How does life in each room of your home manifest the Gospel? The Christian gospel isn't just a spiritual reality. The Word became flesh and bone, and the gospel becomes our porch, dining room, bedroom, and kitchen. The driving desire of the gospel is "my life for yours." Our desire should be to have this love tranform everything we do, room by room. This book works its way through every part of the house, examining each part in light of Scripture. The claims of God are always total, and this is evident on the doorposts and in a sink full of dishes. Self-centeredness destroys in monotonously similar ways. Giving up life for another produces a harvest of kindness and mercy. Household questions should always begin with, "is this my life for yours?"

What did it mean for ordinary believers to live a Christian life in late antiquity? In Christians at Home, Blake Leyerle explores this question through the writings, teachings, and reception of John Chrysostom—a priest of Antioch who went on to become the bishop of Constantinople in AD 397. Through elaborate spatial and ritual recommendations, Chrysostom advised listeners to turn their houses into churches. Influenced by New Testament descriptions of the Pauline communities, he preached that prayer and chant, scriptural discussion and hospitality, and even domestic furnishings would have a transformational effect on a home’s inhabitants. But as Leyerle shows, Chrysostom’s lay listeners had different views. They were focused not on personal ethical change or on the afterlife but on the immediate, tangible needs of their households. They were committed to Christianity and defended the legitimacy of their views, even citing precedents from scripture in support of their practices By reading these perspectives on early Christian life through one another, Leyerle clarifies the points of disagreement between Chrysostom and his lay listeners and, at the same time, highlights their shared understanding. For both the preacher and his congregations, the household formed a vital ritual arena, and lived religion was necessarily rooted in practice. Elegantly written and convincingly argued, this study will appeal to scholars of theology, classics, and the history of Christianity in particular.

A You-Can-Totally-Do-This Guide to Teaching Spiritual Life Skills That Last As mom to a work-in-progress family of six, author Janel Breitenstein knows too well the chaos of life with the lid off. She understands how skeptical you are of shoehorning more into carpool-packed days and just trying to get kids to put socks in the hamper. But as a missionary, she also understands the urgent need to cultivate unerasable habits that prepare kids for a bold relationship with Jesus. If you’re a parent looking for doable, out-of-the-box ways to disciple your children, Permanent Markers is a resource you’ll seek again and again. Find… age-appropriate, uber-easy ideas and activities that will draw kids toward God questions to kickstart meaningful conversations, along with journaling prompts for both you and your kids hands-on life skills for teaching kids what the world often rejects—like community, self-control, humility, and Christ-anchored identity small-group discussion questions and lists of additional resources Permanent Markers empowers you to engage kids in vibrant spirituality, leaving this work of art up to God. You’ll find a practical, fun handbook for the most vital, eternal part of parenting.

Everyone wants a home that is beautiful and clutter free. But most of us are unsure how to get there without breaking the bank. Popular interior designer Shannon Acheson takes the guesswork out of creating a lovely home. Home Made Lovely is a mind-set: decorating should be about those who live there, rather than making your home into a magazine-worthy spread. Shannon walks you through how to · decorate in a way that suits your family's real life · declutter in seven simple steps · perform a house blessing to dedicate your home to God · be thankful for your current home and what you already have · brush up on hospitality with more than 20 actionable ideas that will make anyone feel welcome and loved in your home In Home Made Lovely, Shannon meets you right where you are on your home-decorating journey, helping you share the peace of Christ with family members and guests.

What did God use to draw a radical, committed unbeliever to himself? Did God take her to an evangelistic rally? Or, since she had her doctorate in literature, did he use something in print? No, God used an invitation to dinner in a modest home, from a humble couple who lived out the gospel daily, simply, and authentically. With this story of her conversion as a backdrop, Rosaria Butterfield invites us into her home to show us how God can use this same "radical, ordinary hospitality" to bring the gospel to our lost friends and neighbors. Such hospitality sees our homes as not our own, but as God's tools for the furtherance of his kingdom as we welcome those who look, think, believe, and act differently from us into our everyday, sometimes messy lives—helping them see what true Christian faith really looks like.

An exploration of how ordinary U.S. Christians create global connections through the multibillion-dollar child sponsorship industry Child sponsorship emerged from nineteenth-century Protestant missions to become one of today’s most profitable private fund-raising tools in organizations including World Vision, Compassion International, and ChildFund. Investigating two centuries of sponsorship and its related practices in American living rooms, churches, and shopping malls, Christian Globalism at Home reveals the myriad ways that Christians who don’t travel outside of the United States cultivate global sensibilities. Kaell traces the movement of money, letters, and images, along with a wide array of sponsorship’s lesser-known embodied and aesthetic techniques, such as playacting, hymn singing, eating, and fasting. She shows how, through this process, U.S. Christians attempt to hone globalism of a particular sort by oscillating between the sensory experiences of a God’s eye view and the intimacy of human relatedness. These global aspirations are buoyed by grand hopes and subject to intractable limitations, since they so often rely on the inequities they claim to redress. Based on extensive interviews, archival research, and fieldwork, Christian Globalism at Home explores how U.S. Christians imagine and experience the world without ever leaving home.

We live in the midst of a crisis of home. It is evident in the massive uprooting and migration of millions across the globe, in the anxious nationalism awaiting immigrants in their destinations, in the unhoused populations in wealthy cities, in the fractured households of families, and in the worldwide destruction of habitats and international struggles for dominance. It is evident, perhaps more quietly but just as truly, in the aching sense that there is nowhere we truly belong. In this moment, the Christian faith has been disappointingly inept in its response. We need a better witness to the God who created, loves, and reconciles this world, who comes to dwell among us. This book tells the "story of everything" in which God creates the world as the home for humans and for God in communion with God's creatures. The authors render the story of creation, redemption, and consummation through the lens of God's homemaking work and show the theological fruit of telling the story this way. The result is a vision that can inspire creative Christian living in our various homes today in faithfulness to God's ongoing work.