Stories from across North America of contemporary church leaders, parishioners and religious activists who are working to define a new environmental movement, where honoring the Creator means protecting the planet. Sacred Acts documents the diverse actions taken by churches to address climate change through stewardship, advocacy, spirituality and justice. Contributions from leading Christian voices such as Norman Wirzba and the Reverend Canon Sally Bingham detail the concrete work of faith communities such as: Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis, IN, where parishioners have enhanced food security by sharing canning and food preservation skills in the church kitchen Georgia's Interfaith Power & Light, which has used federal stimulus funds to weatherize congregations, reduce utility bills and cut carbon emissions Earth Ministry, where people of faith spearheaded the movement to pass state legislation to make Washington State a coal-free state. Sacred Acts shows that churches can play a critical role in confronting climate change - perhaps the greatest moral imperative of our time. This timely collection will inspire individuals and congregations to act in good faith to help protect Earth's climate.

Looks at the efforts of churches all over North America to confront climate change through stewardship, advocacy, spirituality and justice. Original.

Acts is the sequel to Luke's gospel and tells the story of Jesus's followers during the 30 years after his death. It describes how the 12 apostles, formerly Jesus's disciples, spread the message of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean against a background of persecution. With an introduction by P.D. James

Framed around one ordinary day, this book explores daily life through the lens of liturgy, small practices, and habits that form us. Each chapter looks at something author Tish Harrison Warren does in a day—making the bed, brushing her teeth, losing her keys—and relates it to spiritual practice as well as to our Sunday worship.

In a fast-paced world full of distractions, spiritual practice can help us become more centered-more in touch with ourselves and others, more in touch with the world around us, more in touch with God. Sacred Pauses is an introduction to this more centered way of life. The author, a pastor in British Columbia, begins with her own longing for personal renewal. What would it take to feel renewed every day? Instead of waiting for a vacation to smooth out the tensions of life, instead of waiting until the end of the week to shed our weariness, what if we could take time out every day? Live a renewed life every day? Be refreshed by God every day? Sacred Pauses offers simple ways for readers to do just that. Each chapter explores a different spiritual practice-from the classic disciplines of Scripture reading and prayer to other creative approaches such as paying attention, making music, and having fun. With plenty of stories from real life and ideas to try, this book is personal and practical. Its flexible format is appropriate for personal use or in a group, every day or any time. Free downloadable study guide available here.

This engaging book guides readers through one of the most colorful books of the Bible, illuminating passages from Acts that show the Christian gospel expressing itself through the lives, speech, struggles, and adventures of Jesus's followers. The book emphasizes the disruptive character of the Christian gospel and shows how Acts repeatedly describes God as upsetting the status quo by changing people's lives, society's conventions, and our basic expectations of what's possible. Suited for individual and group study, this book by a New Testament scholar with a gift for popular communication asks serious questions and eschews pat answers, bringing Acts alive for contemporary reflection on the character of God, the challenges of faith, and the church.

From Zora Neale Hurston to Derek Walcott to Toni Morrison, New World black authors have written about African-derived religious traditions and spiritual practices. The Sacred Act of Reading examines religion and sociopolitical power in modern and contemporary texts of a variety of genres from the black Americas. By engaging with spiritual traditions such as Vodou, Kumina, and Protestant Christianity while drawing on canonical Eurocentric literary theory, Anne Margaret Castro presents a novel, nuanced reading of power through the physical and metaphysical relationships portrayed in these great works of New World black literature. Castro examines prophecy in the dramas of Derek Walcott, preaching in the ethnography of Zora Neale Hurston, and liturgy in the novels of Toni Morrison, offering comparative readings alongside the works of Afro-Colombian anthropologist Manuel Zapata Olivella, Jamaican sociologist Erna Brodber, and Canadian fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson. The Sacred Act of Reading is the first book to bring together literary texts, historical and contemporary anthropological studies, theology, and critical theory to show how black authors in the Americas employ spiritual phenomena as theoretical frameworks for thinking within, against, and beyond structures of political dominance, dependence, and power.