The authoritative account of one city s dramatic rebirth."

In Healing Marks (Energion Publications, 2012), Dr. Bruce Epperly challenged Christians to take the healings of Jesus seriously as a pattern for how we can become healing communities. Now he turns to the book of Acts as a pattern for the church in the 21st century. He says, “I believe that Acts of the Apostles provides a fluid, open-spirited, and holistic faith for twenty-first century people as well as a vision for congregational transformation and renewal. Anything can happen to those who follow Jesus. Life is adventurous, surprising, and interesting. Worship leads to mission and mission challenges narrow-mindedness and self-imposed limitations. For those who embrace the spirit of Acts of the Apostles, worship will never be boring and every day will be a holy adventure.” This book is not just an exposition of the book of Acts. It is a call to action. But it is more than that. It draws from the lessons of the early church a plan of individual and communal action to live an adventurous life of faith and to change the world. Each chapter includes activities to help you apply the content to your life and mission. Labeled “Transforming Acts” these point to the transforming acts you can take in your personal or congregational life . Acts is a story of a small group of people who set out to do what appeared humanly impossible – change their world. In this book you are invited to become a part of that story, to attempt the humanly impossible, and to bring transformation and renewal to the church and to the entire world.

Dave Brussat has made a significant contribution to the history of Providence. For those interested in that history, Lost Providence is a real find. Providence Journal Providence has one of the nation's most intact historic downtowns and is one of America's most beautiful cities. The history of architectural change in the city is one of lost buildings, urban renewal plans and challenges to preservation. The Narragansett Hotel, a lost city icon, hosted many famous guests and was demolished in 1960. The American classical renaissance expressed itself in the Providence National Bank, tragically demolished in 2005. Urban renewal plans such as the Downtown Providence plan and the College Hill plan threatened the city in the mid-twentieth century. Providence eventually embraced its heritage through plans like the River Relocation Project that revitalized the city's waterfront and the Downcity Plan that revitalized its downtown. Author David Brussat chronicles the trials and triumphs of Providence's urban development.

"The radical prophets of the English civil wars were fascinating figures, living at the very margins of seventeenth-century English society. Combining a devout belief in the power of divine inspiration with a passionate desire for social change and a distinctly eccentric rhetorical style, these men and women brazenly challenged civil and religious authority and flouted social decorum, unnerving their contemporaries and fanning fears of social anarchy. Unfortunately, far too little is known about the fate of their ideas, their writings, and their successors between the restoration of Charles II and the rise of the poetry of sensibility in the mid-eighteenth century. Too often they are assumed merely to have disappeared soon after 1660, snuffed out by a restored monarchy and an Augustan culture antithetical to their aims, and lost to sight until they were rediscovered in the late 1720s by a new generation of poets intrigued by vatic inspiration." "The purpose of this study is to suggest a rather different legacy for the radical prophets of the mid-seventeenth century. It contends, first of all, that prophecy was a significant genre for the writers of the Restoration and early eighteenth century - far more prevalent, more pervasive, and more influential in the decades following 1660 than has traditionally been acknowledged. From Butler's Hudibras, to Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, to the portrayal of Settle in Pope's first version of The Dunciad, prophets rant, rage, and wreak havoc through even the most canonical of Augustan texts, revealing the period's obsession with the figure of the radical prophet."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Walter Wink's widely acclaimed trilogy from Fortress Press - Naming the Powers 0-8006-1786-X (1984), Unmasking the Powers 0-8006-1902-1 (1993), and Engaging the Powers 0-8006-2646-X (1992) - has sold over 80,000 copies. The Powers are good; the Powers are fallen; the Powers must be redeemed, says Wink; and the illustrious theologians and ethicists in this volume apply this suggestive analysis to economics, politics and government, war and peace, personal ethics and ecological and social justice.Contributors include: Ray Gingerich, Eastern Mennonite University Ted Grimsrud, Eastern Mennonite University Nancey Murphy, Fuller Theological Seminary Daniel Liechty, Illinois State University Walter Wink, Auburn Theological Seminary Willard M. Swartley, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary Glen Stassen, Fuller Theological Seminary