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Sitting Strong: Wrestling with the Ornery God, by bestselling author Jeanie Miley, suggests that when life knocks the props out from under you, it is possible to gather up your agony and wrestle with it in the presence of the God who may feel strangely absent. This book is not about being strong. Rather, taking the struggles and triumphs of Job as its guide, this book is about that terrible time when all you can do is stumble onto the ash heap of suffering and simply sit.

For today's youth, life is filled with new choices, new decisions, new feelings, new perspectives, and new freedoms. During this time, teens are forming the belief systems that will influence their adult faith, and their ideas about the nature of God, the Bible, and the church. Will teen involvement in church youth programs provide them with a framework for making important choices? Will this time nurture values and encourage their emerging identities to be deeply Christian?Something wonderful can happen when you mix teenagers, the Bible, and an enthusiastic teacher together. Many teenagers are hungry to learn about the Bible, what it means, and how it can be applied to their lives. Traditionally, this type of education happens in Sunday School. Unfortunately, too many Youth Sunday School teachers are not prepared or feel inadequate when it comes to teaching teens. They do their best, but all they are doing is surviving the Sunday school hour.Help! I Teach Youth Sunday School offers the Sunday school teacher specific tips and hints to prepare for and care for teens. Real-life stories are mingled with information on Youth and their culture, common myths about Sunday school, a new way of preparing the Sunday school lesson, creative teaching ideas, ways to think about growing a class, and how to reach out for new members while reaching in to old members.

Building a fulfilling and productive life-much like building a solid, durable house-requires the right materials on a solid foundation. Building Materials for Life, a collection of 40 inspiring essays, will motivate you to gather the resources you need to succeed in life. Learning from Failure, Overcoming Doubt, Forgiveness, and Peace Within are just a few of the raw materials that will ensure the success of your life's building project.

The Cotton Patch Gospel recasts the stories of Jesus and the letters of Paul and Peter into the language of the mid-20th century South. Born out of the Civil Rights struggle, these now classic translations of much of the New Testament bring the far-away places of Scipture closer to home: Gainesville, Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta, Washington, D.C.As Jordan once wrote, "While there have been many excellent translations of the Scriptures into modern English, they still have left us stranded in the long-distant past. We need to have the good news come to us not only in our own tongue but in our own time. We want to be participants in the faith, not merely spectators."

Sessions with Timothy & Titus is an eight-session study unit designed to provide a compelling preview to the books of 1& 2 Timothy and Titus. Each session is followed by a thought-provoking page of questions that allow for a deeper experience of the scriptural passages. These resource pages can be used by seminar leaders during preparation and group discussion, as well as in individual Bible study.Michael McCullar takes readers on a journey through Paul's two letters to Timothy and his letter to Titus. Commonly referred to as the Pastoral Epistles, these personal letters served as guidance to a pair of young, inexperienced church leaders who required structured guidance and encouragement. Students of these letters today, however, will find that Paul's advice to Timothy and Titus contain timeless teachings for leaders of any age.

Sessions with Galatians is a ten-lesson study unit designed to provide a compelling study of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Each session is followed by a thought-provoking resource page of questions that allow for a deeper experience of the scriptural passages. These resource pages can be used by seminar leaders during preparation and group discussion, as well as in individual Bible study.Eric Porterfield takes readers on a journey through Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia. The letter celebrates Christ's faithful love for humanity, which evokes the human response of faith and love. Jesus overcomes the barriers that keep human beings separated and creates the freedom of life in Christian community. Jesus frees us from lives of self-focus and frees us for lives of faithful witness, revealing that true freedom comes when we love God and love our neighbors.

The Glad River is a deeply affecting novel. No one in Claughton County ever understood why Doops Momber refused to be baptized: his people were all good Baptists. And no one in Cummings, Mississippi, knew that Kingston Smylie's daddy was really his granddaddy and that Kingston wasn't really white. And at Camp Polk, no one knew anything at all about Fordache Arceneau because he spoke only Cajun. They met in basic training. Green kids who'd always felt themselves to be outsiders, they formed a community of three. They called it the neighborhood. After seeing action together at Guadalcanal, the three friends went back to the lives they'd each known, but they went on meeting regularly, keeping up the neighborhood. Their lives were untroubled, until the day Fordache found himself accused of murder, on trial for his life. And in a small Southern courtroom in the autumn of 1952, the neighborhood - bound by love and based on understanding - faced its ultimate test. The Glad River is a deeply affecting novel. Grounded in a particular place and time, its themes are, nonetheless, universal. A novel that probes the limits of religion and the state, it is also the work of a master storyteller and civil rights activist whose works are considered a treasure of modern Southern literature.Will D. Campbell is a widely recognized and honored preacher, writer, speaker, and civil rights leader. He is a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Lillian Smith Prize and the Christopher Award. In 2000, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal. His major works are nonfiction, telling among others, the stories of Mercer University (The Stem of Jessee), a communal farm (Providence), and his own life (Brother to a Dragonfly). He is also an esteemed writer of fiction, including The Glad River, Cecilia's Sin, and two children's books. Before his death in 2013, Will lived in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.Praise for The Glad RiverIn these days of books about religion and community, we need a book like The Glad River - about real religion and real community. And it's real funny, a testament to the big heart of a great man, one of America's outlaw heroes: Will Campbell." - Clyde Edgerton, author of Raney and Walking Across EgyptIn The Glad River, Will Campbell offers us a wild ride, a picaresque pilgrimage through the Deep South, ar, and madness to salvation. His book explores themes of community, race, and redemption; the claims of the past and the power of stories. But it's a free-wheeling free-for-all, a rollicking gift of a novel. If Will Campbell writes like a crazy angel, maybe it's because he is one. You'd better join up - this is one trip you don't want to miss." - Lee Smith, author of Oral History and The Last Girls

The Cotton Patch Gospel, by Koinonia Farm founder Clarence Jordan, recasts the stories of Jesus and the letters of Paul and Peter into the language and culture of the mid-20th century South. Born out of the Civil Rights struggle, these now classic translations of much of the New Testament bring the far-away places of Scripture closer to home: Gainesville, Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. As Jordan once wrote, "While there have been many excellent translations of the Scriptures into modern English, they still have left us stranded in some faraway land in the long-distant past. We need to have the good news come to us not only in our own tongue but in our own time. We want to be participants in the faith, not merely spectators." More than a translation, The Cotton Patch Gospel continues to make clear the startling relevance of Scripture for today. These editions come complete with new Forewords and a new Introduction by Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller. Smyth & Helwys Publishing is proud to help reintroduce these seminal works of Clarence Jordan to a new generation of believers.

It's the secret, unspeakable dream shared by every minister. After years of diligent work in an average-sized church, you glance up one Sunday and notice a new family. The next month you notice another. Soon it seems like somebody new arrives almost every week. Suddenly you are the leader of a living, breathing, growing church! Like any roller coaster ride, this one begins with a long, slow ascent. Attendance climbs. Giving climbs. Expectations climb. Of course a few problems crop up along the way, because, as with every other roller coaster, this one has a long and often scary downside. Even as your church continues to climb in every measurable statistic, you, the spiritual leader, may well find yourself in a virtual free-fall as you struggle over how to manage the impact this change will have on your congregation. What can you, as a minister in a growing church, do to survive the pitfalls that lie just around the corner? What do you do when the old ways no longer work?

One quarter of Americans have begun or are beginning to work on the second half of their lives. Tapestries was written for all those trying to gracefully move through this rich yet confusing period. The meditations focus on topics that relate to the reader's passage through this life stage: change, impermanence, transformations, immortality, growth and survival.Tapestries can be creativity used to fit the needs and interests of the reader. Some may want to choose a specific topic, others may want to randomly select a page and still others may choose to start at the beginning and work their way through to the end. Quotations from a variety of authors, time periods and religious traditions are an important part of each reading.

This collection of forty essays is a continuation of those in Volume 1. Volume 2 continues the series with essays on topics like direction in life, hope, urgency, sorrow, true worth, and simple pleasures. As in the first volume, the topics deal with matters, both religious and secular, that arise in the lives of people everywhere. This second volume provides new building materials that are relevant to issues people face, regardless of station in life, on a regular basis.

Sessions with James is an eleven-session study unit designed to give the learner a full understanding of the book of James. Each session is followed with a resource page of 8-10 questions. These resource pages allow for a deeper experience in the book of James and can be used by a seminar leader during preparation and planning as well as for individual Bible study.

Children are an important part of the worshiping community and need to have opportunities that create for them a sense of belonging. Children's sermons provide this opportunity and should be events of proclamation. Help! I'm Leading a Children's Sermon, Volume 2 continues a collection of children's sermons designed to involve children creatively in worship and in the proclamation of the Word.Like the first volume, this collection contains two sermons for each Sunday with an emphasis on Scripture, including key verses to be read within the sermon. The sermons invite children to participate in corporate worship in a meaningful, creative way by asking questions and using hands-on activities to explain themes such as grace, discipleship, repentance and miracles. Help! I'm Leading a Children's Sermon, Volume 2 is an essential book for any worship leader.

Children are an important part of the worshipping community and need to have opportunities that create for them a sense of belonging. Children's sermons provide this opportunity and should be events of proclamation. Help! I'm Leading a Children's Sermon, Volume 1 contains a collection of children's sermons designed to involve children creatively in worship and the proclamation of the Word. The collection contains two sermons for each Sunday with a key emphasis on Scripture, including key verses to be read within the sermon. The sermons invite the children to participate in corporate worship in a meaningful, creative way by asking questions and using hands-on activities to explain themes such as hope, forgiveness, repentance and God's sovereignty. Help I'm Leading a Children's Sermon, Volume 1 is an essential book for the collection of any worship leader.

ChristHeart is a book of meditations based on thirty-four (34) events or teachings from the life of Jesus Christ. The reader is invited to enter more fully into the life of the human Jesus and to identify with the feelings and thoughts of Christ as he carried out his earthly ministry. Designed to facilitate contemplative prayer, the author encourages readers to imagine the responses of Jesus as he dealt with conflict, entered into friendship with the disciples and others, and healed people and taught them about a vital, personal, love relationship with God. The reader can enter into the experiences of Jesus by reading a selected scripture from the Gospels and one of the meditations, and then picturing the scene and identifying with the feelings and thoughts of Jesus in that scene. At the end of each meditation is a question to encourage reflection and a deepening of one's own understanding of how the life of Christ intersects with and transforms the reader's life. Miley has written seven mediations for each of the thirty-four (34) Gospel stories.

The teaching profession is faced with new and more demanding challenges each year. Teachers yearn for quiet moments to enable them to prepare themselves for the stresses of a day. A Moment of Peace and Quiet originated from the author's own need for "space" before a school day started, or in the middle of a hectic day. It is designed to help all teachers make their moment of quiet refreshing and nourishing. Mesplay's book can be creatively used to fit a teacher's needs and busy schedule. Readers have the option of choosing a specific topic, randomly selecting a page, or starting at the beginning and working their way through to the end. There are 200 entries, one for each school day and enough for the week prior to the beginning of school and one week into the summer break. Quotations (over 400) from a variety of authors, time periods, and world religious traditions are an important part of this book of meditations.

Many Christians do not know how to utilize the wisdom of the Psalms. Drawing upon more than thirty years of pastoral ministry, the author offers a fresh approach to integrating the Psalms into the life of the whole church. He not only illustrates practical ways to utilize the Psalms in liturgy and preaching, but also suggests ways to use the Psalms in pastoral care. The Psalms can become the framework for examining current ethical problems and for providing self-care for clergy. McCutchan examines the Psalms with these goods in mind, and confronts the issue of the harsh language of the psalms, suggesting that this language may well be the key to helping believers bring their whole lives to the worship of God. Experiencing the Psalms can be used as a resource for the congregation that seeks to bring the language of spirituality to the lives of the believers. This book provides an effective strategy for clergy who want to help their members cope with their pain and share their joys in all aspects of their lives.

Is the role of clergy best defined by power or by servanthood? Does the laity have a substantive or a decorative place in the mission of the church? Will the clergy let go of the church and trust it to a laity who alone can incarnationally live out her mission? Priests to Each Other raises these and other questions, urging laity and clergy to rethink life in the local church.Carlyle Marney possessed the uncanny ability to see just beyond the horizon and anticipate issues churches would soon face. Who could have imagined when this book was first published all that would occur in Baptist life during the latter half of the twentieth century? Ahead of his time, Marney challenged us to embrace the priesthood of all believers.

Cousar interprets three letters of Paul, each of which shows him in a different light. In Galatians, the apostle contends for the gospel against a group of Jewish Christian missionaries who have come into the congregation. In Philippians, Paul addresses his favorite community in intimate terms to offer thanks for a gift they have sent him and to urge them to maintain unity in the face of opposing forces. 1 Thessalonians, Paul's first letter, is written to encourage the congregation in that city to lead lives worthy of the gospel. The commentary traces the movement of the letters, paragraph by paragraph, and pays particular attention to the literary character of the writing, and to the theological implications of the text for the church today.

Reading John concentrates on the literary and theological distinctives of the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles. New Testament scholar Charles Talbert's unique commentary considers the entire scope of these works attributed to John, their literary settings and particularities, and their continuing theological importance to the Christian story. Thoughtful and engaging, Reading John is an essential book for students and ministers studying the New Testament and the Johannine writings.

Answers to the usual introductory questions do not yield sufficient harvest to enable an intelligent reading of Acts. The approach of Reading Acts is to ask how ancient Mediterranean auditors would have heard Acts when it was read in their presence. To be successful Talbert divides this approach into two parts- how Acts would have been heard in its precanonical context and in its canonical context.

In the first edition of Making the Church Work, Hammett wrote that the church is not only in need of change, but also in need of a conversion. Now his conviction is stronger than ever. In this second edition, he addresses the issues of changing values- values about what leaders and their congregations are doing as a church and the effectiveness of their techniques. Hammett is convinced that until church leaders change their values, healthy, relevant, and effective churches are not likely to appear. Unique features of this book include: - Overview of trends and issues impacting the church's ineffectiveness - Opportunities for individual readers and small groups, and congregations to reflect on their journey in light of these trends and issues - Practical guidance for addressing some problems and for equipping the church for more effective ministry in the 21st century.

A Christian Educator's Book of Lists is a manual of basic information that every Christian educator and teacher should have on hand. At the heart of this book is the desire to make available to churches and their leaders a handbook of basic, practical information for effective Christian education. Part basic encyclopedia, part trivia resource, part practical "how to" compilations, part teaching manual, and part general knowledge index, the book is a handy reference manual for Christian educators and teachers. It's everything you need to know about Christian education but didn't know where to find.

hroughout the struggles of life and in times of great love and joy, many people are affected emotionally by music. The Bible and popular music are the subjects of this book, which tries to make sense out of life's complexities-work, relationships, family, -politics, and religion-through the contemporary music of today. Music touches us at our deepest emotional level. It comforts our sorrows, reminds us of old memories and specific times in the past, and makes us smile or cry. As humans, we encounter numerous temptations, go through many dark experiences, and want answers to life's dilemmas. David Currie describes these experiences as "deserts"-places and times when we feel alone, scared, and hopeless. Songs in the Desert uses music and the Bible to help people who are trapped in broken relationships, deception, isolation, shattered dreams, materialism, anger, pride, and many other human frailties that are the deserts of our soul.

Reading Matthew provides thorough guidance through Matthew's story of Jesus. Garland's commentary reveals the movement of the story's plot while also highlighting the theology of Matthew. Reading Matthew is an essential book for students and ministers studying the first Gospel.

Reading Hebrews and James provides a clear path through the unique and often divisive Letter to the Hebrews and Letter of James. Isaacs's commentary on these two letters expertly considers questions of authorship and historical context while also making both Hebrews and James undeniably relevant for today's faith. Preachers and teachers alike will benefit from the essential study that Reading Hebrews and James offers.

Taking its title from a line of a poem written by Alfred Tennyson, Beyond the Broken Lights is a thoughtful and inviting look at our questions and the need for clarity in the depths of the mystery of God. Like Tennyson, we cannot find satisfactory explanations, complete resolutions, or simple take-it-or-leave-it answers. Instead, our systems of theological position, conventional wisdom, and standard orthodoxy have their day and then cease to be. They can be described as "broken lights." Poole examines these broken lights, and tells us that since there are no other lights - no perfect, seamless, unbroken lights that human words can shine on sacred truth - it is the broken lights that become precious to us. These are the lights by which we live. Poole warns, however, that we must not clutch them too tightly lest we cut ourselves on them, or wave them, lest we injure someone; because, after all, they are broken lights. Beyond these broken lights is God, somewhere past the place where words run out. The words that wait their turn inside this book seek to recover something that was before the broken lights, and they long to glimpse something that is beyond the broken lights.

Brian Harbour applies the stories of Jesus, which are eternally relevant, in fresh ways for Christians in the twentieth century who want to live by the truths Jesus presented in the first century. Through stories and commentary the author examines sixteen of Jesus' stories and focuses on the central truths of the parables and their application to Christian living today. The author also provides preaching resources on some of the richest sections of the Gospels for those who have been called to instruct and inspire contemporary Christians. Debate has ensued through the centuries about the best title for Jesus. Should we refer to him as Lord or Christ or Son of Man or Son of God? Which title is best? Maybe we need to remember Jesus as the Storyteller, one who threw common, real-life stories next to eternal, spiritual truths. And what lessons Jesus taught! - From the Preface

Imagine the excitement of coordinating every aspect of a church's life during the Advent season. Older children, youth and adults study coordinated Sunday School lessons. The Sunday morning worship experience continues the theme. Intergenerational activities further unpack the theme on Wednesday or Sunday evenings. Celebrate Advent offers this sort of comprehensive church-wide experience for a church. The included Sunday school lessons offer a Bible study for older children, youth and adults. Fully developed worship outlines are also provided, complete with prayers, litanies, children's sermons, and even a sample sermon for each Sunday. Then, instructions for a intergenerational Bible studies and gatherings are offered for use on Wednesday or Sunday nights. Celebrate Advent provides a warm and wonderful way to draw your congregation together during this meaningful season. Materials included: - 4 fully developed worship outlines, including prayers and litanies - 4 children's sermons - 4 sermons - 4 Sunday School lessons for older children - 4 Sunday School lessons for youth - 4 Sunday School lessons for adults - 4 Plans for intergenerational gatherings & studies

Discover the dedication, humanity, and intrigue of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazis at age 39 for his part in the "Officers' Plot." This historical novel commemorates the final 10 years of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.