The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism


Harry S. Stout - 1991
    Harry Stout draws on a number of sources, including the newspapers of Whitefield's day, to outline his subject's spectacular career as a public figure. Although Whitefield here emerges as very much a modern figures, given to shameless self-promotion and extravagant theatricality, Stout also shows that he was from first to last a Calvinist, earnest in his support of orthodox theological tenets and sincere in his concern for the spiritual welfare of the thousands to whom he preached.

America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation


Grant Wacker - 2014
    How did a lanky farm kid from North Carolina become an evangelist hailed by the media as "America's pastor"? Why did listeners young and old pour out their grief and loneliness in letters to a man they knew only through televised "Crusades" in faraway places like Madison Square Garden? More than a conventional biography, Grant Wacker's interpretive study deepens our understanding of why Billy Graham has mattered so much to so many.Beginning with tent revivals in the 1940s, Graham transformed his born-again theology into a moral vocabulary capturing the fears and aspirations of average Americans. He possessed an uncanny ability to appropriate trends in the wider culture and engaged boldly with the most significant developments of his time, from communism and nuclear threat to poverty and civil rights. The enduring meaning of his career, in Wacker's analysis, lies at the intersection of Graham's own creative agency and the forces shaping modern America.Wacker paints a richly textured portrait: a self-deprecating servant of God and self-promoting media mogul, a simple family man and confidant of presidents, a plainspoken preacher and the "Protestant pope." America's Pastor reveals how this Southern fundamentalist grew, fitfully, into a capacious figure at the center of spiritual life for millions of Christians around the world.

Augustine of Hippo: A Life


Henry Chadwick - 2009
    His words are still frequently quoted in devotions today and his key themes retain a striking contemporary relevance--what is the place of the Church in the world? What is the relation between nature and grace? In Augustine of Hippo, the late Henry Chadwick--a renowned authority on Augustine--describes with clarity and warmth the intellectual development of this key Father of the Church. In his characteristically rigorous yet sympathetic style, Chadwick traces Augustine's intellectual journey from schoolboy and student to Bishop and champion of Christendom in a period of intense political upheaval, providing valuable insight into the progression of Augustine's ideas. With a foreword reflecting on Chadwick's distinctive approach to Augustine by Peter Brown, and a further reading list on Augustine compiled by Gillian Clark, this volume is both an essential assessment of Augustine and a final tribute to one of the great church historians of the twentieth century.

John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides


John G. Paton - 1889
    Paton, who introduced the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the cannibalistic inhabitants of the New Hebrides in the mid-nineteenth century.

101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns


Kenneth W. Osbeck - 1981
    Excellent for devotional reading, sermon illustrations, and bulletin inserts, as well as for historical or biographical research.

While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement


Carolyn Maull McKinstry - 2011
    Fourteen-year-old Carolyn Maull was just a few feet away when the bomb exploded, killing four of her friends in the girls' rest room she had just exited. It was one of the seminal moments in the Civil Rights movement, a sad day in American history . . . and the turning point in a young girl's life. While the World Watched is a poignant and gripping eyewitness account of life in the Jim Crow South - from the bombings, riots and assassinations to the historic marches and triumphs that characterized the Civil Rights movement. A uniquely moving exploration of how racial relations have evolved over the past 5 decades, While the World Watched is an incredible testament to how far we've come and how far we have yet to go.

A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph


Sheldon Vanauken - 1977
    S. Lewis, and a spiritual strength that sustained Vanauken after his wife's untimely death. Replete with 18 letters from C.S. Lewis, A Severe Mercy addresses some of the universal questions that surround faith--the existence of God and the reasons behind tragedy.

Miracles: A Journalist Looks at Modern Day Experiences of God's Power


Tim Stafford - 2012
    Miracles are fascinating, but what can you believe? In this careful, thoughtful exploration, an award-winning "Christianity Today" journalist offers straightforward answers on miraculous events today.

To Live Is Christ to Die Is Gain


Matt Chandler - 2013
    While many give their lives to Jesus, few then go on to live a life of truly vibrant faith. In this disruptively inspiring book, Chandler offers tangible ways to develop a faith of pursuing, chasing, knowing, and loving Jesus. Because if we clean up our lives but don't get Jesus, we've lost! So let the goal be Him. To live is Christ, to die is gain—this is the message of the letter. Therefore, our lives should be lived to Him, through Him, for Him, with Him, about Him—everything should be about Jesus.

Growing Up Amish


Ira Wagler - 2011
    At seventeen, in the dark of night, he left the religious settlement, but it was only nine years later that he finally left the church for good. His favorite Bible verse is from Psalm 34: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." In this new memoir, he tells what it was like growing up Old World Amish and what it felt like leaving it for a strange new world. Far more than picturesque; Growing Up Amish conveys one man's heartfelt experience.

Jonathan Edwards Lover of God


Owen Strachan - 2010
    A great philosopher, a great preacher, a great theologian. Edwards was a complex and gifted person, one who defies easy characterization. He intimidates us, and we distance ourselves from him because at the most fundamental level, he’s just not like us.It is of course true that Jonathan Edwards was a combination of many rare things: an exceptional intellectual, a masterly preacher, a cavernous theologian, a devoted husband and father, a college president, and much more. But all of these roles flowed out of one simple and essential reality: Jonathan Edwards was a Christian. He was a believer who followed Jesus Christ in repentant faith. He loved God, and he sought to live for Him.This book celebrates the unique life and ministry of Jonathan Edwards. It peels back the cover of his life, to show us what a life devoted to our sovereign Lord can look like. It causes us to use our own God-given gifts for the salvation of sinners, the strengthening of God’s church, and the glory of God. You do not need to be a scholar to enjoy and benefit from the story and rich lessons about Edwards' life.

A Prayer Journal


Flannery O'Connor - 2013
    "There is a whole sensible world around me that I should be able to turn to Your praise." Written between 1946 and 1947 while O'Connor was a student far from home at the University of Iowa, A Prayer Journal is a rare portal into the interior life of the great writer. Not only does it map O'Connor's singular relationship with the divine, but it shows how entwined her literary desire was with her yearning for God. "I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic frippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftsmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually . . . I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God please help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You."O'Connor could not be more plain about her literary ambition: "Please help me dear God to be a good writer and to get something else accepted," she writes. Yet she struggles with any trace of self-regard: "Don't let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story."As W. A. Sessions, who knew O'Connor, writes in his introduction, it was no coincidence that she began writing the stories that would become her first novel, Wise Blood, during the years when she wrote these singularly imaginative Christian meditations. Including a facsimile of the entire journal in O'Connor's own hand, A Prayer Journal is the record of a brilliant young woman's coming-of-age, a cry from the heart for love, grace, and art.

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers


Maria Augusta von Trapp - 1949
    But much about the real-life woman and her family was left untold.Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.Now with photographs from the original edition.

Church Zero: Raising 1st Century Churches out of the Ashes of the 21st Century Church


Peyton Jones - 2013
    What happened to the Western church? Why are we losing the generation under thirty and reaching so few nonbelievers? In Church Zero, Peyton Jones examines one of our biggest problems: squeezing our leaders into a mold that cuts their hair and drains away their commando strength. Scripture lays out a leadership model that worked explosively in the first century. When properly understood, Christ’s model can help your church live the way it was meant to live, truly making a difference in your community. Church Zero gives the blueprints for how the Western church might start rebuilding from the ground up. What would tomorrow look like if we had to restart from a biblical ground zero? Church Zero will help us once again become a radical, dangerous people who cannot be ignored.

Choosing to SEE


Mary Beth Chapman - 2010
    Together they began Show Hope, a nonprofit organization dedicated to caring for the world's most vulnerable children by providing financial assistance to families wishing to adopt, as well as increasing awareness of the orphan crisis and funneling resources to orphans domestically and internationally. Mary Beth serves as president of Show Hope and is a speaker for Women of Faith 2010 with her husband. She is also coauthor with Steven of the Shaoey and Dot series of children's picture books. Mary Beth and Steven have six children: Emily, Caleb, Will Franklin, and adopted daughters Shaohannah Hope, Stevey Joy, and Maria Sue, who is now with Jesus. The Chapmans live in Tennessee.www.MaryBethChapman.comEllen Vaughn is a bestselling author and inspirational speaker. Her recent books include It's All About Him with Denise Jackson (wife of Alan Jackson), which debuted at #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list. She is also coauthor with Chuck Colson of Being the Body. In addition to her nonfiction work, Vaughn is an award-winning novelist. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband, Lee.