Planning can be challenging in the contemporary congregation, where people share a common faith and values but may have very different preferences and needs. Much of the literature on congregational planning presents it as a technical process: the leader serves as the chief problem solver, and the goal is finding "the solution to the problem." Rendle and Mann equip congregational leaders with a broad and creative range of ideas, pathways, processes, and tools for planning. By choosing the resources that best suit their needs and context, congregations will shape their own strengthening, transforming, holy conversation. They will find a path that is faithful to their identity and their relationship with God. Resource materials are available to purchasers of the book. E-mail [email protected] for more information.

Richard Peace teaches you how to engage in easy and comfortable conversation about the good news of Jesus. Explaining the gospel in plain language and offering practical suggestions for sharing your faith with friends, neighbors and colleagues, he provides twelve study and discussion sessions perfect for small groups to work through--and try out--together.

Written by a group of friends, ?Seven Holy Women? is a one-of-a-kind journey into the lives of seven women saints. Each section of the book includes a story from one saint's life, told vividly and imaginatively in the second person; additional information about the saint to give her context; a reflection on ways the writer, reader, and saint intersect on their journeys; personal surveys for the reader and a friend to complete; and a journal prompt that encourages the reader to explore and document her encounter with themes from the saint's life. Created as both a deeply personal and enriching communal experience, ?Seven Holy Women? speaks directly to the reader, drawing her into the lives of seven saints as it invites her to look more closely and lovingly at her own spiritual journey and her friendship with the cloud of witnesses.

"A testimony to the power of prayer as a form of sacred conversation"--

"Talking about Homosexuality is the first book in the new series Holy Conversations: A Study Tool for Theological Reflection around Debates in the Church that Considers Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience." "Over the course of six sessions, through conversation, study, and exercises participants reflect on their Christian beliefs and personal experiences guided by the categories of the Wesleyan quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. The book includes a Facilitator's Guide."--BOOK JACKET.

We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

A New York Times Notable Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country's most prominent anthropologists. Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Tanya Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people—from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society—can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry. Astute, sensitive, and extraordinarily measured in its approach to the interface between science and religion, Luhrmann's book is sure to generate as much conversation as it will praise.