Pastoral Helps
Showing 401–450 of 2394 results
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City : Urban Churches In The Wesleyan-Holiness Tradition
$15.99Add to cartJesus commissioned his followers to make disciples of all nations, and John Wesley claimed that all the world was his parish. The church belongs in every part of the world, whether urban, suburban, or rural–but it originated in the city. Cities drive economic, cultural, and social change. Cities are the refuge of the poor and marginalized. Cities are mission fields ready to be sown and harvested.Yet many churches have left the city to pursue other ministry opportunities. In his seminal work, The City, David Busic traces the Wesleyan-Holiness history of ministry to, in, and from the urban core, and calls church leaders to remember and honor ancient visions for ministry by returning our faith communities to the city.
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1 Small Step Participants Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$9.99Add to cartCan ordinary people make a lasting impression on the world around them? Matthew Barnett’s answer is an emphatic Yes! With inspiring stories and biblical takeaways, Barnett calls readers to set aside their fears and boldly embrace the life-changing adventure of being the heart, hands, and feet of Jesus to the broken people right outside their front doors.
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Finding Our Voice
$17.99Add to cartNo one preaches in a cultural vacuum.
The message of what God has done in Christ is good news to all, but to have the greatest impact on its hearers–or even to be understood at all–it must be culturally contextualized.
Finding Our Voice speaks clearly to an issue that has largely been ignored: preaching to Asian North American (ANA) contexts. In addition to reworking hermeneutics, theology, and homiletics for these overlooked contexts, Kim and Wong include examples of culturally-specific sermons and instructive questions for contextualizing one’s own sermons.
Finding Our Voice is essential reading for all who preach and teach in ANA contexts. But by examining this kind of contextualization in action, all who preach in their own unique contexts will benefit from this approach.
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Act Like Jesus Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
Original price was: $13.99.$9.97Current price is: $9.97.Add to cartIn this eight-session video Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), pastor and author Randy Frazee explains there is a difference between simply believing something in our heads and allowing those beliefs to shape our actions and behaviors. It is not enough to think like Jesus . . . we must also act like Jesus. For this reason, once we understand what we believe, we need to yield to the direction of the Holy Spirit and allow him to lead us to those biblical practices that will bring about spiritual transformation in our lives. As we do this, the Holy Spirit will lead us to make these resolutions:
*I will worship God for who he is and for what he has done for me.
*I will pray to God to know him, find direction for my life, and to lay my requests before him.
*I will study the Bible to know God and his truth and find direction for my daily life.
*I will dedicate my life to God’s purposes.
*I will fellowship with Christians to accomplish God’s purposes in my life and in the world.
*I will seek to understand my spiritual gifts so I can use them to fulfill God’s purposes.
*I will give my resources to fulfill God’s purposes.
*I will share my faith with others to fulfill God’s purposes.Grounded in carefully selected scripture, Act Like Jesus is a churchwide discipleship program that will take you on a journey to become more like Jesus in your behaviors. This revised study, adapted from Part 2 of the Believe churchwide study, includes an updated video study and new content and questions adapted from the existing Believe Study Guide and Think, Act, Be Like Jesus by Randy Frazee.
SESSIONS:
1. Worship
2. Prayer
3. Bible Study
4. Total Surrender
5. Biblical Community
6. Spiritual Gifts
7. Giving My Resources
8. Sharing My FaithDesigned for use with the Act Like Jesus Video Study (sold separately).
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Think Like Jesus Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
Original price was: $13.99.$9.97Current price is: $9.97.Add to cartIn this eight-session video Bible study (DVD and digital downloads sold separately), pastor and author Randy Frazee explains that when Jesus saves us and ushers us into his kingdom, he begins a process of transformation within us that starts with our thoughts. As God begins to transform our minds, we begin to think like Jesus and believe like Jesus. For this reason, it is important for us to understand the eight key beliefs of the Christian faith that-when embraced in our hearts and minds-create true change in our lives, in the church, and in the world:
*I believe the God of the Bible is the one true God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
*I believe God is involved in and cares about my daily life.
*I believe we come into a right relationship with God, by his grace, through faith in Jesus.
*I believe the Bible is the Word of God and has the right to command my beliefs and actions.
*I believe I am significant because of my position as a child of God.
*I believe the church is God’s primary way to accomplish his purposes on earth today.
*I believe all people are loved by God and need Jesus Christ as their Savior.
*I believe that Jesus will return to judge all people and establish his eternal kingdom.Grounded in carefully selected scripture, Think Like Jesus is a churchwide discipleship program that will take you on a journey to become more like Jesus in your beliefs. This revised study, adapted from Part 1 of the Believe churchwide study, includes an updated video study and new content and questions adapted from the existing Believe Study Guide and Think, Act, Be Like Jesus by Randy Frazee.
SESSIONS
*God
*Personal God
*Salvation
*The Bible
*Identity in Christ
*Church
*Humanity
*EternityDesigned for use with the Think Like Jesus Video Study (sold separately).
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Be Like Jesus Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartIn this eight-session video Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), pastor and author Randy Frazee explains that our spiritual transformation involves not only thinking and acting like Jesus but also allowing those thoughts and behaviors to shape our attitudes. As we do this, we experience a new way of looking at the world and discover an inner strength that allows us to remain steadfast, secure, and solid in the face of any circumstance. We also discover a new desire to serve others . . . which, in turn, draws them to the love of Christ. We know we are becoming like Jesus when we possess these attributes:
*I have a deep love for God and for the other people in my life.
*I have inner contentment in spite of my circumstances and understand my purpose in life.
*I have freedom from anxiety because I am at peace with God, others, and myself.
*I have experienced the power, through Christ, to control my thoughts and behaviors.
*I have patience in the unavoidable pressures of life and am slow to anger.
*I have the desire to be kind and good in my relationships with others.
*I have established a good name with God and others based on my loyalty to those relationships.
*I have become thoughtful, considerate, and calm in my dealings with others.Grounded in carefully selected scripture, Be Like Jesus is a churchwide discipleship program that will take you on a journey to become more like Jesus in your behaviors. This revised study, adapted from Part 3 of the Believe churchwide study, includes an updated video study and new content and questions adapted from the existing Believe Study Guide and Think, Act, Be Like Jesus by Randy Frazee.
SESSIONS
*Love
*Joy
*Peace
*Self-Control
*Patience
*Kindness / Goodness
*Faithfulness
*GentlenessDesigned for use with the Be Like Jesus Video Study (sold separately).
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30 Days To Understanding The Bible Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartIn this six-session video Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), bestselling author, pastor, and theologian Max Anders guides participants through the entire Bible, providing them with an understanding of all the major biblical characters, the major events, and the major points of geography they need to know to get a solid grasp of the story of the Old and New Testaments. By spending just 15 minutes a day in personal study for five days each session, participants will come to understand not only the facts and history of the Bible but also its teachings that have become such an important foundation of Western civilization.
Participants will learn about the Ten Great Subjects of the Bible (the Bible, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, angels, man, sin, salvation, Church, and future things) and some of the more puzzling points of Scripture, such as why there are four Gospels, how to understand Jesus’ parables, the importance of miracles, the importance of the Resurrection, and much more.
The Bible is an enormous book covering much information and many subjects, and while it is not possible to learn everything about it in 30 days, they will gain a beginning knowledge-an overview-they can use to build a more complete understanding in the years ahead. In just fifteen minutes a day for thirty days, group members can gain a foundational grasp of the most important book ever written.
Designed for use with the 30 Days to Understanding the Bible Video Study (sold separately).
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Heavens Morning Breaks
$22.99Add to cartAt the heart of this book is the importance of balancing the Christian gospel with the hopes and wishes of a grieving family, even if these wishes do not entirely fit with the minister’s personal theology. Brooks examines the changes in funeral practice over the last 20 years before looking at issues such as cremation versus burial, life after death and difficult funeral services–where suicide or the death of a child may be a factor, or where mourners are few.
With a chapter on pastoral care for the bereaved as well as resource sections containing suggested orders of service, hymns, songs, prayers and readings, this is a helpful addition to literature on funerals for those involved in ministry.
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Embody : Five Keys To Leading With Integrity
$18.99Add to cartPastors and other leaders feel trapped in systems and institutions where actions and decisions often seem to have little to do with the scripture they read or the theology they profess. They are swept into leadership norms that resemble business models more than mission. They see in others and (sometimes) recognize in themselves the disconnect between their own theology and their leadership. They feel unable to fully integrate their beliefs with their behavior.
Many leaders–younger ones, especially–are frustrated and disillusioned by this disconnect. They see hypocrisy all around them, and in themselves. They see that our culture is at a critical juncture, which gives ministry a greater sense of urgency. But they want to do things differently, to be what they believe. They want to embody their Christian beliefs in every decision, every act of ministry leadership.
The functional authority of scripture must be evident in the way church leaders lead, both within the congregation and in the public square. The way we church leaders lead proves the bible does–or does not–matter. In Embody, Karoline Lewis shows how to frame leadership in the church and public square theologically, and from the perspective of incarnation. She shows how leadership can be a direct line between what you believe and what you do. She incorporates examples of Jesus’ leadership and the Paraclete in the Gospel of John, showing how leadership was achieved by walking beside.
Embody offers practical things for the reader to consider and do, instruction and guidance for how to make the ‘integration steps’ necessary in order to become an embodied leader, and exploration of core components of embodied leadership.
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Greeter And Usher Handbook
$9.99Add to cartAn update to 2005’s The Usher’s Book: Creating a Welcoming and Safe Environment for Worship, The Greeter and Usher Handbook provides a guide to the responsibilities of those who are generally the first faces visitors encounter in church: the usher and the greeter. Intended for training use by church staff or volunteers, the text covers responsibilities related to all aspects of creating a welcoming atmosphere for visitors and new members.
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Semi Final Musings
$17.99Add to cartThe target audience for this volume is ministry leaders, Pastors, elders and deacons, as well as those individuals who would like to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. The audience will be of necessity: men and women who are either in College or Seminary and/or in ministries working in churches.
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Semi Final Musings
$26.99Add to cartThe target audience for this volume is ministry leaders, Pastors, elders and deacons, as well as those individuals who would like to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. The audience will be of necessity: men and women who are either in College or Seminary and/or in ministries working in churches.
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Recovering From Biblical Manhood And Womanhood
$18.99Add to cartWhile evangelicalism dukes it out about who can be church leaders, the rest of the 98% of us need to be well equipped to see where we fit in God’s household and why that matters. Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is a resource to help church leaders improve the culture of their church and disciple men and women in their flock to read, understand, and apply Scripture to our lives in the church. Until both men and women grow in their understanding of their relationship to Scripture, there will continue to be tension between the sexes in the church. Church leaders need to be engaged in thoughtful critique of the biblical manhood and womanhood movement and the effects it has on their congregation.
Do men and women benefit equally from God’s word? Are they equally responsible in sharpening one another in the faith and passing it down to the next generation? While radical feminists claim that the Bible is a hopelessly patriarchal construction by powerful men that oppresses women, evangelical churches simply reinforce this teaching when we constantly separate men and women, customizing women’s resources and studies according to a culturally based understanding of roles. Do we need men’s Bibles and women’s Bibles, or can the one, holy Bible guide us all? Is the Bible, God’s word, so male-centered and authored that women need to create their own resources to relate to it? No! And in it, we also learn from women. Women play an active role as witnesses to the faith, passing it on to the new generations.
This book explores the feminine voice in Scripture as synergistic with the dominant male voice. Through the women, we often get the story behind the story–take Ruth for example, or the birth of Christ through the perspective of Mary and Elizabeth in Luke. Aimee fortifies churches in a biblical understanding of brotherhood and sisterhood in God’s household and the necessity of learning from one another in studying God’s word.
The troubling teaching under the rubric of “biblical manhood and womanhood” has thrived with the help of popular Biblicist interpretive methods. And Biblicist interpretive methods ironically flourish in our individualistic culture that works against the “traditional values” of family and community that the biblical manhood and womanhood movement is trying to uphold. This book helps to correct Biblicist trends in the church today, affirming that we do not read God’s word alone, we read it within our interpretive covenant com
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Rediscipling The White Church
$20.00Add to cart“Many white Christians across America are waking up to the fact that something is seriously wrong–but often this is where we get stuck.”
Confronted by the deep-rooted racial injustice in our society, many white Christians instinctively scramble to add diversity to their churches and ministries. But is diversity really the answer to the widespread racial dysfunction we see in the church? In this simple but powerful book, Pastor David Swanson contends that discipleship, not diversity, lies at the heart of our white churches’ racial brokenness. Before white churches can pursue diversity, he argues, we must first take steps to address the faulty discipleship that has led to our segregation in the first place. Drawing on the work of philosopher James K. A. Smith and others, Swanson proposes that we rethink our churches’ habits, or liturgies, and imagine together holistic, communal discipleship practices that can reform us as members of Christ’s diverse body.
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Disciple Making Culture
$15.99Add to cartA PRACTICAL GUIDE TO HELP YOU CULTIVATE HEALTHY CHURCH CULTURE
Church leaders who focus on programs, strategy, and curriculum can easily miss what ties them all together: culture. Cultivating culture is the difference between churches who flourish and those who flounder at disciple-making. Leaders must cultivate a healthy disciple-making culture. But how?
Author Brandon Guindon’s book Disciple-Making Culture provides a how-to guide for cultivating a healthy disciple-making culture throughout your church. He walks readers through key components of healthy culture, which he has uncovered over the course of his more than twenty years of disciple-making in various contexts. Using time-tested principles, he answers a challenging question: “How do we actually live out the Great Commission-as a church?”
Learn a relational method for making disciples at your church that is built upon how Jesus and the early church made disciples. Gain the tools needed to transform your church’s culture. Walk away with a reproducible model that’s been successfully implemented by thriving disciple-making churches around the world. Allow the pages of Scripture to become not only words-but also real-life experiences.
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For His Glory Participant Workbook (Student/Study Guide)
$17.99Add to cartDiscover Your True Worth in Christ.
What comes to mind when you hear the word masterpiece? Perhaps you think of a beautiful painting, a spectacular home renovation, or a captivating sunset. But few of us would describe ourselves with that word. We tend to listen instead to the lies that define us as rejected, unwanted, less than, ugly, stupid, or a failure. Sometimes we can feel more like worthless junk than a valuable masterpiece. Yet that is exactly what God’s Word says that we are!
In For His Glory, Marian Jordan Ellis leads us in an in-depth study of Ephesians to help us dismantle the lies we’ve believed about ourselves and replace them with a new identity built on God’s Word. The truths in this beloved epistle speak to the core beliefs we carry about ourselves, revealing to us our part in God’s magnificent design to redeem a people for Himself who reflect His glory to the world. Drawing on her own journey of transformation and her passion to equip women to overcome shame, insecurity, inferiority, and condemnation, Marian invites us on a journey to discover our true worth in Christ, our status as beloved children of God, and our glorious calling as His masterpiece.
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Marriage Course Study Journal
$14.99Add to cartToday we are facing a global crisis when it comes to families. Marriages are under more pressure than ever. Many children are growing up without experiencing the security of their parents’ love and commitment to each other-and consequently are finding it harder to receive God’s unconditional love. There is an urgent need to invest in marriage and family life, for strong societies are built on strong families, and strong families are built on strong marriages.
The Marriage Course, developed by Nicky and Sila Lee of Alpha, has been revised and updated to provide practical tools to help couples at every stage of their relationship. This update includes talks from experts including Dr. Gray Chapman, Dr. Henry Cloud, and Dr. Sue Johnson on topics such as money, sex, love languages, healthy boundaries, and building connections. The course will also cover how couples can:
*Better understand each other’s needs
*Communicate more effectively
*Grow closer by learning methods to resolve conflicts
*Recover from the way they may have hurt each other
*Recognize how their upbringing has affected their relationship
*Improve relationships with parents and in-lawsThe Marriage Course is based on a Christian understanding of love and serves to strengthen marriages within the church while being accessible for all couples from any cultural background, with or without a background in the Christian faith.
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Birth : The Mystery Of Being Born
$26.00Add to cartThis volume explores the connections between our own birth, the experience of having children, and the new birth of the Christian life. Seasoned pastor James Howell offers theological perspectives on a variety of themes associated with birth, such as who we are in light of having once lived in utero, why people might have children, infertility, adoption, baptism, and how to make sense of it all in light of God coming to us first in Mary’s womb and then as an infant. The book includes artwork, photos, and drawings.
About the Series
Pastors are called to help people navigate the profound mysteries of being human, from birth to death and everything in between. This series, edited by leading pastoral theologian Jason Byassee, provides pastors and pastors-in-training with rich theological reflection on the various seasons that make up a human life, helping them minister with greater wisdom and joy. Future volumes will cover addiction, disability, friendship, illness, parenting, and technology. -
Aging : Growing Old In Church
$21.99Add to cartSeasoned pastor and church leader Will Willimon excels at creating thought-provoking, accessible books for working pastors and seminarians. In Aging, he takes a theologically rich look at numerous aspects of growing old.Drawing on Scripture, literature, current research, and his experiences as an aging adult, Willimon reflects on aging as a spiritual journey. He explores the challenging realties as well as the rewarding joys of growing old and shows pastors how to help their congregants grow old gracefully and in good Christian hope. Willimon also offers practical advice on helping church members as they encounter retirement, aging, caring for the aging, loss, bereavement, and finding faith in the last quarter of life. This eloquent, delightfully Christian perspective on aging will be of interest to all who care for aging souls–not only pastors but also chaplains and other ministers in hospitals, hospices, and extended care facilities.About the SeriesPastors are called to help people navigate the profound mysteries of being human, from birth to death and everything in between. This series, edited by leading pastoral theologian Jason Byassee, provides pastors and pastors-in-training with rich theological reflection on the various seasons that make up a human life, helping them minister with greater wisdom and joy. Future volumes will cover addiction, disability, friendship, illness, parenting, and technology.
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Connections Year A 3 Volume Set
$155.00Add to cartDesigned to empower preachers as they lead congregations to connect their lives to Scripture, Connections features a broad set of interpretive tools that provide commentary and worship aids on the Revised Common Lectionary.
This nine-volume series offers creative commentary on each reading in the three-year lectionary cycle by viewing that reading through the lens of its connections to the rest of Scripture and then seeing the reading through the lenses of culture, film, fiction, ethics, and other aspects of contemporary life. Commentaries on the Psalms make connections to the other readings and to the congregation’s experience of worship.
This set contains all three volumes for Year A.
Connections is published in partnership with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Surviving A Dangerous Sermon
$18.99Add to cartPreachers increasingly see the need to deliver sermons that are “dangerous” in a variety of ways: the way they challenge hearers’ comfort levels and challenge established powers and hierarchies. Author Frank Thomas helps readers understand those dangers–especially the forces of power and hierarchy that are so intrinsic in our everyday lives and in society as a whole. He teaches how to anticipate and navigate those forces, to open opportunities for dangerous preaching, and to mitigate negative impact on congregants, the preacher, and the preacher-congregation relationships.
Surviving a Dangerous Sermon is a logical follow-up to Thomas’s previous book, How to Preach a Dangerous Sermon. It equips preachers to say what must be said, in a way that it is heard, so that the sermon has a chance to do its work on human hearts, without negative consequences.
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Bridging Theory And Practice In Childrens Spirituality
$22.99Add to cartBridging Theory and Practice in Children’s Spirituality explores the different contexts, methods, and situations that influence and foster a child’s spirituality and faith development. Through a blend of theoretical understanding held in tension with practical application, it equips those who are in, or being prepared for, the varied contexts where children are spiritually formed.
It represents a broad range of Christian expression writing from a Christ-centered perspective that furthers the conversation about the next steps in children’s spirituality and faith development. Moving beyond the basics of faith nurture and what makes for effective ministry, this resource deepens our understanding of the practices in children’s by bringing together the best of theory and practice and includes contributions from:
*Dr. Scottie May (Wheaton College)
*Dr. Kevin Lawson (Biola University)
*Dr. Erik Carter (Vanderbilt University)
*John Roberto (Vibrant Faith)
*Dr. Dana Kennamer Pemberton (Abilene Christian University)
*Dr. Shirley Morganthaler (Concordia University – Chicago)
*Dr. Holly Catterton Allen (Lipscomb University)
*Dr. Robert Keeley (Calvin College and Calvin Seminary)
*Dr. Mimi Larson (Wheaton College)
*Lacy Finn Borgo ( Renovare Institute) and others.Pastors, professors, seminary students and children’s ministry leaders and practitioners all believe that nurturing a child’s spiritual development is important. Yet often they are unsure about which current trends should be embraced. This book will help equip these people with the grounding needed to evaluate trends and with specific suggestions for moving forward. With short, accessibly written chapters it helps pastors and leaders stay up to date with current trends and is an excellent resource for teaching in college and seminary classrooms.
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Way Of Worship Student Workbook (Workbook)
$12.99Add to cartThe Way of Worship Student Workbook is a practical guide that accompanies The Way of Worship, providing questions for discussion and reflection, as well as hands-on activities to better prepare you for a lifestyle of worship. It is a resource to encourage those who are answering the calling of God on their lives to lead worship.
The Way of Worship (available separately) provides a biblical theology of worship, as well as a practical manual for practicing private and public worship as a way of life. This accompanying workbook serves as a journal and guidebook, allowing those who read and study The Way of Worship to further explore the concepts, internalizing and applying them to life.
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Learning Cycle : Insights For Faithful Teaching From Neuroscience And The S
$26.00Add to cartHow teachers teach is not necessarily how learners learn.
Educators generally focus on content delivery. But much of the learning process involves affective and behavioral factors that shape learners’ outcomes. Veteran educators Muriel and Duane Elmer provide a holistic model for how learning takes place. Their learning cycle moves beyond mere recall of information to helping learners value and apply their learning in ways that are integrated into behavior and practice. With insights from neuroscience, educational psychology, and learning theory, they address how the brain can become more receptive, how emotional environments affect learning, and how learning tasks and experiential exercises can help foster the development of skills and habit formation. They do so in the context of a thoroughly Christian framework that emphasizes not just knowledge, but character, integrity, and wisdom. Learning can be accomplished in and beyond the classroom to move from content mastery to life experience. Here are sound avenues for helping your students become the lifelong learners God intends.
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I Still Believe Leaders Guide
$14.99Add to cartMany small group leaders feel ill-equipped to create natural conversation that leads to a meaningful experience for their group members. This I Still Believe Leader’s Guide works in conjunction with the video series to equip group leaders with helpful tips on leading a group, thoughtful discussion questions for each week, and suggested scripture to read. Create a directed, safe, and open environment to lead your group to trusting and leaning on God and his promises during life’s most difficult times.
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I Still Believe Participants Journal (Student/Study Guide)
$14.99Add to cartThe most difficult aspect of life is enduring trials and difficulties of any kind. From cover to cover, one of the strongest themes threaded throughout Scripture is holding onto God and his promises when suffering comes into our lives. The I Still Believe Journal is a thirty-five-day journey into discovering his strength in our darkest moments.
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Smart Church Finances
$15.99Add to cartWhat can the Church learn from the business world?
You’re a leader of a ministry, nonprofit, or church. You trained to be a faithful counselor, preacher, interpreter of God’s Word–so why do you find yourself spending so much energy on administration tasks that threaten to drain your time, energy, and joy?
Look to this book for the coaching you needed, yesterday. Written from years of ministry and business experience, Business for Ministry is built on a solid foundation of business principles but–unlike many business books–in a straightforward style that anyone can grasp. You’ll learn how to:
*Communicate vision and strategize with a team
*Steward resources well (yes, including budgeting)
*Prioritize goals, wisely make decisions, and evaluate outcomes based on vision and data
*Leverage the existing talents of men and women at your church, many of whom don’t fit in “traditional” ministry rolesThis field guide to building a holistic, sustainable system for your church will both help you address the business needs of your church and free your leaders to serve, fully and joyfully.
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I Still Believe Small Group DVD Kit
$39.99Add to cartThe I Still Believe Small Group Kit combines a 5-episode DVD series, 35-day devotional journal, and thorough leader’s guide to serve as a five-week guided tour for small groups through the biblical response to commitment, sacrifice, grief, loss, and also God’s sovereignty and redemption. This kit comes as a ready-to-use package that makes it easy to implement small groups in your church or ministry.
Includes: Video Series, Leader’s Guide, and Study Journal
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Acts Leader Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$15.99Add to cartThe Acts of the Apostles is a unique and crucial book that chronicles the story of God’s grace flooding out to the world through the lives of the apostles in the decades immediately following Christ’s ascension into heaven.
In Acts: Catching up with the Spirit, author and biblical scholar Matthew Skinner provides a broad yet theologically attuned introduction to this important book and its message of fulfilling the Great Commission.
Skinner explores six key themes that illustrate the ways in which reading Acts is capable of igniting our imagination about the character of the Christian gospel, the work of God’s people (the church), and the challenges of living faithfully in a complex and changing world. The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the six-week study including session plans, activities, and discussion questions, as well as multiple format options.
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Sin And Mental Ailments
$29.99Add to cartIn Romans 7:15, St. Paul expressed frustration with something all of us can relate to, saying, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Despite our best efforts to live our lives as we ought to, we repeatedly fall into the trap of “not understanding what we do,” and constantly perpetrating the same missteps we have previously vowed never to take again. What is the reason of our deeply ingrained fallibility? Christians do what they hate either because they consciously, deliberately and sinfully transgress Jesus’ commands, or because they are experiencing unintended and often unconscious symptoms of mental ailments. The interconnectedness of sinful and psychologically disordered behaviors is undeniable. Malignant selfishness, which we recognize as sin, is often linked to narcissistic character features. Repeated belligerent acting out may be rooted in a paranoid mindset. Emotional cruelty may be not freely chosen but tied to antisocial personality traits; sinning against the sixth commandment can be driven by the illness of pedophilia. The reverse is also true: most mentally disordered behaviors involve some form of intentional and sinful violation of Jesus’ command. Though the boundary between sin and sickness may appear fuzzy at times, a thorough understanding of their interplay is of utmost importance when faced with matters of freedom of choice, conscience, responsibility and, most of all, pastoral care.
This comprehensive handbook on pastoral care successfully integrates the biblical and medical/scientific perspectives on human anthropology, mental illness and sin. It expounds on the signs of all major mental ailments and provides recommendations for their pastoral and medical treatment. Problems from psychoses to mood disorders, suicide to sexual disturbances, anxiety to addictive behaviors, and ailments in between are explained. Readers will find new insights on the ways in which various personality disorders interfere with spiritual functioning. Developmental stages in life are also discussed, together with the spiritual challenges they pose, and the pastoral answers they call for. This work does not shy away from controversial topics, such as post-abortion syndrome, euthanasia, gender ideology, or the psychological aspects of atheism. Soundly faith-based, yet well-grounded in contemporary psychiatric knowledge, this handbook captures a lifetime of learning and healing by practicing psychologist wh
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5 Loaves Two Fish 12 Volunteers
$14.99Add to cartSixty-two percent of food pantries and meal programs in the United States are faith-based. Most of these ministries are transactional; people needing food interact with church volunteers to earn access to direct service.
Elizabeth Magill advocates relational ministry as a better model for food ministry. People donating food or money eat with the people who need food and get to know them as they serve alongside them. Those needing food share all aspects of the ministry, including planning, setting up, leading, serving, and cleaning. As volunteers become better acquainted, they can form deep, meaningful relationships, creating a new way to be the church.
Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers tells the stories of 8 churches that share food ministry with people who need their services. Full of practical advice, this book emphasizes that building relationships and offering radical welcome is more important work for churches than efficiency or order.
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End Of Youth Ministry
$22.99Add to cartWhat is youth ministry actually for? And does it have a future? Andrew Root, a leading scholar in youth ministry and practical theology, went on a one-year journey to answer these questions. In this book, Root weaves together an innovative first-person fictional narrative to diagnose the challenges facing the church today and to offer a new vision for youth ministry in the 21st century.
Informed by interviews that Root conducted with parents, this book explores how parents’ perspectives of what constitutes a good life are affecting youth ministry. In today’s culture, youth ministry can’t compete with sports, test prep, and the myriad other activities in which young people participate. Through a unique parable-style story, Root offers a new way to think about the purpose of youth ministry: not happiness, but joy. Joy is a sense of experiencing the good. For youth ministry to be about joy, it must move beyond the youth group model and rework the assumptions of how identity and happiness are imagined by parents in American society.
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Restoring The Shattered Self
$32.00Add to cartNearly every professional counselor will encounter clients with a history of complex trauma.
Yet many counselors are not adequately prepared to help those suffering from complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), including survivors of child abuse, religious cult abuse, and domestic violence. A lack of consistent terminology in the field makes finding resources difficult, but without reliable training counselors risk inadvertently retraumatizing those they are trying to help. In this second edition of Restoring the Shattered Self, Heather Davediuk Gingrich provides an essential resource for Christian counselors to help fill the gap between their training and the realities of trauma-related work. Drawing on over thirty years of experience with complex trauma survivors in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines, she ably integrates the established research on trauma therapy with insights from her own experience and an intimate understanding of the special concerns related to Christian counseling. In addition to presenting a three-phase treatment model for C-PTSD based on Judith Herman’s classic work, Gingrich addresses how to treat dissociative identity disorder clients, respond to survivors’ spiritual issues, build resilience as a counselor in this taxing work, and empower churches to help in the healing process. This new edition is updated throughout to match the DSM-5 and includes new content on how the body responds to trauma, techniques for helping clients stay within the optimal zone of nervous system arousal, and additional summary sidebars. With this thoughtful guide, counselors and pastors will be equipped to provide the long-term help that complex trauma survivors need to live more abundantly. -
When Narcissism Comes To Church
$24.00Add to cartWhy does narcissism seem to thrive in our churches?
We’ve seen the news stories and heard the rumors. Maybe we ourselves have been hurt by a narcissistic church leader. It’s easy to throw the term around and diagnose others from afar. But what is narcissism, really? And how does it infiltrate the church? Chuck DeGroat has been counseling pastors with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as well as those wounded by narcissistic leaders and systems, for over twenty years. He knows firsthand the devastation narcissism leaves in its wake and how insidious and painful it is. In When Narcissism Comes to Church, DeGroat takes a close look at narcissism, not only in ministry leaders but also in church systems. He offers compassion and hope for those affected by its destructive power and imparts wise counsel for churches looking to heal from its systemic effects. DeGroat also offers hope for narcissists themselves–not by any shortcut, but by the long, slow road of genuine recovery, possible only through repentance and trust in the humble gospel of Jesus.
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Wesleyan Journey Pastor Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$13.99Add to cartThe transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer was a central theme of John Wesley’s life and work.
In The Wesleyan Journey: A Workbook on Salvation, beloved pastor and author Maxie Dunnam invites readers to spend time every day exploring Wesley’s understanding of salvation through prayer, study, and reflection.
Based on John Wesley’s theology and the Bible’s teaching on what it means to be saved, this workbook will help readers consider anew God’s ever-present grace, the experience of acceptance, pardon, and forgiveness, and the lifelong journey to become more Christ-like.
The Pastor Guide offers guidance and tips for pastors on how to use, promote, and share this study, with ideas for how to incorporate it into worship and invite people into the journey. It also contains short session guides and leader helps to facilitate group discussion through an eight-week study.
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Your Time Starved Marriage Workbook For Men (Workbook)
$12.99Add to cartConnect your time styles–and your hearts.
The way you spend your time not only defines you as a man, it also defines your marriage and reveals the value of your relationship. Your Time-Starved Marriage Workbook for Men helps you find more time with your wife–and enjoy it more together.
Here are the hands-on, practical tools you need to dramatically reclaim the times you’ve been missing together and make every moment with your loved one count. Designed to be used either on your own or in a small group, this workbook helps you work with your wife to incorporate the new lessons you’ve both learned while reading Your Time-Starved Marriage. This workbook includes exercises for each chapter in the book, plus a small-group discussion guide designed to be used with Your Time-Starved Marriage DVD.
You’ll take five or ten minutes on your own to do each exercise and then compare the results with your wife. These exercises are designed to help you deepen your relationship with each other as you apply proven principles that help you manage your time as a couple. Your Time-Starved Marriage Workbooks can help you be more connected to each other, leading to a deeper level of contentment, satisfaction, and commitment in your marriage.
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Healing The Christian Church
$14.95Add to cartAre you looking to improve the relevance, life, and health of your church? In Healing the Christian Church, author Al Pomeroy offers a fresh, unique, and sustainable approach that will consistently produce good ground. Addressing church leadership, he provides practical advice and a resource for those wanting to see their church succeed beyond the status quo, and he discusses how to prevent the church from dealing with unnecessary problems. It requires more than reading the Bible, attending services, and listening to sermons. Leaders must let go of fear, bitterness, envy, and more to build the spirits of those involved. Pomeroy provides opportunities for personal reflection, inspires action, and motivates a response, helping one assess whether their actions are helping or harming the church. Healing the Christian Church conducts an open and honest discussion on how easily a lack of knowledge and apathy has resulted in shattered lives, ineffective leaders, and paralyzed churches. Delivering a fresh approach supported by scripture, it presents several ways to address current and potential problems.
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Intentional Churches : How Implementing An Operating System Clarifies Visio
$18.99Add to cartIn spite of many church leaders and Christian researchers doubt about the local church’s relevancy and ability to grow, there are many churches growing and making disciples. They are implementing a revolutionary new Intentional Growth Planning operating system.
Pastors and church leaders are frequently frustrated and overworked, not knowing how to create systems and structures to support church growth and the making of more and better disciples. Just as laptops and smart phones have an operating system, the church needs a biblically-based operating system which its various programs and activities can effectively plug in to. In Intentional Churches, church growth leaders Doug Parks and Bart Rendel unveil a proven and practical operational system that will help leaders clarify their unique vision, filter trends and new idea through their mission, improve implementation abilities, and maintain unity and alignment to what matters most. It is a repeatable and transferable process any church can learn!
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Analog Church : Why We Need Real People, Places, And Things In The Digital
$20.00Add to cartWhat does it mean to be an analog church in a digital age?
In recent decades the digital world has taken over our society at nearly every level, and the church has increasingly followed suit–often in ways we’re not fully aware of. But as even the culture at large begins to reckon with the limits of a digital world, it’s time for the church to take stock. Are online churches, video venues, and brighter lights truly the future? What about the digital age’s effect on discipleship, community, and the Bible? As a pastor in Silicon Valley, Jay Kim has experienced the digital church in all its splendor. In Analog Church, he grapples with the ramifications of a digital church, from our worship and experience of Christian community to the way we engage Scripture and sacrament. Could it be that in our efforts to stay relevant in our digital age, we’ve begun to give away the very thing that our age most desperately needs: transcendence? Could it be that the best way to reach new generations is in fact found in a more timeless path? Could it be that at its heart, the church has really been analog all along?
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Embodying Integration : A Fresh Look At Christianity In The Therapy Room
$30.00Add to cartDiscussing spirituality and religion in the therapy room is increasingly accepted, some even forgetting that integration of psychology and Christianity was once a rare thing.
Yet even as the decades-long integration movement has been so effective, the counselor’s lived context in which integration happens grows increasingly complex, and the movement has reached a new turning point. Christian practitioners need a fresh look at integration in a postmodern world. In Embodying Integration, Megan Anna Neff and Mark McMinn provide an essential guide to becoming integrators today. Representing two generations of counselor education and practice, they model how to engage hard questions and consider how different theological views, gendered perspectives, and cultures integrate with psychology and counseling. “Many students,” they write, “don’t want models and views that tend to simplify complexity into categories. They are looking for conversation that helps them dive into the complexity, to ponder the nuances and messiness of integration.” More than focusing on resolving issues, Neff and McMinn help situate wisdom through personally engaging, diverse views and narratives. Arising from conversations between an up-and-coming practitioner and her veteran integrator father, this book considers practical implications for the day-to-day realities of counseling and psychotherapy. Personal stories, dialogues between the coauthors, and discussion questions throughout help students, teachers, mental health professionals, and anyone interested in psychology and faith to enter–and continue–the conversation.
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Connections Year A Volume 3 Season After Pentecost
$55.00Add to cartDesigned to empower preachers as they lead congregations to connect their lives to Scripture, Connections features a broad set of interpretive tools that provide commentary and worship aids on the Revised Common Lectionary.
This nine-volume series offers creative commentary on each reading in the three-year lectionary cycle by viewing that reading through the lens of its connections to the rest of Scripture and then seeing the reading through the lenses of culture, film, fiction, ethics, and other aspects of contemporary life. Commentaries on the Psalms make connections to the other readings and to the congregation’s experience of worship.
Connections is published in partnership with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Your Time Starved Marriage Workbook For Women (Workbook)
$12.99Add to cartReclaim your time. Reconnect your marriage. Do you feel overscheduled and underconnected? Do you wish there was a surefire way to create more meaningful time together each day? Reclaim your time together and all the relational benefits that go with it. Your Time-Starved Marriage isn’t about being more productive-it’s about being more connected.
Six sessions include:
1. Is Your Marriage Slipping into the Future?
2. Busyness-the Archenemy of Marriage
3. Time Styles-Uncovering your Unique Approach to Time
4. Prioritizing Primetime-Maximizing your Moments
5. Time Bandits-Catching Your Time-Stealers Redhanded
6. Time Mines-Where You’re Sure to Strike Gold -
Multiplication Effect : Building A Leadership Pipeline That Solves Your Lea
$19.99Add to cartMost pastors say that the need to identify and develop leaders is critical to the health and growth of their church. Yet, most churches do not have an intentional plan for doing this. In this book, Mac Lake reveals a practical strategy for addressing this problem.
How do you develop leaders in a church setting–good leaders, qualified leaders, leaders who are committed, who possess the DNA of the church, and leaders who produce results? The majority of churches have tried everything, but is what they are doing working? Unfortunately, in most cases, no. The Multiplication Effect is a proven, tested program, designed using unique training modules to help identify potential leaders, equip and disciple them at every level of their leadership journey, and empower them to multiply themselves by developing other leaders. Churches who use this plan will become “cultures” of leader development built into the structure and mission statement of the church and thus solve their leadership shortage.
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Nice Participants Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$9.99Add to cartWe live in a culture that prizes niceness as one of its highest virtues. Niceness keeps the peace, wins friends, gains influence, and serves our reputations well, but it also takes the teeth out of our witness and the power out of our faith. When we choose to be nice instead of faithful, we bear fruits that are bland, bitter, empty, or rotten to the core.
In this life-changing curriculum, Sharon Hodde Miller explores the seemingly innocent idol that has crept into our faith and quietly corrupted it, producing the bad fruits of cowardice, inauthenticity, shallowness, and more. Then she challenges participants to cultivate a better tree, providing practical steps to reclaim our credibility as followers of Christ and bear better, richer, more life-giving fruits.
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Easter Mysteries Participant Guide To The Film With Leader Helps
$14.99Add to cartThe story is a celebration that sheds a new light onto the biblical figures of Christ’s story in human terms–ordinary people with hopes, dreams and fears, uncertain of what lies ahead.
The music, libretto and lyrics are by Tony Award-winning Broadway producer John O’Boyle. Danny Goldstein is the Director of the motion picture with Musical Arrangements and Music Direction by Milton Granger.
The cast consists of talented Broadway veterans who have graced the stages of Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, Porgy and Bess, and Phantom of The Opera, and more.
The video can be watched in one event with discussion at intermission and after the conclusion or viewed in three segments in a small group setting. The Participant Guide to the FIlm includes a summary of each act with discussion questions, selections from the key lyrics, interviews, comments from creators and cast, and leader helps in the back for planning a one-night event or a three-session group study.
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Simplicity : Spiritual Practices For Building A Life Of Faith
$14.99Add to cart“While physical training has some value, training in holy living is useful for everything. It has promise for this life now and the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4:8
Christians crave a deeper, more intimate relationship with God. Spiritual disciplines are activities and practices that guide you in your daily walk through life bringing you closer to Christ. They also help you to make a difference in our world. Practicing these spiritual disciplines opens you to God’s transforming love and help you experience Holy Living.
At its core, the spiritual practice of simplicity enables us to eliminate from our lives all the things–both material possessions and thoughts, habits, and attitudes–that distract us from God so that God has complete freedom to work in and through us. Simplicity brings freedom, balance, and perspective to our lives and enables us to align our priorities with the priorities of God. It reorients us and allows us to be open to the present moment. Developing the spiritual practice of simplicity is key to a healthy, vibrant relationship with God and others. This book helps us know how to begin and implement this practice.
This is one of series of eight books. Each book in this series introduces a spiritual practice, suggests way of living the practice daily, and provides opportunities to grow personally and in a faith community with others who engage with the practice. Each book consists of an introduction and four chapters and includes questions for personal reflection and group discussion.
Other disciplines studied: Celebration, Confession, Discernment, Neighboring, Study, and Worship.
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Renewing Communication : Spirit-Shaped Approaches For Children Youth And Fa
$29.00Add to cartHow can we as Christian leaders make the most of our communication to help others become more like Christ? Colleen Derr draws on decades of experience in education and church ministry to offer a holistic strategy for transformational communication, showing that communication powered by the Spirit needn’t be limited to the pulpit or classroom, but can include everyday interactions and relationships.
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Art Of Hospitality Implementation Guide
$20.99Add to cartEngaging worship and intentional follow-up processes are important, but what compels guests to return to our churches is the warmth of our welcome and hospitality that goes beyond their expectations.
The Art of Hospitality, a new comprehensive program developed by hospitality experts from the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, promises to guide a local church in exactly what the program’s title implies: the artform of creating radical hospitality that infiltrates the heart and culture of the entire church. Complete with techniques and strategic planning throughout, The Art of Hospitality will effectively change how you do church, leaving guests surprised, delighted, and eager to return.
The Implementation Guide contains step-by-step implementation strategies for leadership and teams tasked with developing and leading hospitality ministry.
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Holy Moments : Activities For Teaching Children About Worship
$19.99Add to cartHoly Moments: Activities for Teaching Children About Worship is a library of activities created to help children fully understand how and why we worship together as a community of faith.
These simple activities cover each of the elements of a typical traditional or contemporary worship service, and are perfect for adding holy moments to your children’s church, worship service, Sunday school, or children’s event.
Parent letters and reproducibles are included to help the children and their families experience holy moments at home and connect them to what they have experienced at church.
