Hasn’t Jesus called us into the thorns and thistles with Him to love what we find there? What if we had the courage to follow him into the briarpatch and discover life as we were always meant to live it? In The Briarpatch Gospel, dynamic young pastor Shayne Wheeler presents a radical message of grace, one that won’t allow you to remain comfortable merely sitting in a church pew. He shares his own heartbreaking personal journey through the briarpatch, and his church’s remarkable experience of creating a community in which people walk through life’s issues—even the darkest, most painful problems and questions—together. Unafraid. Like Jesus did. Think about it: What is your (or your church’s) briarpatch—the area where you’re afraid to go, or feel unequipped to address? Is it sharing what you really think on controversial issues? Becoming friends with someone who’s different from you? Confronting and overcoming your own pain, doubts, or fears? Bold and challenging, The Briarpatch Gospel provides a new vernacular for Christians to have open, honest conversations about what loving each other in Christ’s name might look like in the briarpatches of their own communities.

Jesus is God and we are not. Most of us get that. But what we don’t always understand is that God loves us just as much as He does His son. Many times in the Old Testament, God refers to human beings as His “beloved.” But when God called Jesus His beloved, Jesus did something truly remarkable: He believed Him. He lived every moment of His life fully convinced of His identity. And unlike every other person in history . . . He never forgot. In Prototype, Jonathan Martin creates a vivid understanding of what it means to be beloved by God. To completely trust, as Jesus did, that God loves you. To live life without fear, confident in your identity and purpose. To handle life’s wounds as Jesus did, and to wake every day with a deep awareness of God’s presence. Martin reveals a startling truth at the heart of the gospel: Jesus is our prototype. And as we discover how the knowledge of being God’s beloved changed everything for Jesus—how it set Him free to live out his purpose and love God, others, and the world—it will begin to do the same for us.

In a period of tumultuous transition for the church as it moves out of the Christendom era and into the unknowns of the post-Christian era, it is strange that so little has been written about the church's calling out of the dominion of darkness (Satan) and into the kingdom of Light (or, God's dear Son). The very word ecclesia speaks of a people "called out." In the New Testament the theme of spiritual warfare is ubiquitous, and yet is relegated to the margins in our present cultural whitewater. In The Church and the Relentless Darkness, Robert Henderson approaches the topic of spiritual warfare directly, and focuses on its manifestation in local Christian communities. Using the Letter to the Ephesian Christians as his base, Henderson portrays the relentless darkness that comes with all satanic subtlety on unsuspecting communities, but he brings with this a message of hope and encouraging disciplines.

You want to have vibrant relationships with those who struggle with addiction in your church and community. This practical resource for church leaders and congregations answers your pressing questions about addiction and recovery, through real-life stories, the latest insights from medical science and a biblical framework for how to love the addicts in your midst.

We are used to acquiring certain titles to signal our success, and we all want to be successful. We Christians are no different. We figure the titles of “pastor” or “singer” or “evangelist” or even a title like “president” or “head” of some sort imply we’re headed the right way. But the Christian life is different. We should be led by the obedient, not the successful. This book talks about that.