When you release these thoughts, instead of letting them dictate your experience, you become empowered to live a life of joy--in touch with your true nature.       Make the choice to change your thoughts to bring about inner peace and true happiness. In this powerful CD program, two life-changing teachers show you the way.

    We should not be satisfied with being almost Christian but rather strive towards being altogether a Christian.In Almost Christmas: A Wesleyan Advent Experience, author and pastor Magrey deVega leads a group of authors to explore how we can make the same commitment to Christ during Advent, connecting our Wesleyan heritage with the traditional Advent themes of Love, Hope, Joy, and Peace.In this book, perfect for Advent, deVega and the other authors break down the barriers that prevent us from experiencing an “altogether” love, hope, joy, and peace in Christ in our lives and in the world around us. They demonstrate the promises God offers to us that makes those longings a reality, inviting us to claim those promises for ourselves this Advent and celebrate an altogether Christmas.Chapters include: Altogether Love Altogether Hope Altogether Joy Altogether Peace Additional components for a four-week study include a DVD featuring Magrey deVega and the other writers and a comprehensive Leader Guide, as well as nativity hymns by Charles Wesley, litanies for lighting the Advent wreath, and prayers that can be incorporated into both worship and small group settings. A daily devotional and a youth study book are also available.

    The Practice of Saying No will appeal to anyone seeking more meaning and spirituality in their everyday lives. Barbara Brown Taylor, acclaimed author of Leaving Church and An Altar in the World (from which this eSelect is taken), writes with the honesty of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and the spiritual depth of Anne Lamott (Grace, Eventually) and reveals how to encounter the sacred as a natural part of everyday life.

    You may think of this group as millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—but millennials resist this label for good reason: the national narrative on them is pejorative, patronizing, and just plain wrong.Here's what we do know: Of Americans with a church background, 76 percent are described as "religious nones" or unaffiliated—and it's the fastest growing segment of the population. Close to 40 percent of millennials fit this religious profile. Roughly 80 percent of teens in evangelical church high school youth groups will abandon their faith after two years in college. It's unlikely that the evangelical church can survive if it is uniformly rejected by millennials, and yet: Millennial pastors and youth ministers are disempowered; their perspective is often not taken seriously by senior church leadership. Most millennial research is framed in categories rejected by millennials; that is, left-brained, analytical communication is lost on right-brained, intuitive millennials. Evangelicals' bias toward rational left-brained thinking makes the church seem tone-deaf. What's next? Read on. John Seel suggests survival strategies—communication on-ramps for genuine human connection with the next generation. It can be done.

     Bob Farr asserts that to change the world, we must first change the Church. As Adam Hamilton says in the Foreword, "Read [this book] carefully with other leaders in your church. . . . You'll soon discover both a desire to renovate your church and the tools to effectively lead your church forward." If we want to join Robert Schnase and claim radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity, we must also engage pastors and motivate churches. We must renovate and overhaul our churches and not merely redecorate and tinker with our church structure. With straightforward language and practical tips, this book will inspire and help you organize your church for new life on the mission field. Learn how to grow your church and discover the commitments that denominational leaders must make to guarantee the fruitfulness of local congregations.

    In this daily, personal guide Steven leads you deeper into Scripture as you begin to live the life God created and saved us for. Over the next forty days, you’ll have the opportunity to see what audacious faith can look like in your own life. Through daily scripture readings and teachings, this book will give you the chance to change your perspective on prayer. If you have the ability to ask, God has the ability to act - and transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. In this devotional, you will learn daily how to develop your faith, walk in the confidence of Christ, and dare to believe God for the impossible.

    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."

    It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."To Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, so much of how we have learned to experience and understand the faith has been divorced from the overarching adventure inherent in our God and in our calling. This book is a corrective to the dull, adventureless, risk-free phenomenon that describes so much of contemporary Christianity. It explores the nature of adventure, risk, and courage and the implications for church, discipleship, spirituality, and leadership.

    Quite often, leaders don't sense the toxicity, but it poisons their relationships and derails their vision. This work describes five easily identifiable categories of church culture (inspiring-accepting-stagnant-discouraging-toxic), with diagnostic descriptions in the book and a separate online assessment tool. The reader will be able to identify strengths and needs of their church's culture, and then apply practical strategies (communication, control and authority, selection and placement of personnel, etc.) to make their church's culture more positive.Discusses how to diagnose the state of a church's culture Reveals what it takes to put in place effective strategies for creating a more positive church culture Author served on the board of EQUIP (Dr. John Maxwell's Ministry), equipping five million leaders world-wide. This important book offers a clear guide for understanding and recreating a healthy church culture.

    This book helps readers match who they are--their unique spiritual gifts, passions, temperament, talents, and leadership style--with the ministry area for which God designed them. A practical guide, it takes dedicated Christians step by step through the process of reaching their full potential for Christ's kingdom. This new edition of Maximizing Your Effectiveness puts multiple tools, inventories, and worksheets in the hands of readers to empower them to minister according to God's unique design and purpose for their lives.

    Encourages and equips those in authority to master self-leadership principles and realize their full leadership potential.

    Houston desires that each of his readers come to know the cause of Christ. His Cause, he says, is the key that opens us to new places of vision, passion, strength, and reason for living.

    Too many remain in denial about the severity of pastoral stress, even as they are deteriorating emotionally and physically.Drawing from biblical, theological, and sociological sources as well as personal experience, author Kirk Jones discusses the fundamental importance of self-care for clergy and other professionals engaged in helping people. Filled with creative and practical strategies for integrating self-care into vocational life, this compelling resource identifies the factors that influence overload and outlines plausible strategies for escaping such bondage. Rest in the Storm is a lifeline for caregivers who feel overwhelmed by the demands of their calling or profession.

    Purpose Driven® Youth Ministry will do for youth ministry what Rick Warren's Gold Medallion award-winning, The Purpose Driven® Church is doing for pastoral ministry. It's an indispensable guide to creating and maintaining youth ministry for the long run. It will help you create a solid spiritual team that builds the foundations of the Christian faith into the hearts and lives of young people. Forged around the fundamental purposes of evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, and worship, Purpose Driven® Youth Ministry uses the experiences of Saddleback Church to illustrate what a healthy Youth ministry can be. Nine transferable principles help you - Connect with the power of God for passionate, committed leadership - Define the purpose of your ministry and communicate it effectively - Identify your potential audience - Create programs that reach your audience and fulfill God's purposes - Implement processes that move students to maturity - Enhance your ministry with clearly defined values - Team up with parents to involve the whole family - Find volunteers and develop them into participating leaders - Persevere through tough times and thrive in an ever-changing environment. Balancing both theory and practice, Purpose Driven® Youth Ministry can be applied to any church setting, regardless of size, denomination, facilities, resources, and existing leadership. Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry will help you develop a ministry that equips students rather than a ministry that coordinates events. Doug Fields says, "My goal for this book is to coach you through a plan to build a healthy youth ministry that isn't dependent on one great youth leader and won't be destroyed when the youth worker leaves the church. It's not a book on how to grow your youth ministry with six easy steps; it's about identifying, establishing, and building health into your church's youth ministry.

    God expects preachers to prepare sermons as much as possible and allow Him to prepare the preachers. Join Dr. Jerry Vines and Dr. Jim Shaddix as they achieve a balanced approach to sermon preparation in Power in the Pulpit. This book combines the essential perspectives of a pastor of forty years with another who devotes daily time to training pastors in the context of theological education. Power in the Pulpit is practical preaching instruction in line with a tradition that sees expository preaching as a paramount and frequent event in the life of the local church. Power in the Pulpit is the combined work of Dr. Vines's two earlier publications on preaching: A Practical Guide to Sermon Preparation (Moody Publishers, 1985) and A Guide to Effective Sermon Delivery (Moody Publishers, 1986). Dr. Shaddix carefully organizes and supplements the material to offer this useful resource, which closes the gap between classroom theory and what a pastor actually experiences in his weekly sermon preparation.