This is a book - a first of its kind - to help kids understand and celebrate the birthday of the Church. The Day When God Made the Church is the story of Pentecost and how the Holy Spirit shaped, and continues to shape, who we are as God's Church.

The Church in History examines key historic events in the life of the Church from the time of the apostles through today. The book gives a basic overview and summary of political, social, and economic factors that contributed to the development of the Christian Church.

Many congregations today experience collisions between parents who ant to spend time with their children and age-segregated church programming, as well as between the children worshiping in their pews and the increasing number of seniors in the same pew. Among the questions these congregations struggle to address are these: Should we try to hold the generations together when we worship/ Is it even possible? Led by pastor and resource developer Howard Vanderwell, nine writers--pastors, teachers, worship planners, and others serving in specialized ministries--offer their reflections on issues congregational leaders need to address as they design their worship ministry. In addition, numerous sidebars illustrate the diversity of practices in the church today. Contributors do not propose easy answers or instant solutions. Rather, they guide readers as they craft ministries and practices that fit their own community, heritage, and history. Each chapter includes questions for reflection and group discussion, and an appendix provides guidelines for small group use. The thread that connects these varied contributions is the belief that there is no greater privilege for Christians than worshiping God, and there is no better way to do that than as an intergenerational community in which all are important and all encourage and nurture the faith of the others.

Discover how many evangelical leaders, willingly or unwittingly, are undermining the authority of God's Word by compromising the Bible in Genesis Learn how allowing for an old/universe of billions of years unlocks a door of compromise Heed the wake-up call to the Church to return to the authority of God's Word, beginning in Genesis. Today, most Bible colleges, seminaries, K-12 Christian schools, and now even parts of the homeschool movement do not accept the first eleven chapters of Genesis as literal history. They try to fit the supposed billions of years into Genesis, and some teach evolution as fact. Our churches are largely following suit. Ken Ham, international speaker and author on biblical authority, examines how compromise starting in Genesis, particularly in regard to the six days of creation and the earth's age, have filtered down from the Bible colleges and seminaries to pastors—and finally to parents and their children. This erosive legacy is seen in generations of young people leaving the Church—2/3 of them. Get the facts, discover God's truth, and help bring a new reformation to the Church by helping to call it back to the authority of God's Word.

"Based on extensive interviews with mostly former cult members, this book chronicles the history of the Church of God of Union Assembly from its beginning around World War I up to recent times. Founded by a charismatic, unlettered leader, C. T. Pratt, who forcefully broke away from the Holiness COG organization, the church eventually found its home base in Dalton, Georgia. It grew steadily at first and then more rapidly as the great Depression ravaged workers in the mostly rural area of north Georgia. The group set up communal living practices and spread branches of the church across the country, recruiting among the most displaced with a message of social uplift and anti-capitalism, even as its religious practices became increasingly authoritarian and exploitative. If C. T. Pratt exhibited some characteristics of a violent cult leader, his son, who took over the church as his father suffered from ill-health, took these tendencies to a new level that eventually caught the attention of secular authorities. His son, in turn, was even worse--and placed the church on the path to financial ruin. Amazingly, the church survived its three authoritarian leaders and still exists"--

“I used to be a lesbian.” In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could? At age nineteen, Jackie came face-to-face with what it meant to be made new. And not in a church, or through contact with Christians. God broke in and turned her heart toward Him right in her own bedroom in light of His gospel. Read in order to understand. Read in order to hope. Or read in order, like Jackie, to be made new.

Now available in paperback. A longtime insider and church executive tells the story of God's liberation from a false doctrine. ." . . a story perhaps without parallel in America's religious history."--"Los Angeles Times."