Bøger udgivet af Abingdon Press

Courage is the foundational virtue required for the Christian life. But often we wonder if we have what it takes to live the vital life Jesus offers his disciples.In Courage: Jesus and the Call to Brave Faith, pastor and author Tom Berlin challenges us to unlock the courage that we already possess as Christ followers. By examining the life of Christ, we will begin to understand what true courage is and how God works in the lives of Christ followers as they exhibit a brave faith. Once we have eyes to hear what Jesus is showing us, once have ears to hear, we can begin to find the remarkable life Jesus offers us.The Leader Guide includes session outline for each group meeting with Scripture, prayer, opening activity, discussion questions, activity, and ending call to action.

Worship at Home: Advent and Christmas 2020 is packed with weekly worship services you can do on your own or with others and includes services for each week in Advent, Christmas Eve, the Sunday after Christmas, and Epiphany. This book is for congregations and individuals who want to stay spiritually connected and growing, even when they're not worshiping together in the same space. It provides everything you need to conduct meaningful, spiritually fulfilling, traditionally rooted worship services at home or in other intimate environments.Each service includes essential worship elements, from gathering to benediction, with words and actions you can say and do yourself. Included are links for online musical selections plus traditional hymn suggestions from a variety of hymnals. You'll find helpful ideas for how to use this resource in a variety of settings, and how to create worshipful spaces, even in your own home.The Worship at Home series is organized by the liturgical year, with a new book for each season: Advent and Christmas, Lent, Easter and Eastertide, Pentecost, and the weeks after Pentecost. Ways the resource can be used by individuals and families include: - Individuals can use the resource for personal devotion and worship at any time, wherever they like. Go through the entire service, or simply choose whatever portions are helpful. Read a prayer and meditate. Watch a video clip and reflect on it. Sing a song or hymn.- Families can use Worship at Home in the same ways, any time and any place.- Suggestions are included for creating worship spaces at home, and for involving children in the services.Here are some ways the resource can be used by a congregation or group: - Pastors or group leaders can use Worship at Home as the worship plans for weekly church services. The pastor might prepare a sermon or homily, but everything else is ready to go.- People can use the resource for worship in any space-at a senior care center, in a park, on the lawn, at the church, and so forth. No bulletins or hymnals are needed. - People gathered to worship via Zoom, FaceTime, Facebook or Instagram Live, or livestream will all be reading aloud the same prayers from these books, singing the same songs or singing along with a video. Worship at Home provides a participatory experience and a sense of community, even when people are worshiping remotely.

Achieve a richer understanding of the Christian faith through the cross.

Explore why Jesus died on the cross and how it brings us salvation

Saving Grace: A Guide to Financial Health is a program to help people of faith create healthy relationships with money and possessions. Participants will move through six sessions covering such topics as saving, earning, giving, spending, and debt, along with helpful strategies for achieving a sustainable financial life. Adapted from the best-selling Freed Up Financial Living from the Good Sense Movement, this study is based on Wesleyan values and provides text and tools to help participants address life concerns and reach personal financial goals.The Leader Guide contains session plans, outlines, discussion questions, and everything needed to guide a six-week group study on a faithful approach to financial health.

Saving Grace: A Guide to Financial Health is a program to help people of faith create healthy relationships with money and possessions. Participants will move through six sessions covering such topics as saving, earning, giving, spending, and debt, along with helpful strategies for achieving a sustainable financial life. Adapted from the best-selling Freed Up Financial Living from the Good Sense Movement, this study is based on Wesleyan values and provides text and tools to help participants address life concerns and reach personal financial goals.A 40-day devotional offers spiritual support for a new approach to financial health. The short devotional essays bring reassurance, encouragement, faith, and prayer to complement the work of finding strength in faith to make life changes.

Have you ever thought you had life under control--until you didn't? Perhaps thinking "God is in control" but living as if you are. It's like walking around with a hot cup of coffee, afraid that with one wrong move it will spill and be a burning hot mess. Then you realize what little control you have and how dependent on God you truly are.In Lose Control, Mary Shannon Hoffpauir takes you on a six-week journey through the Book of First Samuel, which is an epic story about a fight for control. Despite God's warnings through the prophet Samuel, the nation of Israel was determined to take control by having their own king. As you dig into the saga of King Saul and David, who would become the next anointed king of Israel, you will discover that no plan or purpose of God can be thwarted by human beings. Even the worst of circumstances can be used by God to accomplish His purposes in your life.In her no-nonsense, authentic teaching style that endears her to women of all ages, Mary Shannon encourages you to lose control so that you can find your soul through a trusting relationship with your faithful God.Components for this six-week Bible study, each available separately, include a Participant Workbook, a Leader Guide, and a DVD with six 25-minute segments (with closed captioning).An in-depth six-week exploration of the entire Book of 1 Samuel.Study includes five days of homework for each week.Encourages women to exchange their desire for control for God's gift of faith.Helps women gain a deeper love and grace for others.DVD features dynamic, engaging teaching in six 25-minute segments.

Saving Grace: A Guide to Financial Health is a program to help people of faith create healthy relationships with money and possessions. Participants will move through six sessions covering such topics as saving, earning, giving, spending, and debt, along with helpful strategies for achieving a sustainable financial life. Adapted from the best-selling Freed Up Financial Living from the Good Sense Movement, this study is based on Wesleyan values and provides text and tools to help participants address life concerns and reach personal financial goals.A special clergy module addresses financial issues unique to pastors. This three-week study brings together faith and vocation while attending to the unique financial details of living as a pastor and being employed by the church. The clergy workbook contains worksheets and downloadable planners.

The Wesley Covenant Prayer has been used in Methodist services around the world on the first Sunday of the year since John Wesley introduced it in 1755. Wesley expected that people would pray this prayer as a way of remembering, renewing, and surrendering themselves in complete trust to God. When we pray it, we are to remember what living like Jesus looks like and what loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind and loving our neighbor as ourselves requires of us.In The Wesley Prayer Challenge, author Chris Folmsbee invites readers to consider words from the Wesley Covenant Prayer each day for three weeks while reflecting on their meaning in the context of the larger piece.Each day's reading will include scripture, prayer, and a challenge for daily life.Additional components for a three-week study include a comprehensive leader guide and a DVD featuring author Chris Folmsbee.

Have you ever thought you had life under control--until you didn't? Perhaps thinking "God is in control" but living as if you are. It's like walking around with a hot cup of coffee, afraid that with one wrong move it will spill and be a burning hot mess. Then you realize what little control you have and how dependent on God you truly are.In Lose Control, Mary Shannon Hoffpauir takes you on a six-week journey through the Book of First Samuel, which is an epic story about a fight for control. Despite God's warnings through the prophet Samuel, the nation of Israel was determined to take control by having their own king. As you dig into the saga of King Saul and David, who would become the next anointed king of Israel, you will discover that no plan or purpose of God can be thwarted by human beings. Even the worst of circumstances can be used by God to accomplish His purposes in your life.In her no-nonsense, authentic teaching style that endears her to women of all ages, Mary Shannon encourages you to lose control so that you can find your soul through a trusting relationship with your faithful God.Components for this six-week Bible study, each available separately, include a Participant Workbook, a Leader Guide, and a DVD with six 25-minute segments (with closed captioning). An in-depth six-week exploration of the entire Book of 1 Samuel. Study includes five days of homework for each week. Encourages women to exchange their desire for control for God's gift of faith. Helps women gain a deeper love and grace for others. DVD features dynamic, engaging teaching in six 25-minute segments.

Know God better through a study of His names.

Got a volunteer crisis? Need help choosing curriculum? Wondering how to balance ministry, health and life? This handy handbook offers advice and how-to's on all this and more from seasoned ministry leaders, as well as relatable church life anecdotes. Chapters include: Chapter 1: Family & Intergenerational Ministry Chapter 2: Parents & Guardians Chapter 3: Children's Ministry Chapter 4: Preteen Ministry Chapter 5: Youth Ministry Chapter 6: Intergenerational Worship & Serving Chapter 7: Spiritual Milestones Chapter 8: Disability Ministry Chapter 9: Curriculum & Ministry Design Chapter 10: Volunteers Chapter 11: Marriage & Divorce Ministry Chapter 12: Crisis & Counseling Chapter 13: Navigating Human Resources and Organizational Charts in Ministry

Few things make us feel as helpless as living with a story we don't like. Maybe one that involves the loss of a loved one, an unwanted transition, a difficult diagnosis, or a dream that fell through. At one time or another, we all deal with disappointments and feelings that life is unfair or that we are being punished.In Renewed, a four-week study of the Book of Ruth, women glean wisdom from Naomi's perspective, a woman who lived a story she didn't choose or like. Forced to chart a new path as she mourned the loss of her husband and two sons, Naomi learned that the journey from bitterness to renewed hope and joy was rooted in God's promise of redemption.With insight from her own journey of living with a story that is not easy, Heather teaches women to flourish even as they live hard stories through a willingness to trust that God can transform them and trade their heartache for hope. They will learn to rely on God's movement in the details of their story, even when it can't be seen, gain confidence to act in the part of their stories that they can change, and watch expectantly for God to redeem the parts they can't.Components for this four-week Bible study, available separately, include a Participant Workbook with Leader Helps and a DVD with four 20 to 25-minute segments (with closed captioning). A four-week study of the Book of Ruth from Naomi's perspective. This shorter study is ideal for in-between or busy times. Helps women find the courage to live with a story they don't like and trust in God. Participant Workbook with Leader Helps includes group sessions guides, discussion questions, prayers, video viewer guides, and more. DVD features dynamic, engaging teaching in four 20 to 25-minute segments.

Preachers increasingly see the need for to deliver sermons that are "e;dangerous"e; in a variety of ways, the way they challenge hearers' comfort levels and challenge established powers and hierachies. Thomas helps readers understand those dangersespecially 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.

Women are fierce and fed-up, and they have been joining hands together for the purposes of societal change for as long as there has been injustice. Women of faith are guided by the Holy Spirit to work together to bring down these injustices, to build on the foundation Christ laid for the beloved community of God on earth. This book is women joining together to speak and act in new ways in response to the increasing challenges of our day. This book offers to all women the sustenance needed to face blatant racism, bigotry, sexism, heterosexism, and xenophobia in the world and in the church. The writers of Speaking Truth greet these challenges knowing that the Good News of Jesus Christ is bigger than any societal ill and that God has called us to play a part in God's work of transformation. When we pray together and act together, we claim a new vision for how things can be - a vision God gives us through Scripture. We can support both ourselves and other women as we learn to find and claim our voices and end the silences imposed upon us. Speaking Truth- Provides inspirational writings by women for women to face the societal challenges specific to today.- Includes prayers, devotions, scriptures, and inspirational quotes for special challenges.- Encourages women supporting, advocating, and praying for other women.

What exactly is a disciple, and how will we know if we have made one? There are three core values that a disciple embodies: undiluted devotion to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, a Kingdom of God worldview, and a missional lifestyle.In Revolutionary Kingdom: Following the Rebel Jesus, author and Pastor Mike Slaughter explores why we must exchange comfortable cultural worldviews and values for the radical requirements of living out the Kingdom of God on Planet Earth. When God's people get serious about this call, it's revolutionary. Jesus himself was the most radical revolutionary who ever lived and provided us a vision of a kingdom worth dying for. Welcome to the revolution!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.

We love stories. That's why we go to movies, read books, and listen to friends recount an experience. That's also why teachers use the technique of storytelling to make a difficult concept easier for us to process. Jesus told stories, or parables, for that very reasonand to help us understand how God wants us to live life. Sometimes, however, stories like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son can be interpreted in more than one way. Even Bible scholars are divided on their meanings. In Stories Jesus Told, you'll explore six of Jesus' parables to learn how to read, interpret, and live them in your daily life. A DVD and Leader Guide are elements you can add to make a lively, six-week group study.

The Book of Revelation contains passages of great beauty and comfort, as well as passages that strike the casual reader as bizarre, bewildering, and sometimes frightening. How are readers today to discern God's message in this peculiar part of the Bible?Breaking the Code Revised Edition provides a trustworthy guide to the rich symbolism of this important biblical book. Noted biblical scholar Bruce M. Metzger presents the fruits of solid scholarship in a non-academic style. This revised edition includes updates based on current biblical research, as well as additional teaching from author and respected New Testament scholar David deSilva. Additional components for a six-week study include a DVD featuring David deSilva and a comprehensive Leader Guide introducing the main points and setting the stage for small group discussion. Chapters include: Introducing the Book of Revelation John's Vision of the Heavenly Christ (Revelation 1:1-20) Letters to Churches (Revelation 2:1-29) More Letters to Churches (Revelation 3:1-22) John's Vision of God and the Lamb (Revelation 4:1-5:14) Opening the Seven Seals of God's Scroll (Revelation 6:1-8:2) Sounding the Seven Trumpets (Revelation 8:3-11:19) The Satanic Trinity: The Dragon and the Two Beasts (Revelation 12:1-14:20) The Seven Bowls of God's Wrath (Revelation 15:1-18:24) The Final Victory and the Last Judgment (Revelation 19:1-20:15) John's Vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21:1-22:21)

The Book of Revelation contains passages of great beauty and comfort, as well as passages that strike the casual reader as bizarre, bewildering, and sometimes frightening. How are readers today to discern God's message in this peculiar part of the Bible?Breaking the Code Revised Edition provides a trustworthy guide to the rich symbolism of this important biblical book. Noted biblical scholar Bruce M. Metzger presents the fruits of solid scholarship in a non-academic style. This revised edition includes updates based on current biblical research, as well as additional teaching from author and respected New Testament scholar David deSilva. The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the six-week study using the DVD and book, including session plans, activities, and discussion questions, as well as multiple format options. It also includes alternatives for adapting the study to 4 or 8 weeks to fit your group's needs.

How did Jesus teach the Greatest Commandment to his disciples?In his latest book Reckless Love, author and Pastor Tom Berlin writes that Jesus taught them to love neighbor first as a way to more deeply love God. In his exploration of Jesus' teaching and travels with his disciples, Berlin suggests that Jesus teaches us how to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength by showing us how to love our neighbor. While many hope to learn to be better family, friends, leaders, neighbors but finding a deeper relationship with God, what if becoming a better neighbor leads you to that deeper love of God. In Reckless Love, you will see the ways Jesus' care for others disrupted the way his disciples thought and acted so deeply that they learned love God fully and join Jesus mission to share the good news unambiguously. In so doing, you will have the opportunity to consider your life, and learn how loving the people around you will completely renew your faith and give you a new experience of loving God. Additional components for a six-week study include a DVD featuring Tom Berlin and a comprehensive Leader Guide.

Letting go of the familiar and leaning into change can be fearful for all of us. Let Go: Leaning into the Future Without Fear by Matt Miofsky, Lead Pastor of The Gathering United Methodist Church, is a guide for managing change and transition with faith as a compass. Using the exodus story as a roadmap for how change looks when you are following God's lead, readers learn how to manage the uncertainty and fear often caused by change. Miofsky shows readers that by using faith to successfully transition during times of change, they are able to be the person they were created to become and live the life they were created to live.';I have followed Matt and his ministry since the inception of The Gathering, one of the most inclusive, growing churches in the US. Matt knows this journey. He and his team walk into the unknown, daily, to achieve the vision they saw for The Gathering, creating new places for people to meet God.' Mike Slaughter, author, speaker, pastor emeritus at Ginghamsburg Church';I have spent time with Matt Miofsky and seen up close how he forges life transforming relationships with people far from God and brings them close to Jesus. Matt helps people find their purpose and seek God's presence in their lives.' Tom Berlin, pastor of Floris UMC, Herndon, VA, author of Reckless Love';Matt Miofsky is one of our most creative and courageous leaders. He is passionate about the gospel and street-smart with a playful edge. In a season marked by uncertainty and change, Matt helps us identify and lay aside our fears and step forward into the bold and adventurous life God intends.' Janice Huie, Bishop of The United Methodist Church, retired';Matt Miofsky is one of the brightest and most cutting-edge pastors in the country. His ministry and teachings are insightful and practical for everyday living.' Emanuel Cleaver III, Senior Pastor, St. James UMC, Kansas City

He was not rich or educated, but was familiar with hard work. He was quick-tempered and impetuous, but possessed a passion that would change the world. He left everything to follow his teacher, yet struggled with doubt and fear.Join pastor and author Adam Hamilton in this six-week Lenten journey, and take an in-depth dive into the life, faith, and character of Simon Peter.Chapters Include: The Call of Simon the Fisherman Walking with Jesus in the Storm Bedrock or Stumbling Block? "I Will Not Deny You" From Cowardice to Courage The Rest of the StoryThis Youth Study Book takes the ideas presented in Adam Hamilton's book and interprets them for young people grades 6-12.