But God can become present to us in surprising ways through our everyday routines. Framed around one ordinary day, this book explores daily life through the lens of liturgy, small practices and habits that form us. Each chapter looks at something making the bed, brushing her teeth, losing her keys that the author does in the day. Drawing from the diversity of her life as a campus minister, Anglican priest, friend, wife, and mother, Tish Harrison Warren opens up a practical theology of the everyday. Each activity is related to a spiritual practice as well as an aspect of our Sunday worship. Come and discover the holiness of your every day."

    In this work Fr Schmemann defines liturgical theology, noting especially its progress beyond "liturgics."

    He calls this third way practice-based faith.This book is about loving one's faith tradition and, at the same time, following the call to something deeper and richer. By adopting some new spiritual practices, it is possible to learn to swim again with a renewed sense of vigor and divine purpose.

    After a whirlwind courtship, a move across the world, and the unexpectedly difficult re-entry from a year overseas, Leeana finds her life (and her soul) has been changed forever.With an artist’s eye, Tankersley uses each chapter to piece together moments and memories from her journey—a handwritten note from Kuwait, a braid of fringe from a Persian rug, an original poem, a bit of basting thread, a swatch of black silk from a borrowed abaya, a mesquite leaf, a Navy SEAL trident, a receipt from the Russian-Georgian restaurant on Louisiana Street—to create a work of unexpected beauty.Found art emerges … a literary collage created from salvaged stories of loss, hope, and belief that just might change your soul, too.

    On that, we can all agree. Disappointed dreams, broken relationships, identity crises, vocational hang-ups, wounds from the past—there are so many ways life can send us crashing up against the rocks.In this deeply personal book, Jonathan Martin draws from his own stories of failure and loss to find the love that can only be discovered on the bottom. How to Survive a Shipwreck is an invitation to trust the goodness of God and the resilience of your soul. Jonathan’s clarion call is this: No matter how hard you’ve fallen, no matter how much you’ve been hurt, help is on the way—just when you need it most.With visionary artistry and pastoral wisdom, Jonathan Martin reveals what we’ll need to make it through those uncharted waters, how we can use these defining experiences to live out of our depths, and why it will then become impossible to go back to the half-life we once lived.

    S. Lewis's faith and writing. Shows the influence on Lewis by mystical writers of his own day and threads of mysticism evident in Lewis's works, including the Space Trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia. Offers Lewis's critique of false mysticism. Written by an award-winning author and Lewis scholar.

    

    In reading it, we discover that we are never alone in our joys, sorrows, angers, doubts, praises, or thanksgivings. In it, we learn about prayer and poetry, honesty and community, justice and enemies, life and death, nations and creation. Open and Unafraid shows us how to read the psalms in a fresh, life-giving way, and so access the bottomless resources for life that they provide."David Taylor’s take is 'open and unafraid' alright. He really goes there, exposing himself before God in the most beautiful way. He might have called the book Naked, because if you don’t find your own self feeling a little exposed here, it might be time to take some armor off."  -- Bono, from the Afterword"A book that you will want to read and read again, and yet again, in order to discover the wisdom of the Psalms that shows us how to walk in the life-giving way of Jesus." -- Eugene Peterson, from the Foreword"A winsome, accessible entry into the Book of Psalms…Connects the poetry of the psalms to real-life wonders and struggles." -- Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary"Taylor reads these biblical prayers with Dr. Seuss, rappers, and other poets, along with theologians and the daily news....Guides readers in tracing out patterns of holy speech that have the potential for healing our hearts and our communities." -- Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School"I have always loved the psalms--for their defiant devotion, their deep joy, and their brutal yet beautiful honesty. And after reading this fantastic book about them, I love them even more." -- Matt Redman, worship leader and song writer"In these fraught and fearsome days, we need the psalms more than ever. And we need more faithful artists and thinkers like David Taylor to mine the infinite gifts the psalms offer across the ages." -- Karen Swallow Prior, author of Fierce Convictions

    We want faith to act like an orderly set of truth-claims designed to solve the problems and pain that life throws at us. With signature candor and depth, Jen Pollock Michel helps readers imagine a Christian faith open to mystery. While there are certainties in Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian story is also paradox. Jesus invites us to abandon the polarities of either and or in order to embrace the difficult, wondrous dissonance of and. The incarnation―the paradox of God made human―teaches us to look for God in the and of body and spirit, heaven and earth. In the kingdom, God often hides in plain sight and announces his triumph on the back of a donkey. In the paradox of grace, we receive life eternal by actively participating in death. And lament, with its clear-eyed appraisal of suffering alongside its commitment to finding audience with God, is a paradoxical practice of faith. Each of these themes give us certainty about God while also leading us into greater curiosity about his nature and activity in the world. As Michel writes, "As soon as we think we have God figured out, we will have ceased to worship him as he is." With personal stories and reflection on Scripture, literature, and culture, Michel takes us deeper into mystery and into worship of the One who is Mystery and Love.

    • Remove the problems from your life • Increase the power of your faith In life, day-to-day problems come to us all, but if our faith is weak, even small problems can quickly grow to appear bigger than they really are. Doubt and worry are the most destructive forms of fear; they can cloud your vision blinding you from the truth. A mountain of doubt can cripple your life. Like a rabbit in headlights, you close your eyes and freeze, hoping the problem has gone away when you have opened them. When it remains, you can be left dazed and confused not knowing what way to turn. All rational thought goes out the window. In a panic to get things back to the way they were; you can make all the wrong decisions No one likes change, but it is much easier when you come from a place of strength; when it originates from a place of faith, and not fear. Faith is like a muscle; like any muscle, it needs to be consistently exercised to have maximum power. When all is going smoothly, our faith can be easily neglected, although this is when we must maintain its strength. If you were asked to run a marathon tomorrow, unless you had put in the training, you might not even reach the half way point. How then can you expect to have the faith to remove the problems from your life, without first, developing a level of faith in which to do so? In this book, I would like to share with you methods to increase your faith and keep it at its highest level; so you are prepared for any problem of difficulties that may come into your path. Enclosed are stories, scriptures references and many of the strongest parables Jesus used; to empower your life. You will gain an insight into what is possible when you increase the power of your faith. I welcome you to let the words within these pages wash over you so that you begin to see the mountains that may stand before you from a different perspective. When you begin to apply what you will learn; the mountains in your life will soon become level ground. Change your life today so that tomorrow will be a better day.

    

    --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.

    Repeatedly. In this humorous and honest memoir, Ted Kluck—father, writer, and sports fan—details his adoption of his two sons from Ukraine. While not always self-flattering, his complaints and struggles will provoke laughter, some fear, and self-examination.In the first part of his memoir, Ted reveals the chaos the Kluck’s first international adoption, the adoption of his son Tristan. He includes stories of:Loads of paperwork, inspections, and prayer in the United StatesTraveling to Ukraine with tens of thousands of dollars in cash tucked in his beltUnexpected waitsConsuming uncountable numbers of Snickers bars and sodaSickness while still in UkraineLetters written to his soon-to-be sonGod’s unending faithfulness and reflections on His adoption of believersIn the second part of his memoir—the story of Kluck’s second international adoption—new struggles arise, causing Ted to process with his readers:Infertility—in a church full of pregnant women and large familiesStruggling in silenceTravel, againMissing the comfort of the United StatesA small amount of electrocution—the result of foreign electrical engineeringSpiritual depression and struggle to provide for his familyComplaint and trusting that God’s provision is sufficientThe blessing of the body of ChristIn each section of Ted’s memoir, you will feel deeply, laugh out loud, and learn. Whether you’re an adoptive parent, seeking to be an adoptive parent, or unmarried, you will enjoy and appreciate Ted’s humorous and honest stories of his adventures in adoptive fatherhood.“While Hello, I Love You is about the stories of two adoptions,in reality, the stories serve to show the trustworthiness of God despite impossible circumstances and the need to find contentment in his providential care.”-Book review by John Starke on The Gospel Coalition An Excerpt from the Book’s Introduction:            This book began as a journal—some spiral-bound notebooks that came with me to Ukraine the first time, and which contained letters that I wrote to Tristan during the experience. In the first half of the book, it reads like I’m addressing Tristan directly, while the second half is a more straightforward narrative of Dima’s adoption. They’re both love letters to my boys, and the whole thing is a love letter to Kristin, my wife.            You’ll also notice lots of frank, often sarcastic prose about cultural differences—usually with the author as the punch line, as it was my inability to deal with these differences that provided a lot of humor (in retrospect) and anger (at the time).            There’s also some tough content regarding infertility. If this is something you’ve struggled with in your marriage, I hope this chapter encourages you, and I hope you feel less alone in your struggle. If you’ve been blessed with biological children, please don’t feel guilty for having them, or in any way judged or made fun of by the observations in that chapter (see also: It not being you, but me).            Finally, the book contains lots of stories of God’s faithfulness—stories that we thought were too meaningful not to be told. Little “piles of stones” along the way that remind us of God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness. We hope that you’ll read them and not only be entertained, but be motivated to think of Christ and our adoption as His sons and daughters. It is only the love of Christ, and our hope in Him, that got us through the first, the most difficult adoption in the history of our agency’s work with Ukraine, then infertility, and finally a second adoption. And it was these adoptions, more than any other events or events in our lives, that truly taught us to find our peace, comfort, and identity in Christ.

    "Victory in Jesus: The Bright Hope of Postmillennialism" offers a sober and faithful examination of Scripture while clearly demonstrating that Christians have every reason to expect the victory of Jesus and the triumph of the gospel as the Great Commission is fulfilled on earth.

    Our culture teaches that bigger is better--and that includes church ministry and preaching, too. But what if rather than swinging for the fences, preachers focused on improving their sermons through small habits, practices, and exercises? What if smaller is better?In a world where "small" isn't always celebrated, Jonathan T. Pennington provides Small Preaching, a short book of simple tips that can have revolutionary effects over time. Pennington offers preachers 25 words of wisdom that will help shape their preaching for the better.