Filled with humorous insights and challenging ideas, The God Who Smokes imagines a twenty-first-century church where hope hangs with holiness, passion sits next to purity, and compassion can relate to character.

    His words are a strong reminder of what God, through his Holy Spirit, intends the church to be. . . . His work is an attempt to point us back to the Bible and reinvigorate our own vision of how the Spirit mobilizes the community of believers in the local church."" Wendy Murray Zoba, Associate Editor, Christianity Today "Gordon Fee, one of our truly master exegetes, has put steel and sinew into the words Spirit, spirit, and spiritual" words that have become flabby through subjectivizing indulgence and lack of exegetical exercise. His accurate, fresh, and passionate recovery of the place and meaning of Spirit in Paul and for us Christians is a provocative stimulus and reliable guide to the recovery of the experienced presence of God in our lives. For those of us who want to live in continuity with all that has been revealed in Jesus and given in the Spirit, this is an eminently practical book."" Eugene H. Peterson, James Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology, Regent College"Gordon Fee is one of the finest Bible expositors I have known. Whenever he speaks and writes, I listen, and recommend you do the same."" Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries

    But what about the goodness (and challenge) of living our 'normal' lives for God? Her meditations led her to give three brief lectures on 'Being Ordinary' that help us understand - theologically - why our ordinary lives are the only place where our faith can be lived out. A Theology of the Ordinary is associated with the Godspeed film and the livegodspeed movement.

    In his next book, Jim takes the reader along into the wide open spaces of exploring and experiencing God beyond religion. Jim writes, "It is no secret that God can be lost beneath the waving banner of religion. Divine Nobodies is my story of how this happened to me. Sometimes you have to disentangle God from religion, even Christ from Christianity, to find the truth. With the help of some unsuspecting nobodies, I uncovered a new starting line with God. As I've put one foot in front of another, I've experienced God in ways that are deeply transforming."Each chapter revolves around a central question related to knowing God on fresh terms: Is God a belief system? Is the Bible a landing strip or launching pad? Can what we're feeling inside be God? Are we too religiously minded to be any earthly good?Brian McLaren wrote, "I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Don Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice."The Library Reviews said of him, "Jim Palmer's casual, yet compelling writing style cuts through the religious rhetoric and gets to the real issues…readers will love this author! His sense of humor is alternately mixed with shocking sentences and poignant moments. Laced throughout is a refreshing honesty that ties his ideas together with a ribbon of reality…each turn of the page strips away a little more of the contrived mystery of Christianity until the simplicity and sincerity of it stands in realistic splendor."More and more people seek a deeper spirituality beyond status-quo religion. Others are left empty and weary from a shallow and narrow pop-Christianity. Palmer says that God's kingdom of love, peace, and freedom can be a present reality in any person's life. He proclaims that God is indeed in the process of birthing something deep and wide among unlikely people in unconventional ways, which is changing the world...one "nobody" at a time.

    Greig asks the timeless questions of what it means to suffer and to pray and to suffer through the silence because your prayers seem unanswered. This silence, Greig relates, is the hardest thing. The world collapses. Then all goes quiet. Words can’t explain, don’t fit, won’t work. People avoid you and don’t know what to say. So you turn to Him and you pray. You need Him more than ever before. But somehow…even God Himself seems on mute.In this heart-searching, honest and deeply profound book, Pete Greig looks at the hard side of prayer, how to respond when there seem to be no answers and how to cope with those who seek to interpret our experience for us. Here is a story of faith, hope and love beyond all understanding.

    The apostle Paul found that spiritual closeness in his own fellowship with the Father. "A Call to Spiritual Reformation" investigates the Epistles, claiming that Christians today can still achieve the confidence Paul enjoyed by following his life-shaping principles and searching for a deeper devotional experience. (67)

    I don't much like going. So, what now?"What's happening to the Church? Why are so many people who for decades have been faithful, steady churchgoers (and others who want to start going to church but can't seem to find one that meets their needs) losing interest in even attending church, let alone getting involved? What is fundamentally wrong with the "types" of churches (Seeker, Bible, Emergent, Liberal, Evangelical) that dot the religious landscape? Larry Crabb believes it is time to rethink the entire foundation and focus of what we know today as church -- everything we're doing and are wanting to see happen. In his most honest and vulnerable book to date, the author reveals his own struggles in this area and then offers a compelling vision of why God designed us to live in community with Him and others, and what the church he wants to be a part of looks like."

    Unsurprisingly, this fact is as old as time--and that's why we see so many prayer circles within a multitude of church traditions. These gatherings are a trusted space where people seek help, hope, and peace, energized by God and one another.This book, curated by acclaimed author Sarah Bessey, celebrates and honors that prayerful tradition in a literary form. A companion for daily inspiration, this collection gives women permission to recognize the weight of all they carry, while also offering a broadened imagination of hope--of what can be restored and made new. Each prayer is an original piece of writing, with a short introduction from Bessey sharing exactly why she loves and looks up to the writer.This book is a literary hug, an invitation for respite, and a chance for readers to pause and celebrate who they are, beyond what they do.

    Ignatius of Loyola is the core work of religious formation for members of the Society of Jesus, the single largest religious order within the Roman Catholic Church. For four and a half centuries  in many thousands of editions in all languages, The Exercises have embodied fundamental spiritual principles essential to authentic Christian living. The mystical insight informing Ignatius's own relationship with God--which he distilled in The Exercises--is that the divine love of God is providentially present in all the details of our existence. Here Ignatius shows how the faithful can be joined to God in all things, according to the Jesuit motto, Ad majorem Dei gloriam, "For the greater glory of God."

    To understand these two words as they are used in Scripture is to understand the gospel. This book focuses on nine of the most important appearances of this key phrase, drawing in numerous other passages of Scripture and in the process unfolding the magnificent drama of God's sovereign grace-from his mercy on Noah to our security in a resurrected Savior. Taken together, this collection of brief Bible expositions provides a big-picture overview of the consistent way in which God has chosen to save sinners. It has always been by his might, his power, his grace, and his initiative. James Montgomery Boice wrote that "If you understand those two words-'but God'-they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life completely."

    Ebola, the economy, our kids, our parents, our future. We struggle to pull our thoughts away from our worries, fears, and frustrations. When we get stuck, it's not exactly easy to fixate on “whatever is true, noble, right and pure.” We are profoundly aware that our worries have negative consequences for our bodies, minds, and relationships. But like most real people with real problems, our thoughts keep swirling around the same old issues.Mindscape builds a practical action plan for changing your mental landscape—and your life—based on Paul’s rich exhortation in Philippians 4:8. Author Tim Witmer draws from thirty years of experience in helping worried people apply Scripture to their lives to present a clear, biblical, and deeply pastoral guide to replacing worry with a new way of thinking.Mindscape is not a self-help book or an academic tome on behavioral theory. It is a real-world guide to the transformation that Jesus works in us as we go to him in faith and ask for his power to change, to listen, and to think differently. Chapter-by-chapter application questions make Mindscape perfect for personal reflection or small group use.

    What keeps us from truly following Jesus is that our hearts are pursuing something or someone else.  While these pursuits may not be the “graven images” of old, they are in fact modern day idols.  Behind the sin you’re struggling with, the discouragement you’re dealing with, the lack of purpose you’re living with is a false god that is winning the war for your heart. According to Idleman, idolatry isn’t an issue—it is the issue. By asking insightful questions, Idleman reveals which false gods each of us are allowing on the throne of our lives.  What do you sacrifice for?  What makes you mad?  What do you worry about? Whose applause do you long for?  We’re all wired for worship, but we often end up valuing and honoring the idols of money, sex, food, romance, success and many others that keep us from the intimate relationship with God that we desire. Using true, powerful and honest testimonies of those who have struggled in each area, gods at war illustrates a clear path away from the heartache of our 21st century idolatry back to the heart of God – enabling us to truly be completely committed followers of Jesus.

    The focus is the community of grace, the Christian church. The point of departure is the thought of the first Baptist, John Smyth, and the notion of church as "gathered community" that he shared with Radical Reformers.Volf seeks to counter the tendencies toward individualism in Protestant ecclesiology and to suggest a viable understanding of the church in which both person and community are given their proper due. In the process he engages in a sustained and critical ecumenical dialogue with the Catholic and Orthodox ecclesiologies of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and the metropolitan John Zizioulas. The result is a brilliant ecumenical study that spells out a vision of the church as an image of the triune God.

    Grace.. It's a word we all love to hear. But do we all know what it means? Without it, our lives are dry and dusty. But when grace comes, it transforms our lives into something rich and beautiful. With remarkable insight gleaned from his own life, Pastor Chuck Smith unfolds the mystery of grace and reveals the surprising truth: We can never grow in grace by our own efforts. True grace flows from the heart of the Father through the love of Jesus Christ. To know that God is for you, that He loves you, is the greatest source of security you will ever know. That is grace-and that is what makes life worth living.

    A highly respected Christian leader and ecumenical figure, Newbigin provides a brilliant analysis of contemporary (secular, humanist, pluralist) culture and suggests how Christians can more confidently affirm their faith in such a context.While drawing from scholars such as Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre, Hendrikus Berkhof, Walter Wink, and Robert Wuthnow, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society is suited not only to an academic readership. This heartfelt work by a missionary pastor and preacher also offers to Christian leaders and laypeople some thoughtful, helpful, and provocative reflections.