Your 21/2-year-old is full of bouncing, dancing energy. Tips for reading and sharing: Recite portions of the text as you dance with your child Point to and identify the body parts mentioned in the story Make up playful extensions to the text, such as "I've got teeth in my mouth; I've got hair on my head."

God’s Spirit once took the prophet Ezekiel to a vast valley filled with brittle, parched-dry bones—a potent picture of widespread spiritual dryness. But by the Word of God proclaimed through Ezekiel’s mouth, those piles of bones took on sinew and flesh and skin, then were infused with life-giving, wind-driven breath from the Spirit of God. A sweeping vista of skeletons was turned instead into a force of fired-up warriors ready to do battle for the Lord. A transformation just as dramatic is what God wants to generate in our individual lives today and in the life of His church. Dry Bones Dancing is about escaping religious dryness to move on to true spiritual passion. The results will be an experience of supernatural power and peace in the presence of God as you are invited to go deeper and see God’s character and glory as never before. Broken . . . Whole Parched . . . Flourishing Dry Bones . . . Dancing Is the landscape of your spirit all too desert-like? Then it’s time for a change. It’s time for a miracle. And God is ready to give it to you. Author and speaker Dr. Tony Evans boldly declares the truth: God’s people are not meant to dwell in a lifeless valley. But if we are to embrace pure joy and rich passion once again, God requires a humble heart. Evans shows desert-dwellers how to pinpoint what brought them there in the first place—and how to get out. Experience spiritual nourishment and vitality once again. And get ready… …to dance! Story Behind the Book After many years of ministering to Christians burned out by religion and spiritually dry, Tony Evans searched the Scriptures for answers to share with everyone who is seeking to rekindle their passion for God. He found the perfect passage in Ezekiel. Through his study of the story, he bolstered his own spiritual passion, and now he shares it with those seeking to be rebuilt and reenergized by and for God.

We all want to live on a peaceful mountaintop where we can look down on the world below without getting hurt. With her trademark humor and style, Patsy Clairmont uses the story of "dancing bones" in Ezekiel to remind us that life in the valley can be pretty breathtaking, too. It's often in the valley that we learn and love the most. Rather than running from our troubles, Patsy says true "valley girls" find grace, freedom, and a sense of humor in the midst of turmoil.

Leading New Zealand anti-apartheid campaigner Trevor Richards has written this history of New Zealand's contribution to the fight against racism and apartheid in South Africa. The story of the protests is vividly told - but it is not an account of one man's battle against the system - "it is a serious history of a crucial part of our recent past."

History didn't end. Democracy didn't triumph. America's leading role in the world is no longer assured. Instead, autocrats and populist strongmen are on the rise, and the global order established after 1945 is under attack. This is the phenomenon Katie Stallard tackles in Dancing on Bones, as she examines how the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea manipulate the past to serve the present and secure the future of authoritarian rule. Russia has annexed Crimea, started a war in eastern Ukraine, and repeatedly massed troops on its borders. China has stepped up war games near Taiwan and militarized the South China Sea, while North Korea has resumed missile testing and blood-curdling threats against the United States. These three states consistently top lists of threats to US and European security, and yet the leaders of all three insist that it is their country that is threatened, rewriting history and exploiting the memory of the wars of the last century to justify their actions and shore up popular support. Since coming to power, Xi Jinping has almost doubled the length of China's World War II, Vladimir Putin has elevated the memory of the Great Patriotic War to the status of a national religion, and Kim Jong Un has invested vast sums in rebuilding war museums in his impoverished state, while those who try to challenge the official version of history are silenced and jailed. But this didn't start with Putin, Xi, and Kim, and it won't end with them. Drawing on first-hand, on-the-ground reporting, Dancing on Bones argues that if we want to understand where these three nuclear powers are heading, we must understand the stories they are telling their citizens about the past.

Minister and theologian Marcia Mount Shoop Offers an analysis of Reformed heritage---and an impassioned provocation that we live more adventurously. "Beautifully written and deeply felt. This work offers a vivid theology relocated in the flesh and blood of life's utter physicality. Finally a book to recommend when people ask about resources on bodies and theology!"---Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Pastoral Theology, The Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, Vanderbilt University "An incredibly compelling theological work. Bringing together a host of cutting-edge concerns that matter not simply to academic theologians, but to the lived life of faith, this project invokes the importance of bodies and their marking by gender, race, ethnicity, etc. Mount Shoop uses these now-familiar themes to break new ground by revealing the inadequacy of the overly verbal and cognitive character of Protestant worship and practice. It is groundbreaking."---Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Professor of Theology, Duke Divinity School, and author of Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church "Mount Shoop thiks in new ways about central theological concepts and dares to imagine a new church emerging out of them. She combines the intellectual vigor of an academic with the heart and soul of a pastor who understands what it means to lead a congregation. Happily, she writes like a poet. Let the Bones Dance is provocative, stimulating, and readable."---John M. Buchanan, pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois, and author of A New Church for a New World Contemporary Christian faith and practice tend to address spiritual, mental, and emotional issues but ignore the body. As a result, many believers are uncomfortable in their own skins. Mount Shoop addresses this "dis-ease" with a theology that is attentive to physical experience. She also suggests how worship services can more fully invite God to inhabit every part of a congregation---including their flesh-and-blood bodies.