‘I wanted to change the world, but I couldn’t find a babysitter.’ School runs, packed lunches, play-dates, date night, nappy changes, homework, football, deadlines, bedtime stories, supermarket runs, peace-keeping, juice and biscuits, park trips, the runs, toddler groups, coffee drinking, mum’s taxi, potty training, kiss-it-better. These are our lives. Like you, we are busy mums who want to follow God. We want to be part of his mission to the world. Perhaps you had big dreams of how you’d make a difference to the world, how you’d change it for the better. But now all you can think about is the next feed. Or perhaps you think mission is only for ‘special Christians’ who are extra holy and know their Bible backwards - and you feel that just ticking off each day on the calendar is an achievement. Wherever you are, whatever you feel, we hope this book will renew your passion to serve God in your own situation. We’d like to share some stories from women who have begun to do just that. And we want to invite you to explore what mission looks like for a normal mum. Because however ordinary we are, we serve an extraordinary God, and he calls us all to be a part of his mission to transform the earth, bring his kingdom, redeem a new humanity and build his church.

What does it mean to grow up as an evangelical Christian today? What meanings does 'childhood' have for evangelical adults? How does this shape their engagements with children and with schools? And what does this mean for the everyday realities of children's lives? Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork carried out in three contrasting evangelical churches in the UK, Anna Strhan reveals how attending to the significance of children within evangelicalism deepens understanding of evangelicals' hopes, fears and concerns, not only for children, but for wider British society. Developing a new, relational approach to the study of children and religion, Strhan invites the reader to consider both the complexities of children's agency and how the figure of the child shapes the hopes, fears, and imaginations of adults, within and beyond evangelicalism. The Figure of the Child in Contemporary Evangelicalism explores the lived realities of how evangelical Christians engage with children across the spaces of church, school, home, and other informal educational spaces in a de-christianizing cultural context, how children experience these forms of engagement, and the meanings and significance of childhood. Providing insight into different churches' contemporary cultural and moral orientations, the book reveals how conservative evangelicals experience their understanding of childhood as increasingly countercultural, while charismatic and open evangelicals locate their work with children as a significant means of engaging with wider secular society. Setting out an approach that explores the relations between the figure of the child, children's experiences, and how adult religious subjectivities are formed in both imagined and practical relationships with children, this study situates childhood as an important area of study within the sociology of religion and examines how we should approach childhood within this field, both theoretically and methodologically.

These are difficult times for the Catholic Church and the United States of America. There is only one solution to the problems we face saints! Becoming a saint is a choice, and we must begin choosing the saint within each of us. The biggest crisis of our time is not economic, health care, or vocations, but is an identity crisis. We have forgotten our mission to become saints and forgotten our story as Catholics. We must rediscover that mission and hold each other accountable to accepting responsibility for that mission. We need heroic Catholicism. Everything we need to accomplish our mission is in the Church but the Catholic Church is a sleeping giant. It is time we wake the sleeping giant! This book is a five step guide to choosing the saint within you. The world doesn't need another John Paul II or Mother Teresa. The world needs you. Your ordinary life has an extraordinary purpose.

This book is an emotionally vulnerable and real journey through motherhood. It documents an ordinary mum's journey through life with two young children and the lessons she's learnt along the way. Expect tears, laughter and a real look at how we're all winging it and how being imperfect is just perfect. We are bombarded by rules on how to raise our children but the secret to raising happy children (and enjoying it along the way) is simple. If you're sick of being told what to do and want to raise your children your way, then read on...

Out of the generation that grew up in the Great Depression and World War II, thousands of young Christians felt called by God to the ends of the earth. Pauline A. Brown, with her husband Ralph, and two other families, went to the Sindh Province in southern Pakistan in 1954 -- their goal, to share God's message love with Muslim Sindhis. This book is not just about North Americans abroad, but about a fellowship of ordinary people crossing cultural and linguistic barriers to take on the extraordinary challenge of establishing the Church in the Sindh desert. Jars of Clay is a story of laughter and tears, of danger and deliverance, of despair and hope, of victory and defeat. Above all, it is a story of perseverance in the face of great odds. The story of how the Church of Jesus Christ, small and fragile as it is, is taking root in the barren desert soil of Sindh in Pakistan, an Islamic Republic, is relevant more than ever in our post 9/11 world.