Many Christians feel overwhelmed at the thought of witnessing and frustrated when trying to lead others to Christ. This book, in "every man's language" - Helps readers overcome fear and become effective witnesses for Christ. - Helps Christians understand non-Christians, which is the key to being effective and successful. - Lays out practical witnessing dos and don'ts. - Explains the usefulness of apologetics in helping readers reach their friends and loved ones. - Unveils important principles of witnessing. - Discusses common objections to the Christian faith and how to address them, organizing them into categories that are easy to find and reference. - Explains how to recognize and find one's calling in the body of Christ, making readers more joyful and fulfilled in their own Christian walks.
"A fascinating glimpse into the consciousness of being an outsider in every possible way, and what it takes to find your path into the life you'd like to lead."--Nylon A riveting memoir of losing faith and finding freedom while a covert missionary in one of the world's most restrictive countries. A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture--and a whole new way of thinking--turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true. As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch," Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness. Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery--with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her thirties, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.
What should Christian witness look like in our contemporary society? In this timely book, Alan Noble looks at our cultural moment, characterized by technological distraction and the growth of secularism, laying out individual, ecclesial, and cultural practices that disrupt our society's deep-rooted assumptions and point beyond them to the transcendent grace and beauty of Jesus.
Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse emerses readers in a small Vermont town in 1924 with this haunting and harrowing tale. Leanora Sutter. Esther Hirsh. Merlin Van Tornhout. Johnny Reeves . . .These characters are among the unforgettable cast inhabiting a small Vermont town in 1924. A town that turns against its own when the Ku Klux Klan moves in. No one is safe, especially the two youngest, twelve-year-old Leanora, an African-American girl, and six-year-old Esther, who is Jewish.In this story of a community on the brink of disaster, told through the haunting and impassioned voices of its inhabitants, Newbery Award winner Karen Hesse takes readers into the hearts and minds of those who bear witness.
Stroke. More than 500,000 Americans will suffer its silent attack this year. The number has epidemic proportions, but add to it the newly estimated 11 million victims each year whose strokes go undetected and America shakes its collective head and wonders, am I next? One third of those detected will die in a short period of time, over 160,000 fatalities, making stroke the number three killer in the US behind only heart disease and cancer. It leaves another 200,000 victims with permanent disability. In spite of the numbers, brain attack strikes intimately and personally. Its shadow of death spreads quickly over living tissue in the brain, violating personality and disrupting life. This graphic contrast, huge numbers of victims versus the unique intimacy of each stroke, draws into focus the one common by-product of all attacks, fear - fear of the unknown, fear of death or livelihood lost. The perception is evil incarnate, destroying the sanctity of one's life and home. I know, stroke left me blinded, with short-term memory wiped clean and sensory input distorted and disorienting. Only the divine touch could bring the light of hope into this darkness. The good news - much can be done to fan this hope into a fire of restoration. The better news - remarkable advancements available today include "miracle" clot busters, surgical procedures that listen to the differences in sounds made by healthy cells and dead ones, probes that travel through the body to apply medicines directly on affected areas of the brain,, and the vision for tomorrow that moves microscopic nanotechnology out of science fiction directly into the brain to both repair and replace damaged brain cells. Different Strokes... unwraps the fear of stroke, revealing possibilities for healing and hope - hope birthed by the insight of experience and supported by research collected from leading edge resources.
*Foreword written by Nancy Pearcey* "Parents are the most important apologists our kids will ever know. Mama Bear Apologetics will help you navigate your kids’ questions and prepare them to become committed Christ followers.” —J. Warner Wallace "If every Christian mom would apply this book in her parenting, it would profoundly transform the next generation." —Natasha Crain #RoarLikeAMother The problem with lies is they don’t often sound like lies. They seem harmless, and even sound right. So what’s a Mama Bear to do when her kids seem to be absorbing the culture’s lies uncritically? Mama Bear Apologetics™ is the book you’ve been looking for. This mom-to-mom guide will equip you to teach your kids how to form their own biblical beliefs about what is true and what is false. Through transparent life stories and clear, practical applications—including prayer strategies—this band of Mama Bears offers you tools to train yourself, so you can turn around and train your kids. Are you ready to answer the rallying cry, “Mess with our kids and we will demolish your arguments”? Join the Mama Bears and raise your voice to protect your kids—by teaching them how to think through and address the issues head-on, yet with gentleness and respect.
Joining Jesus on His Mission will alter the way you see your life as a follower of Jesus and take you beyond living your life for Jesus to living life with Jesus. Simple, powerful and applicable insights show you how to be on mission and recognize where Jesus is already at work in your neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. You will feel both relief and hope. You may even hear yourself say, "I can do this " as you start responding to the everyday opportunities Jesus is placing in your path.
This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.
A funny and poignant debut middle-grade novel about a foster-care girl who is placed with a family in the witness protection program, and finds that hiding in plain sight is complicated and dangerous.
