According to Warren Wiersbe, The Supremacy of God in Preaching "calls us back to a biblical standard for preaching, a standard exemplified by many of the pulpit giants of the past, especially Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon." This newly revised and expanded edition is an essential guide for preachers who want to stir the embers of revival. Piper has added valuable new material reflecting on his thirty-three years of preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church, offering a glimpse of what a lifetime of putting God first has done for the faith of the hundreds of thousands who have heard him preach over the years.
The issue is church health, not church growth—if your church is healthy, growth will occur naturally. So how do we make healthy churches, driven by purpose? In order for any church to thrive, it must be built around the five New Testament purposes given to the church by Jesus Christ. In this classic of Christian church stability, pastor and bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren unpacks this proven five-part strategy that will enable your church to grow: Warmer through fellowship. Deeper through discipleship. Stronger through worship. Broader through ministry. Larger through evangelism. Every church is driven by something. Tradition, finances, programs, personalities, events, seekers, and even buildings can each be the controlling force in a church. But Warren will show you how to concentrate on building people and let God build the church. In other words, healthy, consistent growth is the result of balancing the five biblical purposes of the church. And The Purpose Driven Church will show you how to do that. “The Purpose Driven Church has brought focus and direction to more pastors and church leaders than you can count. What a gift!”—John Ortberg, bestselling author.
Living a life of generosity is not reserved for rich people. It's the result of people who are "all in" for giving God permission to use them as a conduit of His blessing and provision. Kingdom Builders know that they are alive for a purpose bigger than themselves-a purpose committed to building His Kingdom and turning church vision into a magnificent global and local reality. Sharing from his own journey of living an "all in" life, and telling the inspiring story of how Kingdom Builders first started within Hillsong Church, Andrew Denton will encourage and challenge you to take bold, wise steps of faith that will lead you on a path beyond your wildest dreams.
In this fascinating book, Julie Ingersoll draws on years of research, Reconstructionist publications, and interviews with believers to paint the most complete portrait of the Christian Reconstructionist movement yet published.
In Hero Maker, you will learn how to bring real change to your church and community by developing the practical skills to help others reach their leadership potential. Drawing on five powerful practices found in the ministry of Jesus, Hero Maker presents the key steps of apprenticeship that will build up other leaders and provide strategies for how you can: activate the gifts of those around you help others take ownership of their mission develop a simple scorecard for measuring your kingdom-building progress With rich insights from the Gospels, Hero Maker is packed with real-life ministry stories ranging from paid staff to volunteer leaders--from established churches to new church plants. Whether you lead ten people or ten thousand, Hero Maker will not only help you maximize your leadership impact; but, in doing so, you will also help shift today's church culture to a model of reproduction and multiplication. Chicago pastor and church planter Dave Ferguson and award-winning writer Warren Bird make a compelling case that God's power and purpose are best revealed when we train and release others to further advance the Kingdom of God. By becoming a hero maker and investing in others, you can join a movement of influencers that are impacting thousands of people around the world. Everybody wants to be a hero, but few understand the power of being a hero maker.
Two billion people today identify as Christians, with the implication that Jesus is the focus of their relationship with God, and their way of living in the world. Such followers of Jesus are now more numerous and make up a greater proportion of the world's population than ever before. Despite its decline in the West, Christianity is rapidly increasing in areas such as Africa and China. Richard Bauckham explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and concluding that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching. In order to place Jesus in his proper historical context, as a Jew from Galilee in the early first century of our era, Bauckham looks at Jewish religion and society in the land of Israel under Roman rule. He explores Jesus' symbolic practices as well as his teachings, looks at his public career and emphasises how his actions, such as healing and his association with notorious sinners, were just as important as his words. Bauckham shows that Jesus was devoted to the God of Israel, with a special focus on God's fatherly love and compassion, and like every Jewish teacher he expounded the Torah, but did so in his own distinctive way. With a discussion about the way Jesus understood himself and what finally led to his death as a criminal on a Roman cross, he concludes by considering the significance Jesus has come to have for Christian faith worldwide. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Anyone who has attempted to teach or preach through the prophecy of Isaiah has felt a tension. In view of what the structure of the book of Isaiah aims to emphasize, this NSBT volume employs the concept of "kingdom" as an entry point for organizing the book's major themes, identifying the links to the broader biblical canon and ultimately to Jesus.
This book addresses the problems raised by biblical scholarship concerning Jesus and his mission. Much of Jesus' ministry remains a mystery; many of the things he said and did do not fit neatly into traditional Christian interpretation. He spoke of the coming of the kingdom of God but what become of this new age which was meant to be tangible and near? The King of God's Kingdom in part is an attempt to uncover and understand Jesus and His vision. At the same time, Seccombe inspires confidence in the historical Jesus, overcoming much of the confusion that has been created in the last two hundred years. With conviction of the urgency of these issues for the Christian faith today, he presents a solution to the puzzle in the form of an account of Jesus' ministry years.
The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.
We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? In his controversial study of America's giving habits, Arthur C. Brooks shatters stereotypes about charity in America-including the myth that the political Left is more compassionate than the Right. Brooks, a preeminent public policy expert, spent years researching giving trends in America, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Really Cares, he identifies the forces behind American charity: strong families, church attendance, earning one's own income (as opposed to receiving welfare), and the belief that individuals-not government-offer the best solution to social ills. But beyond just showing us who the givers and non-givers in America really are today, Brooks shows that giving is crucial to our economic prosperity, as well as to our happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people.
