"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." -- 1 John 4:8 Are you looking to enrich a healthy relationship, revitalize a tired one, or rescue one gone awry? Do you yearn to grow closer to God, and to further incorporate Him and His teachings into your marriage? We all want a lifetime of love, support, and faith. But sometimes we need a little help. Enter Dr. Sue Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and "the best couple therapist in the world," according to bestselling relationship expert Dr. John Gottman. In Created For Connection, Dr. Johnson and Kenneth Sanderfer, a leading EFT practitioner in the Christian community, share Johnson's groundbreaking and remarkably successful program for creating stronger, more secure relationships not only between partners, but between us and God. The message of Created For Connection is simple: Forget about learning how to argue better, analyzing your early childhood, or making grand romantic gestures. Instead, get to the emotional underpinnings of your relationship by recognizing that you are attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent, and we are on the Heavenly Father, for nurturing, soothing, and protection. The way to enhance or save our relationships with each other and with God is to be open, attuned, responsive, and to reestablish safe emotional connection. Filled with Bible verses, inspiring real-life stories, and guidance, Created For Connection will ensure a lifetime of love.

The bestselling author of Hold Me Tight presents a revolutionary new understanding of why and how we love, based on cutting-edge research. Every day, we hear of relationships failing and questions of whether humans are meant to be monogamous. LOVE SENSE presents new scientific evidence that tells us that humans are meant to mate for life. Dr. Johnson explains that romantic love is an attachment bond, just like that between mother and child, and shows us how to develop our "love sense"--our ability to develop long-lasting relationships. Love is not the least bit illogical or random, but actually an ordered and wise recipe for survival. LOVE SENSE covers the three stages of a relationship and how to best weather them; the intelligence of emotions and the logic of love; the physical and psychological benefits of secure love; and much more. Based on groundbreaking research, LOVE SENSE will change the way we think about love.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A candid, inspiring guide to finding lasting love and sustaining a healthy relationship by getting real about your goals—based on the viral, multi-million-view sermon series about dating, marriage, and sex “No matter where you are and no matter what stage of life you are in, Relationship Goals will be a game changer.”—Levi Lusko NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY COSMOPOLITAN You scroll through photo after photo of happy couples and think, I want a relationship like that! The thing is, those intimate relationships are a mirage—the closer you get to them, the more you realize they aren’t real at all. So what does a real relationship look like? And how do you get there? In Relationship Goals, Pastor Michael Todd digs deep to give you good news and real-life ideas for making the most of your most important relationships. Take a look at • what it means to choose intentional dating over recreational dating • how to move on from mistakes you’ve made in the past • why love gets stronger after marriage • what the Bible has to say about sex (hot take: it’s more sizzling than you think) • why the best friendships have God at the center Whether you are married, single, or it’s complicated, aiming for the right targets will make all the difference in finding true satisfaction. As it turns out, God’s got the best relationship goals of all for your life. Why settle for less?

This practical guide shows how to facilitate collaboration among diverse individuals and organizations to navigate complexity and create change in our interconnected world. The social and environmental challenges we face today are not only complex, they are also systemic and structural and have no obvious solutions. They require diverse combinations of people, organizations, and sectors to coordinate actions and work together even when the way forward is unclear. Even so, collaborative efforts often fail because they attempt to navigate complexity with traditional strategic plans, created by hierarchies that ignore the way people naturally connect. By embracing a living-systems approach to organizing, impact networks bring people together to build relationships across boundaries; leverage the existing work, skills, and motivations of the group; and make progress amid unpredictable and ever-changing conditions. As a powerful and flexible organizing system that can span regions, organizations, and silos of all kinds, impact networks underlie some of the most impressive and large-scale efforts to create change across the globe. David Ehrlichman draws on his experience as a network builder; interviews with dozens of network leaders; and insights from the fields of network science, community building, and systems thinking to provide a clear process for creating and developing impact networks. Given the increasing complexity of our society and the issues we face, our ability to form, grow, and work through networks has never been more essential.

"Most of us will have many friends throughout our lifetimes—friends of all shapes, sizes, and callings. Many of these are wonderful, meaningful friendships. Some are difficult. But some magic few of these are connections that have gone right to our soul. These five or seven or ten friendships have been powerful keys to determining who we have become and who we will become. . . . These are the people I call Soul Friends." As the Senior Scholar-in-Residence for over 25 years at the renowned Kripalu Center, Stephen Cope has spent decades investigating—and writing about—the integration of body, mind, and spirit and the rich complexity of our relationships with others, and with ourselves. Perhaps the central truth that arises from his work is this: human beings are universally wired for one thing—vital connection with one another.Soul Friends invites us on a compelling journey into the connectivity of the human psyche, the study of which has fascinated scholars, philosophers, and thinkers for centuries. Cope seamlessly blends science, scholarship, and storytelling, drawing on his own life as well as the histories of famous figures—from Eleanor Roosevelt to Charles Darwin to Queen Victoria—whose formative relationships shed light on the nature of friendship itself. In his exploration, he distills human connection into six distinct yet interconnected mechanisms: containment, twinship, adversity, mirroring, identification, and conscious partnership. Then he invites us to reflect on how these forms of connection appear in our own lives, helping us work toward a fuller understanding of "who we have become and who we will become."Without a doubt, the journey to our most fulfilled selves requires us to look within. But in order to truly thrive, we must make the most of who we are in relation to one another as well. Unsparingly honest, deeply wise, and irresistibly readable, Soul Friends gives us a map to find our way.

A master class in relationship repair and connection. At its core, this book delivers an inconvenient truth. Our relationships have to be a daily practice if we want them to thrive. We should treat them like we treat anything that we want to succeed, by giving them time and attention. For far too long it has been assumed that we should innately understand how to love one another. Relationships have fallen into the category of things we should know how to do. But we are not born knowing how to make a relationship work, any more than we are born knowing how to file taxes or buy insurance, and there are no classes in high school or college that teach us how to do this. The Practice of Love is that class. In his work, Lair Torrent, a licensed marriage and family therapist, brings together concepts and tools that can actually help couples heal for the long haul. Diving beneath the symptoms most therapies focus on, he helps couples develop a deeper understanding of the wounds that brought them together and how they show up in their relationships. The 5 Practices gives the reader an opportunity to weed out and take responsibility for limiting or negative habits while allowing them to learn and adopt new and healthier practices with their partner. These are not short-term solutions, but rather a path to profound healing, deeper connection, and stronger, happier relationships.

How growing in self-awareness deepens relationships From their years of counseling individuals, couples, and families, George Faller and Heather Wright show how to repair conflict, move from disconnection to reconnection, and discover God's movement in our life and relationships. They call their model NAME IT (Notice, Acknowledge, Merge, Embrace, Integrate, and Thank). To heal a relationship, first we connect with our own hearts and stories, then understand the other person's position, and finally merge those two truths (or versions of what is happening), giving birth to a new connection. By telling their own stories and those of clients they have cared for, Faller and Wright encourage those who feel disconnected not to despair in the midst of their trials but to find faith and a community to help them survive and grow. They show readers that rather than letting painful relationships leave them feeling alone and despairing, they can find hope in a deepened self-awareness that leads to richer relationships and spiritual vitality. Whether readers hope to experience the magical glow of romance, the joy of parenting, the satisfaction of community life, or a loving view of God, the NAME IT model will help them transform all their relationships.