2017 ECPA Christian Book Award Finalist (Faith and Culture category) Is real friendship too risky? We live in a world where real friendship is hard to find. Suspicious of others and insecure about ourselves, we retreat into the safety of our small, self-made worlds. Now more than ever, it’s easy to avoid people with whom we disagree or whose life experiences don’t mirror our own. Safe among like-minded peers and digital “friends,” we really don’t have to engage with those who can challenge and enhance our limited perspectives. Tragically, even the church can become a place that minimizes diversity and reinforces isolation. Jesus models a much richer vision of friendship. Scott Sauls, pastor and teacher, invites you to see the breadth of Christ’s love in this book, BeFriend. Join Scott on this journey through twenty-one meditations to inspire actively pursuing God’s love through expanding your circle of friends. Scott has met too many people whose first impulse is to fence off their lives with relational barriers that only end up starving their own souls. Yes, it’s true: Real friendship is costly. Love does make us vulnerable. But without risk, our lives will remain impoverished. Join Scott in BeFriend as he summons you toward diverse friendship that can enrich your life and, in the process, reveal a better version of yourself.

A user-friendly volume that will allow busy people to squeeze in some time for a self-guided retreat on a much needed topic: befriending God, yourself and others.

In Befriending the Stranger, Jean Vanier reflects on who we are and how we build our communities, and in particular asks, can we be truly compassionate towards others if we are not compassionate towards ourselves? In a series of six meditative pieces, he opens up God's invitation to us today, in the midst of all the violence and corruption of the world, to create new places of belonging and sharing, of peace and kindness, where each one is loved and accepted with one's own fragility, abilities, and disabilities. +

How nations move from war to peace Is the world destined to suffer endless cycles of conflict and war? Can rival nations become partners and establish a lasting and stable peace? How Enemies Become Friends provides a bold and innovative account of how nations escape geopolitical competition and replace hostility with friendship. Through compelling analysis and rich historical examples that span the globe and range from the thirteenth century through the present, foreign policy expert Charles Kupchan explores how adversaries can transform enmity into amity—and he exposes prevalent myths about the causes of peace. Kupchan contends that diplomatic engagement with rivals, far from being appeasement, is critical to rapprochement between adversaries. Diplomacy, not economic interdependence, is the currency of peace; concessions and strategic accommodation promote the mutual trust needed to build an international society. The nature of regimes matters much less than commonly thought: countries, including the United States, should deal with other states based on their foreign policy behavior rather than on whether they are democracies. Kupchan demonstrates that similar social orders and similar ethnicities, races, or religions help nations achieve stable peace. He considers many historical successes and failures, including the onset of friendship between the United States and Great Britain in the early twentieth century, the Concert of Europe, which preserved peace after 1815 but collapsed following revolutions in 1848, and the remarkably close partnership of the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s, which descended into open rivalry by the 1960s. In a world where conflict among nations seems inescapable, How Enemies Become Friends offers critical insights for building lasting peace.

You can go after the job you want…and get it! You can take the job you have…and improve it! You can take any situation you’re in…and make it work for you! Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie’s first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age. Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.

Through the words of Henri Nouwen, this is an inspiring and life-transforming guide to the ultimate mystery of human existence. O'Rourke concentrates on Nouwen's reflections on death and dying.

This mirror for princes sheds light on the relationship between spiritual and political authority in early modern Egypt This guide to political behavior and expediency offers advice to Sufi shaykhs, or spiritual guides, on how to interact and negotiate with powerful secular officials, judges, and treasurers, or emirs. Translated into English for the first time, it is a unique account of the relationship between spiritual and political authority in late medieval / early modern Islamic society.