You've heard the overwhelming statistics. You've probably felt compassion, guilt, powerlessness, hopelessness. You might have given money, food, clothes, or even some of your time to help a few of the billions of people living in destitution in our world. But have you actually engaged with someone, another human being created in the image of God, who is dying in the arms of poverty? Andy Matheson, Oasis International Director, argues that we can only begin to understand poverty, its effects, and possible solutions when we focus on the truth that all people are made in God's image. God calls us to meet with the poor not primarily to offer services or to develop programs, but to develop.
This book will attempt to explore faith-based responses to unending injustices by embracing the reality of hopelessness. It rejects the pontifications of some salvation history that move the faithful toward an eschatological promise that, when looking back at history, makes sense of all Christian-led brutalities, mayhem, and carnage. To embrace hopelessness moves away from a middle-class privilege that assumes all is going to work out in the end. By upsetting the norm, an opportunity might arise that can lead us to a more just situation, although such acts of defiance usually lead to crucifixion. Hopelessness is what leads to radical liberative praxis.
For many people, remaining optimistic and feeling positive about themselves and their lives is a constant battle—especially when circumstances are difficult and life is hard. For others, negativity is something that only sneaks up from time to time, yet still wreaks havoc in their hearts. Regardless of the root causes, once pessimistic thoughts permeate our minds, our feelings and emotions begin to control us instead of us controlling them. Eventually it doesn’t seem possible to stay positive, happy, and full of joy, and negative thought patterns shake our faith, causing us to sink emotionally, mentally, and spiritually over time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Despite what storms roll in, hearts anchored in God don’t sink. When we change the way we think, we can change the way we feel and live, even if our circumstances remain the same. Intentionally embracing the opportunity to experience a transformed heart and a renewed mind opens the door for a changed life, because a positive mind will always lead to a more positive life. In Unsinkable Faith, author and Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker Tracie Miles offers hope for women who struggle with negativity. Each chapter explores Tracie’s and other women’s personal stories, showing how they rose above their circumstances by transforming and renewing their minds. Unsinkable Faith is a breath of fresh air for anyone longing for a heart full of joy, an unbreakable smile, and a new, more optimistic perspective on life. This book will equip you to: Replace pessimism with positive thinking by becoming the captain of your thoughts; Learn how true joy and happiness are based on choice, not circumstances; Overcome unhealthy habits of negative thinking by intentionally implementing three easy mind-renewing steps; Stop feeling hopeless and pitiful, and start feeling hope-filled and powerful instead; and Discover that when you change the way you think, you change the way feel, and in turn you can change your life completely.
Two common temptations lure us away from abundant living—withdrawing into safety or grasping for power. True flourishing, says Andy Crouch, travels down an unexpected path—being both strong and weak. Regardless of your stage or role in life, here is a way of love and risk so that we all, even the most vulnerable, can flourish.
The following dissertation concerning the Trinity, as the reader ought to be informed, has been written in order to guard against the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason. Now one class of such men endeavor to transfer to things incorporeal and spiritual the ideas they have formed, whether through experience of the bodily senses, or by natural human wit and diligent quickness, or by the aid of art, from things corporeal; so as to seek to measure and conceive of the former by the latter. Aeterna Press
We are caught up in the cycle of so-called "holy wars." In The Jihad of Jesus, Dave Andrews argues that while this inter-communal conflict is endemic, it is not inevitable. Depending on our understanding, our religions can be either a source of escalating conflict or a resource for overcoming inter-communal conflict; and for our religions to be a resource for overcoming conflict, we need to understand the heart of all true religion as open-hearted compassionate spirituality. In the light of an open-hearted compassionate spirituality, we can reclaim the word "jihad" from extremists who have (mis)appropriated it as a call to "holy war," and reframe it, in truly Qur'anic terms, as a "sacred nonviolent struggle for justice"; and we can reconsider Jesus, as he is in the Gospels, not as a poster boy for Christians fighting crusades against Muslims, but as "a strong-but-gentle Messianic figure" who can bring Christians and Muslims together. As this book shows, many Christians and Muslims have found Isa (Jesus) and the Bismillah (celebrating the mercy, grace, and compassion of God) as common ground upon which they can stand and work for the common good. The Jihad of Jesus is a handbook for reconciliation and action: a do-it-yourself guide for all Christians and Muslims who want to move beyond the "clash of civilizations," join the jihad of Jesus, and struggle for justice and peace nonviolently side by side.
Why is justice fair? Why are so many people pursuing spirituality? Why do we crave relationship? And why is beauty so beautiful? N. T. Wright argues that each of these questions takes us into the mystery of who God is and what he wants from us. For two thousand years Christianity has claimed to answer these mysteries, and this renowned biblical scholar and Anglican bishop shows that it still does today. Like C. S. Lewis did in his classic Mere Christianity, Wright makes the case for Christian faith from the ground up, assuming that the reader is starting from ground zero with no predisposition to and perhaps even some negativity toward religion in general and Christianity in particular. His goal is to describe Christianity in as simple and accessible, yet hopefully attractive and exciting, a way as possible, both to say to outsides ÔYou might want to look at this further,Ö and to say to insiders ÔYou may not have quite understood this bit clearly yet.Ö
It is well known that individualism and consumerism are so pervasive that they have become the spectacles through which we view and understand our lives, including our spirituality. Sadly we keep these glasses on as we read our Bibles, and in the process we allow our reading to reinforce our individualism. Many readers and expositors of the Bible take verses without due concern for their context. In the process, verses that were originally intended to be understood within a community setting are made to mean something different from what their authors intended. One of the most serious consequences is that passages which refer to our community life are made to reinforce our individualism. This is not handling the 'Word of Truth' correctly. In We Not Me Andy Matheson argues that we need to embrace the perspective of 'the God who sees'. His vision is relational; he sees with communal lenses. Community is so core to God's nature and purposes that it undergirds everything that is implicitly inferred or explicitly stated on every page of the Bible. If we can rediscover what it means to be a community - the kind of community where all barriers are broken down and where our lives reflect the original vision of the gospel - then we play a much more effective part in ushering in God's Kingdom.
All mission is local—the people of God joining the work of God in a particular place. In Starting Missional Churches Mark Lau Branson and Nicholas Warnes introduce us to seven missional churches and identify best practices while examining common challenges regarding their genesis.
Our culture is self-obsessed – in our schedules, relationships, and especially online. (Can you say selfie?) But in this near-narcissism, people are less content than in decades past. Why? Because we forgot the joy that comes from putting others first. Doing so requires us to live alert, listening for “heart drops,” hints from those in our lives who need a helping hand or a generous dose of encouragement. Living alert lifts our own spirits, showing us that blessing others blesses us even more. Listen, Love, Repeat offers biblical teaching and suggests doable actions that are simple, heart-tugging, sentimental, even sneaky and hilarious. This message: • Presents scriptural examples of those who lived alert, including Jesus, who noticed those who least expected to be seen. • Explains the role of good works for followers of Christ. They aren’t our ticket to heaven but they are our marching orders on earth. • Gives creative ideas for showing love to friends and family, and suggests practical ways to reach out to the lonely, the marginalized, the outcast, and the odd duck. Additionally, it helps you comfort the grieving, showing what you can do when you don’t know what to say. • Provides inspiration for blessing the “necessary people” in your life, those often-overlooked souls who help you get life done every day, and teaches you how to hug a porcupine by genuinely loving the hard-to-love. As we scatter love, we create a safe space where we can openly share the gospel. We get to see lives changed right before our eyes. Most importantly, Listen, Love, Repeat will enable you to live a life that is full of kind deeds, not to selfishly shout, “Hey! Look at me!” but to humbly implore, “Will you look at Him?”
