In Twenty Years of Life, Suzanne Bohan exposes the ugly truth that health is largely determined by zip code. Life expectancies in wealthy versus poor neighborhoods can vary by as much as twenty years. Bohan chronicles a bold experiment to challenge that inequity. The California Endowment, one of the nation's largest health foundations, is upending the old-school, top-down charity model and investing $1 billion over ten years to help distressed communities advocate for their own interests. With compassion and insight, Bohan shares stories of students and parents, former street shooters, urban farmers, and a Native American tribe who are tapping into their latent political power to make their neighborhoods healthier. Their stories will fundamentally change how we think about the root causes of disease and the prospects for healing.
Our society is struggling with what Pope Benedict has called "profound crisis of faith that has affected many people." In response, the Holy Father has called us all to a Year of Faith from October 2012 to November 2013. We see the signs all around us: the demand for science to prove everything before we can believe it, the role of media and celebrities who deny the existence of God and denounce the role of the Church, and the ease in which we can all isolate God and faith into only one part of our life. In a follow-up to his best selling St. Paul Bible Study for Catholics during the year of St. Paul, Fr. Mitch Pacwa once again leads Catholics to a deeper understanding of Pope Benedict's call to action for the year. Perfect for individual or group study, this book is a wonderful guide to experiencing a conversion, growing in faith, and following Jesus Christ more closely. It shows us how to integrate every component of our life – relationships, morality, work, recreation, and all – into a meaningful whole. Make the most of Pope Benedict's Year of Faith, walking hand in hand with Fr. Pacwa as he guides you through the beauty and insights of Scripture in relationship to your everyday life.
Through reports nationwide, including the Wall Street Journal and TV news, Americans are discovering Faith Fowler's ideas for transforming lives in Detroit, Known for her deep faith and creative ideas, Faith serves as one of the city's leading pastors and as a nonprofit entrepreneur. As a co-founder of a wide array of Cass startups, Faith and her Cass community are turning one of the nation's most impoverished urban centers into a gold mine of talent and resources. Now, Faith Fowler shares dozens of inspiring true stories of men and women who found new hope and were able to join in building a healthier community through Cass. Mitch Albom says: "The world waits for people like Faith Fowler. ... This memoir, like the author herself, is funny, poignant, moving, beautifully staged and oozing with a commitment to a simple yet profound idea: that other people are worth the trouble." From turning trash heaps of old tires into a stylish line of sandals to a host of other startup businesses, Faith's work at Cass already has drawn nationwide attention. Headlines have chronicled her innovative ideas and her infectious belief that each and every life is valuable, despite the ravages of homelessness, addiction and violence. In this book, she shares the best of this inspiring community through stories of lives renewed and transformed. This is the first book published by Faith Fowler's latest entrepreneurial venture. Cass Community Publishing House is the first interfaith publishing house established in the city of Detroit in more than two centuries-since Father Gabriel Richard, a Catholic priest and co-founder of the University of Michigan, hauled the first printing press into Detroit and invited his Presbyterian friend the Rev. John Monteith to publish with him. Like Richard and Monteith before her, Faith Fowler's work is one reason that Detroit is recognized as a center of hope for those who believe peace is possible in our ever-more-diverse world. Mitch Albom urges: "Everyone, religious or not, should read these pages."
People don't abandon faith because they have doubts. People abandon faith because they think they're not allowed to have doubts. Even as a pastor, Austin Fischer has experienced the shadows of doubt and disillusionment. Leaning into perennial questions about Christianity, he shows that doubt is no reason to leave the faith—instead, it's an invitation to a more honest faith.
'The healing has begun. It began when you picked up this book. The goal of these offerings is to assist the children of the earth in the redevelopment of their minds, bodies and spirits . . . Buried deep in the earth are precious diamonds. In order to get to them, however, we must dig and dig deep.' In ACTS OF FAITH, life coach Iyanla Vanzant offers a inspirational passage for each day of the year, particularly aimed at people of colour. Vanzant considers that there are four basic areas that create stress and imbalance for people: our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with the world, our relationship with each other and our relationship with money. This book addresses all four issues in turn thus providing a meditative and uplifting guide to living successfully.
Follow pastor Jim Belcher and his family as they take a pilgrimage through Europe, seeking substance for their faith in Christianity's historic, civilizational home. What they find, in places like Lewis's Oxford and Bonhoeffer's Germany, are glimpses of another kind of faith—one with power to cut through centuries and pierce our hearts today.
Where do you go when the water rises? For more than twenty years, John Kasich has sought the answer to this question and many of life’s most fundamental challenges in an unlikely place: his twice-a-month lunches with an irreverent, thoughtful, and spirited circle of guys who are members of a Bible study group. Every other Monday over lunch at an Italian restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, Kasich and half a dozen friends use the stories of the Good Book as a launching pad to ask questions running the gamut from “Does God exist?” to “What do you do if faith fails you?” This group, in reaching for life’s biggest mysteries while standing firmly rooted in the everyday, has become a cornerstone of Kasich’s life, one to which he consistently turns when the waters threaten to rise. Every Other Monday is an honest look at how to build faith and find solace, even during the most heartbreaking circumstances, and offers a template for reconsidering how we make everyday choices as well as life-changing decisions. Along with rousing personal anecdotes and poignant memories, Kasich shares some of the group’s frank discussions on the major themes found in the Bible—and in our daily lives—such as: • CHARITY—How do you determine whether you’re giving enough (i.e., “the fatted calf” vs. “the skinny calf”) and why does it matter? • JUSTICE—How do you deal with frustration when justice doesn’t always happen here on earth? • ENVY—How do you absorb the inevitable disappointment when someone else gets the good fortune that you know was meant for you? • FORGIVENESS—What do you do when you encounter hurtful behavior? • AMBITION—How do you balance the demands of work and the material world while still growing spiritually? Every Other Monday is a refreshing and forthright account of one group’s search for answers and meaning. From rebuilding trust to understanding why we sometimes fail in matters of morality even when we know better, it lays out a practical path for finding strength and resilience through faith and friendship.
Is there a way to walk faithfully through doubt and come out the other side with a deeper love for Jesus, the church, and its tradition? Can we question our faith without losing it? Award-winning author, pastor, and professor A. J. Swoboda has witnessed many young people wrestle with their core Christian beliefs. Too often, what begins as a set of critical and important questions turns to resentment and faith abandonment. Unfortunately, the church has largely ignored its task of serving people along their journey of questioning. The local church must walk alongside those who are deconstructing their faith and show them how to reconstruct it. Drawing on his own experience of deconstruction, Swoboda offers tools to help emerging adults navigate their faith in a hostile landscape. Doubt is a part of our natural spiritual journey, says Swoboda, and deconstruction is a legitimate space to encounter the living God. After Doubt offers a hopeful, practical vision of spiritual formation for those in the process of faith deconstruction and those who serve them. Foreword by pastor and author John Mark Comer.
