In this six-session small group Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), Andy Stanley challenges us to stop flirting with disaster and establish personal guardrails. Guardrails. They're everywhere, but they don't really get much attention ... until somebody hits one. And then, more often than not, it is a lifesaver. Ever wonder what it would be like to have guardrails in other areas of your life-areas where culture baits you to the edge of disaster and then chastises you when you step across the line? Your friendships. Your finances. Your marriage. Maybe your greatest regret could have been avoided if you had established guardrails. In this six-session video-based small group bible study, Andy Stanley challenges us to stop flirting with disaster and establish some personal guardrails. Sessions include: Direct and Protect (20:00) Why Can’t We Be Friends? (18:30) Flee Baby Flee! (21:30) Me and the Mrs. (15:00) The Consumption Assumption (19:00) Once and for All (17:30) Designed for use with the Guardrails Video Study (sold separately).

No matter what you believe, no matter how you behave, Jesus invites you to follow him. Lots of people think Christianity is all about doing what Jesus says. But what if doing what Jesus says isn’t what Jesus says to do at all? Jesus' invitation is an invitation to relationship, and it begins with a simple request: follow me. Religion says, "Change and you can join us." Jesus says, "Join us and you will change." There's a huge difference. Being a sinner doesn't disqualify anyone. Being an unbeliever doesn't disqualify anyone. In fact, following Jesus almost always begins with a sinner and unbeliever taking one small step. In this eight-session video-based Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), pastor and best-selling author Andy Stanley takes small groups on a journey through the Gospels as he traces Jesus' teaching on what it means to follow. Sessions include: Jesus Says Next Steps Fearless Follow Wear The Fine Print What I Want to Want Leading Great Unfollow Designed for use with Follow Video Study 9780310823551 (sold separately).

Scores of lawsuits have pushed retirement plan sponsors to shorter, easier-to-navigate menus, but – as Ian Ayres and Quinn Curtis argue in this work – we've only scratched the surface of retirement plan design. Using participant-level plan data and straightforward tests, Ayres and Curtis show how plan sponsors can monitor plans for likely allocation mistakes and adapt menus to encourage success. Beginning with an overview of the problem of high costs and the first empirical evidence on retirement plan fee lawsuits, they offer an overview of the current plan landscape. They then show, based on reforms to a real plan, how streamlining menus, eliminating pitfalls, and adopting static and dynamic limits on participant allocations to certain risky assets or 'guardrails' can reduce mistakes and lead to better retirement outcomes. Focusing on plausible, easy-to-implement interventions, Retirement Guardrails shows that fiduciaries need not be limited to screening out funds but can design menus to actively promote good choices.

In this four-session video Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), bestselling author and pastor Andy Stanley takes a closer look at one of the unique things Christians believe: God became one of us. Why in the world would God do that? Why would God leave the comfort and recognition of heaven to live on this ball of dirt in a time before morphine and indoor plumbing when the best of conditions barely paralleled the worst of modern-day conditions? Why?We think we know why He died. But what compelled him to live as one of us? Sessions include: To Communicate and Demonstrate Like Son, Like Father Classless Putting Religion in Its Place As the founder of North Point Ministries—comprised of six churches in the Atlanta area serving more than 36,000 people weekly, as well as a network of 30 churches around the globe—Andy Stanley is uniquely positioned to reach an engaged and ever-growing ministry. Designed for use with the Why in the World Video Study (sold separately).

Today's programmers don't develop software systems from scratch. instead, they spend their time fixing, extending, modifying, and enhancing existing software. Legacy systems often turn into an unwieldy mess that becomes increasingly difficult to modify, and with architecture that continually accumulates technical debt. Carola Lilienthal has analyzed more than 300 software systems written in Java, C#, C++, PHP, ABAP, and TypeScript and, together with her teams, has successfully refactored them. This book condenses her experience with monolithic systems, architectural and design patterns, layered architectures, domain-driven design, and microservices. With more than 200 color images from real-world systems, good and sub-optimal sample solutions are presented in a comprehensible and thorough way, while recommendations and suggestions based on practical projects allow the reader to directly apply the author's knowledge to their daily work. "Throughout the book, Dr. Lilienthal has provided sound advice on diagnosing, understanding, disentangling, and ultimately preventing the issues that make software systems brittle and subject to breakage. In addition to the technical examples that you'd expect in a book on software architecture, she takes the time to dive into the behavioral and human aspects that impact sustainability and, in my experience, are inextricably linked to the health of a codebase. She also expertly zooms out, exploring architecture concepts such as domains and layers, and then zooms in to the class level where your typical developer works day-to-day. This holistic approach is crucial for implementing long-lasting change." From the Foreword of Andrea Goulet CEO, Corgibytes, Founder, Legacy Code Rocks

How society can shape individual actions in times of uncertainty When we make decisions, our thinking is informed by societal norms, “guardrails” that guide our decisions, like the laws and rules that govern us. But what are good guardrails in today’s world of overwhelming information flows and increasingly powerful technologies, such as artificial intelligence? Based on the latest insights from the cognitive sciences, economics, and public policy, Guardrails offers a novel approach to shaping decisions by embracing human agency in its social context. In this visionary book, Urs Gasser and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger show how the quick embrace of technological solutions can lead to results we don’t always want, and they explain how society itself can provide guardrails more suited to the digital age, ones that empower individual choice while accounting for the social good, encourage flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, and ultimately help us to make better decisions as we tackle the most daunting problems of our times, such as global injustice and climate change. Whether we change jobs, buy a house, or quit smoking, thousands of decisions large and small shape our daily lives. Decisions drive our economies, seal the fate of democracies, create war or peace, and affect the well-being of our planet. Guardrails challenges the notion that technology should step in where our own decision making fails, laying out a surprisingly human-centered set of principles that can create new spaces for better decisions and a more equitable and prosperous society.

Author and pastor Andy Stanley explains what made the earliest Christian movement so compelling and resilient...and what we need to change today to make it so again. Once upon a time there was a version of the Christian faith that was practically irresistible. After all, what could be more so than the gospel that Jesus ushered in? Why, then, isn't it the same with Christianity today? In this six-session video Bible study (DVD/video streaming not included), Pastor Andy answers questions like: What did first-century Christians know that we don't—about God's Word, about their lives, about love? What did they do that we're not doing? What makes Christianity so resistible in today's culture? What needs to change in order to repeat the growth our faith had at its beginning? Andy is deeply concerned with the present-day church and its future, and he believes that many of the solutions to our issues can be found by investigating our roots. It's time to hit pause and consider the faith modeled by our first-century brothers and sisters who had no official Bible, no status, and little chance of survival. It's time to embrace the version of faith that initiated—against all human odds—a chain of events resulting in the most significant and extensive cultural transformation the world has ever seen. This is a version of Christianity we must remember and re-embrace if we want to be salt and light in an increasingly savorless and dark world. Designed for use with the Irresistible Video Study (9780310100515) and the Irresistible core book (9780310536970), sold separately.