Poor listening leads to misunderstandings and lost opportunities. Learning to listen well requires spiritual practice. It happens at work and at home, with strangers and close friends, in heated debates and in quiet conversations--you hear someone speaking, but often you don't truly listen. Kay Lindahl's highly respected workshops are attended by people from a broad range of backgrounds. Her first book, The Sacred Art of Listening, has been published to acclaim in North America, Europe and Asia. Now she offers practical, easy-to-follow advice and exercises to enhance your capacity to listen in a spirit-filled way. Using examples from her own life and her work as a teacher of the sacred art of listening, Lindahl explores the nature and use of silence, reflection and divine presence as foundational qualities of listening and shows you how you can apply these in your everyday life. This valuable workshop-in-a-book examines the varied ways we are called to deep listening, including: Contemplative listening Reflective listening Heart listening Listening in groups Listening in conversations ... and more You will find yourself inspired to discover how different your conversations will be when you stop just talking and start really listening.

In this theological resource for spiritual transformation and social change, Carter Heyward rethinks the figure Jesus and his import for church, academy, and society. Rather than focus on the endlessly variable pictures of Jesus in contemporary biblical scholarship, and in radical opposition to the Jesus of the "Christian Right," Heyward presents "Jesus as our brother, infused with a sacred power and passion for embodying right (mutual) relation, and ourselves with him in this commitment." She goes on "to explore, concretely, how we might live this way."

Through fascinating anecdotes and narrative stories, Donna Schaper relates these ancient texts to contemporary situations. She skillfully applies the gospel of life and hope to circumstances of suffering and death. Chapters include: - Letting Death Go (Mark 8:31-38) - Paying Attention to the Modern Light (John 3:14-21) - Junk Food and Holy Tables (John 18:1-19) - Being Spiritually Odd (John 20:19-31) Donna Schaper has preached 25 full seasons of Lent and Easter as a parish pastor and a denominational executive. She is a graduate of Gettysburg College, Gettysburg Seminary, and the University of Chicago. She currently works as Area Minister for the Western Area of Massachusetts of the United Church of Christ. She writes for magazines and journals and is a frequent consultant to churches on Spirituality and Church Growth.

As the second book in the Explorations in Theological Field Education series,Empower is a toolkit for mentors working with beginning ministers. Chapters from ministry practitioners and field education program directors offer lessons gained through hundreds of hours of mentoring experience. Seasoned practitioners reveal how to do the work of mentoring in ways that are “fitting” to the particular needs of students with whom they have worked. This volume, then, is not a cookbook or a manual. It is itself a mentoring guide to those who wish to deepen and expand the craft of mentoring. Its goal is to meet ministry mentors in their journey towards skillful mentoring, and to provide guidance and support to help them hone their craft.

And That's the Way it Happened is an exciting collection of childrens stories that explain how and why certain things happen. In clever and descriptive tales Emily Dearworth weaves amazing short stories that not only intrigue young children, but also teaches them a valuable lesson. The collection of "Just So" stories includes explanations such as how the skunk got its stripe, how the snake lost its legs, and how the pug dog got its flat nose. The exciting adventures and plentiful illustrations help to capture the imagination of children as they discover a moral to every story. Join the exciting adventures of Pretty Pug Penelope, Chatty Charo Chihuahua, Obnoxious Octopus Oliver, and their friends as Ms. Dearworth takes them on a journey through Bungle Jungle, the Forbidden Fearsome Forest, Quarrel Coral, and other mystifying places where they learn to respect others, to treat people fairly and to always tell the truth. Little do they realize the valuable lessons they are learning along the way.