This book is a memoir of my journey in faith. That journey began in the home of my childhood, but the chapters cover experiences extending from some of my earliest memories until just a few years ago. I had already begun reflecting on these experiences, theologically, as the later ones were occurring, but it was not until a friend invited me to speak to his congregation that I connected them. "You're not what most of our people think of when they hear the word Baptist," the priest of a local Episcopal church said. "Come talk to us about how you got where you are from where you started." It was a fascinating challenge. As I sat down to prepare a one-hour Sunday school lesson for Episcopalian adults, I realized I had a story to tell. My suspicion is that this story, regardless of how eloquently I have or have not told it, will resonate with many people. Too frequently I hear people speak of their "bad experiences" with the church, experiences often occurring in the formative years of childhood or adolescence. Sadly, too many of these folks leave organized religion, if not turn their backs altogether on a God they suspect has turned a blind eye or a judgmental whim against them. I have managed to stay within the realm of organized religion. In fact, it is my life. I have not felt the need to abandon or reject God. In fact, God has become more important, more real, more central to my story. I understand those who leave, but because I believe so strongly in the church and the value of faith in one's life, I hope my experience might be an encouragement. One can question, doubt, reject much of what we learned in our childhood, and still remain faithful. There is a "new way home." Maybe my experiences will help some of you find it. Each chapter includes a sermon I have preached over the course of the last eighteen years as co-pastor of the Park Road Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, with my wife, Amy Jacks Dean. I include these sermons as a testimony to the faith that has been developing and changing. I have enjoyed the privilege of being a "professional proclaimer" of Christianity, and although I did not write the sermons for this book, it should be clear in reading them that the faith which is very real to me continues to be a "work in progress." Each chapter also begins with several "Questions to Consider." Unlike many books that conclude chapters with similar reflection/study questions, I have included these questions as a prelude to each chapter. I hope they will whet your appetite and get your wheels turning in the right direction for the chapter and sermon that follow. To get the most out of these questions, you might reflect on them briefly before you read and then come back to them before starting the next chapter. There is room for you to make notes about your own experience and any deepened insight you may have gained by reading my story and relating it to your own faith experience. Finding a New Way Home is not just a book; it really is the experience of my life. I am glad to have this opportunity to share it with you. Especially if you have strayed from the path and have considered leaving it all behind, I welcome you. It's a journey worth taking, because even if you are surprised where you find yourself along the way today, you can be sure that home is where your heart is-and where God is-and there's just no place like it. Welcome to the journey. Welcome home!

What does it mean to feel at home, truly present with ourselves, comfortable with our choices, and alive to the possibilities of conscious change? How can we develop inner balance and connection, keeping our boundaries clear while opening our hearts to those we love? With practical wisdom and insight, Melody Beattie addresses these questions, encouraging us to reach a higher level of living and loving, and showing us how to be at home with ourselves wherever we are in the world, at whatever stage of life. Through true stories and take-action exercises, including journaling, visualizations, affirmations, meditations, and prayers, Beattie provides the essential tools to help us discover our own sense of home. Accessible and illuminating, Finding Your Way Home is a soul-searching look at how not to be victimized by ourselves′or other people. Beattie urges us to discover new levels of integrity, to break through barriers that have blocked us for too long. This is a powerful and challenging book about buying back our souls and learning to live a life guided by spirit.

In this time of ecological crisis, all that is holy calls us into a more intimate partnership with the diverse and beautiful beings of this earth. In Finding Our Way Home, Myke Johnson reflects on her personal journey into such a partnership and offers a guide for others to begin this path. Lyrically expressed, it weaves together lessons from a chamomile flower, a small bird, a copper beech tree, a garden slug, and a forest fern, along with insights from Indigenous philosophy, environmental science, fractal geometry, childhood Catholic mysticism, the prophet Elijah, fairy tales, and permaculture design. This eco-spiritual journey also wrestles with the history of our society's destruction of the natural world, and its roots in the original theft of the land from Indigenous peoples. Exploring the spiritual dimensions of our brokenness, it offers tools to create healing. Finding Our Way Home is a ceremony to remember our essential unity with all of life.

When Mildred and Richard Loving are arrested, jailed, and exiled from their home simply because of their mixed-race marriage, they must challenge the courts and the country in order to secure their civil rights. Richard Perry Loving and Mildred Jeter Loving wanted to live out their married life near family in Virginia. However, the state refused to let them--because Richard was white and Mildred was black. After being arrested and charged with a crime, the Lovings were forced to leave their home--until they turned to the legal system. In one of the country's most prominent legal battles, Loving v. Virginia, the Lovings secured their future when the court struck down all state laws prohibiting mixed marriage. Acclaimed author Larry Dane Brimner's thorough research and detailed reconstruction of the Loving v. Virginia case memorializes the emotional journey towards marriage equality in this critical addition to his award-winning oeuvre of social justice titles.

Nouwen's meditations on power, peace, waiting, living, and dying are now available in paperback, with line art and new reflection guide.

I don't know why nobody ever wanted me.For real, I mean. My parents died when I was eight, and I spent the next ten years hopping between foster homes. Let's just say, they barely did me any favors. Now I'm done with school, degree in hand, and... I've got nothing. No job lined up. No apartment, once the lease runs out. Nowhere to be and no one to be there with. Except... well... I do have DNA test results from a genealogy website. With close family matches. It's probably a stupid idea. A total long shot, really. ...I'm going to go and find them. This is just about loose ends.I quit calling Bennett Wood home years ago. It was more like a... home base. Living the life of a long haul trucker didn't lend itself to much settling down in one spot.And for a long time, it worked. Always on the go, looking ahead to the next shipment, the next truck stop. But honestly? I'm getting too old for this. I want to set down roots. Find a partner, someone to share lazy Saturday mornings with. I've got a plan - sell the house I inherited. Move to a larger city. Find a lover. But that was before he showed up, looking for his kin. He's too young for me, of course. It's just a fling. Just two people passing through, taking some comfort from one another. Isn't it?Finding His Way Home is the first book in the new, contemporary Benson Brothers series. Set in the small town of Bennett Wood, North Carolina, you won't want to miss out on these sweet and steamy love stories! This book, and all the books in the series, can be read as a standalone.

After many years of searching, John Houston found his way home—his true home. Now, he wants to help you do the same. John Houston has spent the past sixteen years building for others what he didn’t always have for himself growing up: a family home. Today, John is one of the premier custom home builders in Texas. Throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you see signs proudly presenting “John Houston Custom Homes” that paint a picture of the kind of home life John would have done anything to have as a child. From a young age, home was not a place where John wanted to be. After his parents divorced and his mother moved out, his father remarried and moved in with his new family. John and his older brother struggled to adjust and began living by themselves with little to no adult supervision at the ages of 11 and 15. They helped support themselves financially by working long hours running a lawncare business before and after school. The years that followed were challenging but also marked by God’s protection, even when John didn’t realize it, as he overcame hardships that could have permanently derailed his life. He met and married the woman of his dreams, completed his education and became a respected and successful business owner. And he isn’t confused for one second about who’s ultimately responsible for his success: God. In Finding My Way Home, John Houston reflects on a life of trials, hardships, and painful mistakes through the lens of gratitude for God’s enduring faithfulness. He explains, “God created a story with my life that puts a spotlight on His mercy and grace—a story of my anger and His forgiveness; of the broken family I grew up in and His restoration; of my demanding ‘leadership’ as a husband and father and His model for me to lead with love.”