, will He find us caring for His Bride—even more than for our own lives? Letters to the Church reminds us of how powerful, how glorious the Church once was … and calls us to once again be the Church God intended us to be.

    We arrive at this crossroads over and over again, and every day. And we get to choose. Starting out or starting over, making a career change or making a life change, the most life-affirming thing you can do is to honor the voice inside that says your have something special to give, and then heed the call and act. Many have traveled this road before. Here’s how you can, too. #choosemust An inspirational gift book for every recent graduate, every artist, every seeker, and every career change.

    

    --Francis Chan, New York Times bestselling author, Crazy Love and Forgotten GodHumans are hardwired for awe.Our hearts are always captured by something--that's how God made us. But sin threatens to distract us from the glory of our Creator. All too often, we stand in awe of everything but God.Uncovering the lies we believe about all the earthly things that promise us peace, life, and contentment, Paul Tripp redirects our gaze to God's awe-inducing glory--showing how such a vision has the potential to impact our every thought, word, and deed.

    Glenn Packiam wants to empower readers to find great joy, purpose, and passion in their daily living. While bread may be one of the most common items on our dinner tables, Jesus chose to take it at the Last Supper and invest deep, wonderful, and transcendent meaning in it. Like the bread that was blessed, broken, and given; readers will see how God uses ordinary experiences to cultivate their mission and their brokenness to bring healing to the world. The ordinary is not the enemy; it is the means by which God accomplishes the miraculous. Through clear biblical teaching and practical steps, Packiam leads the reader into a more purposeful, directed, hopeful future.

    His own faith was flagging, but Beck still believed the promise of Matthew 25, that when we visit the prisoner, we visit Jesus. And sure enough, God met him in prison.

    It invites us to cultivate the gift of waking up to the beauty of reality in all its glorious ordinariness. With his signature blend of contemplation, theology and pastoral sensitivity, Fr Richard Rohr creates a spaciousness for the soul to grow into a kind of seeing – one that goes far beyond merely looking, to recognizing and thus appreciating. This is the heart of contemplation, the centerpiece of any inner dialogue that frees us from the traps of our perceptions and preoccupations. The contemplative mind does not tell us what to see; it teaches us how to see what we behold. Praise for Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance:‘A beautiful choreography for a life well-lived.’Bono, U2

    But grace can.You already know because you’ve tried: repeated attempts to earn God’s love and approval get you nowhere and leave you exhausted. When performance taints our relationship with him, the Christian life can turn into an unholy hustle. It was never meant to be like this.In Saving the Saved, Pastor Bryan Loritts reveals the astonishing truth that God doesn’t want your spiritual scorekeeping. He simply wants your surrender. The punchline of the gospel of Matthew is just that—a message of grace and performance-free love to do-good, try-harder Jews who thought they had to earn their way into God’s favor. It’s an ancient message, yet it can be a lifeline to us today as we live in a world of performance metrics. Just as Matthew wrote to the Jews in his gospel, we were never meant to flounder under the pressures and anxieties of show Christianity. Make no mistake: we are called to live in obedience, but Jesus wants us to save us from the illusion that our actions can ever earn God’s acceptance of us.In Pastor Bryan’s relevant, uncompromising style, Saving the Saved proclaims the good news that once the pressure is off to perform, we are free to abide. Beyond the man-made rules and the red tape, there is a God who knows you by name. Come and meet him as you’ve never known him before.

    Sometimes the words on the pages seem so distant from reality. In this practical and accessible book, Matthew Harmon trains believers to ask the right questions when reading their Bibles so that they see how it can transform their lives--even the passages that at first glance might seem irrelevant or disconnected from the modern world. Harmon explains the overall structure of Scripture, highlighting techniques we can use when reading to make the connection between the text and our hearts, ensuring that God's Word has its intended effect: growing us in godliness.

    The one who went the extra mile to truly affect lives, whose lessons carried as much importance outside the classroom as inside. This book is a celebration of those teachers who continue to make an impact. A collection of stories from some of the country's top educators, this book is a celebration of teachers' work, and motivation for them to continue. Joseph Underwood has collected stories from each of the twenty-eight 2004 Disney Teacher™ of the Year honorees. And every story celebrates a different obstacle they overcame, the power and know-how needed to triumph, and the reward granted upon beating the odds. Today I Made a Difference is the perfect gift for anyone in or considering the profession.

    He points out how the struggles are temporary - whereas the blessings can be eternal.

    What happens next triggers a series of events leading inexplicably to the cells of Lancaster Gaol.Lancashire, 1612: The most notorious witchcraft trials in England are taking place.Among the accused, three generations of the same family. A family rooted in Pendle, tied to the infamous Malkin Towers and always followed by a whisper of evil. A family destroyed by the evidence given by a nine year old girl…

    Dever unfolds the biblical blueprint to find a leadership structure that blesses churches with peace, but doesn't buckle under the pressures of corporate life.

    Even Christians have a hard time stomaching such a thought, and many avoid reading those difficult Old Testament passages that make us squeamish. Instead, we quickly jump to the enemy-loving, forgiving Jesus of the New Testament. And yet, the question doesn't go away. Did God really command genocide? Is the command to "utterly destroy" morally unjustifiable? Is it literal? Are the issues more complex and nuanced than we realize?In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages. Pastors, youth pastors, campus ministers, apologetics readers, and laypeople will find that this book both enlightens and equips them for serious discussion of troubling spiritual questions.

    You don’t need to abandon your life to get it back. Begin restoring your life here and now. Your soul will thank you for it.