What are Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany really about? This complete church resource brings together people of all ages and stages of faith, allowing them to experience a creative and fun-filled Christian community. Three once-a-month sessions include unique Christmas activities like global action suggestions, games and competitions, prayers, Christmas food crafts, and more.
Three complete Messy Church sessions for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, together with a wealth of creative activities and crafts to extend the range of excitingly messy activities for your Messy Church. Sections include creative Christmas prayers, global action suggestions, games and competitions, Christmas food crafts and many other ideas to take you on into the New Year.
A fun and engaging way for young children to figure out concepts and solving problems on his or her own. Rookie Readers (Ages 5-7) have provided entertaining, high-quality introductions to reading for more than a generation. Each title features full-color, often hilarious illustrations and engaging stories that always involve a young child figuring out concepts or solving problems on his or her own. Bessey and her mother bake cookies for Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah, and after cleaning up the kitchen, they distribute the treats to their neighbors.
Since when did every cookie on the plate have to be just like the next? Or each layer of cake exactly the same height? Each piecrust an impeccable work of art and encircled by stunningly perfect pastry leaves? To the uninitiated, all that fastidious, spotless baking is intimidating, not to mention exhausting. The Messy Baker celebrates baking as it happens in the real world--sweet, messy, fun, not always gorgeous, but a way to show love. Which doesn't make it any less delicious; to the contrary, Charmian Christie's flavor combinations rise far above the ordinary. Why have a raspberry galette when you can enjoy a raspberry-rhubarb galette with drippy, unctuous walnut frangipane? Or how about a Brie and walnut whiskey tart? It's all yours without the rigid perfectionism or complicated instructions of other gourmet cookbooks. Christie's warm, irreverent voice brings the fun back into baking at a time when home cooks--pulled from pillar to post by jobs and errands--need to have fun. The Messy Baker is a full-service book that not only guides the reader through simple, delicious recipes but is also there to help out when things go wrong. For anyone who gave in frustration when that cake collapsed or the frosting smeared, Christie's practical advice is here to rescue even the worst disaster and inspire the baker to try the next recipe.
Think minimalism means a perfectly curated, always tidy home? Think again. Drowning in tides of toys, overflowing closets, and a crazy schedule, Rachelle Crawford assumed you had to be naturally organized to keep a tidy living space. Then she found minimalism: the messy, real-life kind, that is less about perfection and more about purpose. Thus began a journey toward decluttering her home, calendar, and soul. With empathy, grace, and humor, Crawford--who curates the popular Abundant Life with Less site--shares doable ways to own less and live more fully. Laying out practical strategies for reducing waste, curbing consumption, decluttering, and finding lots more joy, Crawford offers no-nonsense solutions for the rest of us. Learn to become a more conscious consumer, create a capsule wardrobe, inspire family members to join you, free up more time for the things that matter, and create a tidy(ish) home. The messy minimalist way is a no-judgment zone, one in which we learn sustainable habits and grace-based practices. It's about living lightly on the earth and making room for purpose. Becoming a messy minimalist is not about turning into someone else; it's about clearing away clutter and expectations to unearth who you really are. It's about carrying fewer things so that we find ourselves holding onto what truly matters.
There is no need to feel stressed or overwhelmed by the holiday season. Author Meg Nordmann will guide you through the mindset changes and practical strategies needed to slow down, save money and have a more intentional holiday this year.
The Single Most Comprehensive Resource for Preaching and Worship "Students, teachers, Bible study leaders, but especially preachers, will discover a treasure trove here. Search and mine it for new perspectives on old stories, fresh Biblical insights into current issues, ways of seeing outside the box. You'll find yourself nourished and strengthened!" —Rev. Dr. James W. Crawford, minister emeritus, The Old South Church, Boston, Massachusetts "No other compilation offers more comprehensive resources to assist the parish minister in planning every aspect of weekly worship." —William E. Hull, research professor, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama For more than eighty years, The Minister's Manual has been the standard by which all other preaching annuals are measured. The book's research-based content and searchable CD-ROM make this non-denominational resource even more helpful to today's busy pastor. The 2010 Minister's Manual is the comprehensive and traditional resource pastors have come to rely on. Filled with practical features, this new edition is designed to be user-friendly and the handy CD-ROM makes the book's material easily accessible. Turn to The Minister's Manual for: Complete sermons for the entire year Lectionary messages and worship aids to expand Sunday services Feature articles on preaching parables, faithful worship, and the creative art of homiletics that speak to the hearts and minds of ministers A treasury of practical, contemporary, and relevant sermons A diverse group of contributors, a broad and contemporary range of illustrations, and new and expanded preaching resources Children's sermons, based on the lectionary texts, for engaging young minds Musical suggestions, based on the lectionary texts, for each week of the year Calendars of important historical, cultural, and religious anniversaries Eloquent and useful messages for holidays, funerals and bereavement, communions, and missions A free, searchable CD-ROM of the entire contents can be used to extract, edit, and print selections for sermons, bulletins, and other messages
Sometimes life gets Messy. When sixteen-year-old Brooke Berlin catches a taste of fame and her movie-star father's attention, she decides it's time to take her career to the next level--by launching a blog that will position her as a Hollywood "It Girl" who tells it like it is. But between schoolwork, shopping, and spray-tan appointments, she hardly has the time to write it herself... Enter green-haired outsider Max McCormack, an aspiring author with a terrible after-school job pushing faux meat on the macrobiotic masses. Max loathes the celebrity scene almost as much as she dislikes Brooke, but wooed by an impressive salary, Max reluctantly agrees to play Brooke's ghost-blogger -- and the site takes off. How long will their lie last? Can the girls work together to stay on top, or will the truth come out and ruin everything they've built? Along with an entourage of fame-hungry starlets, scruffy rocker wannabes, and sushi-scarfing socialites, the case of Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan's dazzling debut, Spoiled, are back for another adventure in Tinseltown.
Cleaning woman and karate expert Lily Bard is back in Charlaine Harris's latest cozy-but-noirish mystery about the dark secrets of a small Southern town In Shakespeare’s Christmas, Lily heads home to Bartley, Arkansas--always an uncomfortable scenario for the introverted Lily--for her sister Varena’s Christmas wedding. But Lily has more to worry about than being a bridesmaid for a sister to whom she’s no longer close. Soon after she arrives in Bartley, Lily’s private-detective boyfriend shows up too, and not just for moral support: He’s investigating a four-year-old unsolved kidnapping. Try as she might, Lily can’t help but get involved when she discovers that the case hits dangerously close to home--for Varena’s new husband is the widowed father of a girl bearing a remarkable resemblance to the vanished child.
Join a brave little mouse on a big Christmas adventure! This is the chapter book edition of Alex T. Smith's modern Christmas classic How Winston Delivered Christmas, with gorgeous black and white illustrations from the author throughout – the perfect festive gift for newly confident readers. Winston is on a Very Important Mission. On Christmas Eve, he finds a letter to Father Christmas that did not make it to the post box – so, with no time to lose, he sets out to deliver it himself in time for Christmas Day! He has a lot of Very Exciting Adventures on his Very Important Mission and makes some wonderful friends along the way. Will he find Father Christmas in time? How Winston Delivered Christmas is a heartwarming illustrated story by Alex T. Smith, bestselling author of the Claude series.
