Why are you Lutheran? It's a valid question in this modern age of denominations, distinctions, and choices.

Taking a stand over the gender-issue divide Author and New Testament scholar Michael Bird was formerly in favor of distinct gender roles in ministry, a viewpoint commonly called “complementarianism.” But inconsistencies in practice and careful biblical study convinced him to rethink his position. Originally published as a short ebook, Bourgeois Babes, Bossy Wives, and Bobby Haircuts offers an engaging, incisive perspective on biblical gender equality and the egalitarian view—a preference for allowing women to hold teaching and leadership positions in ministry. While Bird is now egalitarian, he nevertheless strikes a respectful tone toward those in his previous camp, seeking to craft a perspective that both values women and upholds biblical differences between the sexes. Humorous and hard-hitting, Bird will challenge readers on both sides of the gender-issue divide.

Find your life and true calling by losing yourself in the ordinary rhythms of life with the people God has placed around you. Popular blogger, Shannan Martin offers Christians who are longing for a more meaningful life a simple starting point: learn what it is to love and be loved right where God has placed you. What does it look like to live lives of meaning? And how do we do it between loads of laundry and reimagining leftovers? Where do we even begin? For Christ-followers living in an increasingly complicated world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to live a life of intention and meaning. But in The Ministry of Ordinary Places, speaker and writer Shannan Martin offers a surprisingly simple answer: it’s about being with people, the ones right next door. As she walks you through her own story she challenges you to see your community through a wider lens of love, following in the footsteps of a Savior who came as an everyday man and spent his life circled up with regular folks just like us. Along the way, she shares discoveries about the vital importance of showing up and committing for the long haul, despite the inevitable encounters with brokenness and uncertainty. With transparency, humor, heart-tugging storytelling, and more than a little personal confession, Martin shows us that no matter where we live or how much we have, as we learn what it is to be with people as Jesus was, we'll find our very lives. The details will look quiet and ordinary, and the call will both exhaust and exhilarate us. But it will be the most worth-it adventure we will ever take and The Ministry of Ordinary Places will help guide you along the path.

Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) was one of Britain's leading psychoanalysts and pediatricians. The author of some of the most enduring theories of the child and of child analysis, he coined terms such as the "good enough mother" and the "transitional object" (known to most as the security blanket). Winnicott's work is still used today by child and family therapists, social workers, teachers, and psychologists, and his papers and clinical observations are routinely studied by trainees in psychiatry and clinical psychology. Beyond the expected audiences of psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, Winnicott also wrote for parents, teachers, social workers, childcare specialists, pediatricians, psychologists, art and play therapists, and others in the field of child development. Now, for the first time, virtually all of Winnicott's writings are presented chronologically in 12 volumes, edited and annotated by leading Winnicott scholars. The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott brings together letters, clinical case reports, child consultations, psychoanalytic articles, and papers, including previously unpublished works on topics of continuing interest to contemporary readers (such as delinquency, antisocial behavior, corporal punishment, and child care). The Collected Works begins with an authoritative General Introduction by editors Lesley Caldwell and Helen Taylor Robinson, while each of the volumes features an original introduction examining that volume's major themes and written by an international Winnicott scholar and psychoanalyst. Throughout The Collected Works, editorial annotations provide historical context and background information of scholarly and clinical value. The final volume contains new and illuminating appendices, comprehensive bibliographies of Winnicott's publications and letters, documentation of his lectures and broadcasts, and a selection of his drawings. This extraordinary publication will be an essential resource for Winnicott admirers the world over and those interested in the history and origins of the fields of child development and psychoanalysis.

What can we do when we feel stuck? Sam Van Eman has found that our spiritual lives need disruptive experiences to jolt and reorient us. Filled with concrete examples of how ordinary people are shaped by pursuing these out-of-the-ordinary experiences, this book provides a path to deeper faith on purpose.