Paradise is a garden. . .but heaven is a city. From the acclaimed author of Take This Bread and Jesus Freak comes a powerful new account of venturing beyond the borders of religion into the unpredictable territory of faith. On Ash Wednesday, 2012, Sara Miles and her friends left their church buildings and carried ashes to the buzzing city streets: the crowded dollar stores, beauty shops, hospital waiting rooms, street corners and fast-food joints of her neighborhood. They marked the foreheads of neighbors and strangers, sharing blessings with waitresses and drunks, believers and doubters alike. City of God narrates the events of the day in vivid detail, exploring the profound implications of touching strangers with a reminder of common mortality. As the story unfolds, Sara Miles also reflects on life in her city over the last two decades, where the people of God suffer and rejoice, building community amid the grit and beauty of this urban landscape. City of God is a beautifully written personal narrative, rich in complex, real-life characters, and full of the "wild, funny, joyful, raucous, reverent" moments of struggle and faith that have made Miles one of the most enthralling Christian writers of our time.

Arguing that the cities are God's idea, and using clear biblical principles, McClung urges believers not to abandon the cities but to learn to transform them by the power of God.

From the explosive contexts of Nairobi, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Madras burst fresh insights on the mission of the church for the city. Jude Tiersma and Charles Van Engen worked closely with an international team of experienced urban practitioners to explore the most urgent issues facing those who minister in today's cities. From each particular urban setting, a team member contributed a story from ministry in the city. Each story uniquely illustrates a different challenge of urban ministry in the face of injustice, marginalization, and urban structures. This book brings you these stories, then retells them in light of Scripture, introducing new hope to each one. From these stories emerge new ideas about the nature of cities and how to practice ministry in them. The new methodology employed by Van Engen and Tiersma's team leads us in the first steps toward a theology of mission for the city. God So Loves the City is a must for pastors, seminary students, missiologists, congregation members, and all who are concerned about urban ministry.

After studying at Oxford University and finding God, Carolyn Weber grappled with a new invitation: to think bigger about love. Through Weber's personal story of courtship, marriage, and parenthood, as well as spiritual, theological, and literary reflection, this memoir explores what life looks like when we choose to love God first.

God is at work in the city. And he invites his people to join him. But the city is not merely a mission field for Christians to target. The city is also the environment where Christians are discipled and lives are forged into the image of Jesus. Urban ministry veteran Randy White shows how God transforms you when you answer God's call to the city. Urban life peels away your sin and self-deception and challenges your unexamined assumptions about privilege, race, class and power. Experiential discipleship moves you from abstract theory to hands-on learning and on-the-ground action, revolutionizing your perspective and making a difference in local neighborhoods and beyond. Passionate and practical, White's vivid narratives of experiencing God in the city show you how your spiritual health is intertwined with the health of the metropolis. Seek the welfare of the city, and both you and the city will be transformed.

An extraordinary stone box was recently discovered in Jerusalem---the bone-box of 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.' This is his story . . . It's the year A.D. 57 and Jerusalem teeters on the brink of revolt against Rome. James, leader of the Jewish Christian community, has an enemy in high places. And two very strange friends . . . Rivka Meyers is a Messianic Jewish archaeologist from California, trapped in first-century Jerusalem by a physics experiment gone horribly wrong. Ari Kazan is her husband, an Israeli physicist slowly coming to grips with his Jewish heritage---and with a man named Jesus he was raised to hate. With no way back to their own century, Rivka and Ari seek their niche in this doomed city of God. Ari applies his knowledge of physics to become an engineer, a man of honor. Rivka feels increasingly isolated in a patriarchal culture that treats women like children. She knows what's coming---siege, famine, fire. At first, her warnings earn her grudging respect as a 'seer woman.' But when one of her predictions misses, the city scorns her as a false prophet. Rivka knows that an illegal trial and execution awaits James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. Can she prevent this disaster? Will James believe her 'premonition'? Or is Ari right that Rivka's meddling in history will only . . . make matters worse?

"City of God is an unsparing account of devastation and empowerment in the age of AIDS. From the body’s first mysterious eroticism to its final humiliation and pain, Gil Cuadros gives voice to both the beauty and sorrow of our common fate. His writing cuts like a double-edged sword—at times artful and sharp, at times unfiltered and raw. This is an awesome and haunting book.”—David Trinidad “The sensual, the expressive, the daring, the transformed become the matryrs of every era, every family. Their memoirs, heroics are our most devastating works of art. Gil Cuadros’s story ‘Unprotected’ is a classic of AIDS fiction and deserves a place of honor in the mosaic of American writing.”—Sarah Schulman “In a voice poised between plainspokenness and urgency, Gil Cuadros writes about the remnants of love in a devastated world. The poems and stories in City of God are as dire as they are beautiful, and sharp as a blow to the body.”—Bernard Cooper “I accuse Gil Cuadros of literary seduction in the nth degree … He makes me read on when I want to cry … I do not want to look at his words, and yet I cannot take my eyes away. His images sooth, burn, inspire. I accuse Gil Cuadros of language abuse—his stroke of silk, his pen a bludgeon. I accuse him of heart-bashing.”—Wanda Coleman