When Christians join together to pursue the common good of our neighborhoods, we bring hope to the world, credibility to the church, and glory to God. Filled with original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries, this book from Don Everts offers constructive, practical ways that Christians and churches can bless our local communities.
How do we actually pursue the flourishing of our neighborhoods? This field guide walks you through a simple, powerful process for blessing your own neighborhood, with six sessions on discovering the gifts of your community, imagining the possibilities, and pursuing the common good. Exercises and assessments provide practical tools for bringing your hopes into concrete reality.
Roley was once a rising star in the contemporary Christian music scene, but then he felt called to racial reconciliation and moved to a disadvantaged neighborhood where he embodies the ideals that are needed to forge a just society.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * One of NPR's Best Books of 2020 "A provocative, absorbing read." — People “A feast of a read... I finished A Good Neighborhood in a single sitting. Yes, it’s that good.” —Jodi Picoult, #1New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Thingsand A Spark of Light In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son, Xavier, who’s headed to college in the fall. All is well until the Whitmans—a family with new money and a secretly troubled teenage daughter—raze the house and trees next door to build themselves a showplace. With little in common except a property line, these two families quickly find themselves at odds: first, over an historic oak tree in Valerie's yard, and soon after, the blossoming romance between their two teenagers. A Good Neighborhood asks big questions about life in America today—what does it mean to be a good neighbor? How do we live alongside each other when we don't see eye to eye?—as it explores the effects of class, race, and heartrending love in a story that’s as provocative as it is powerful.
Discover your gifts with this practical guide that describes twelve different kinds of gifts and gives examples of how each can be used in church, family, work, and society. By using this workbook alongside the Discover Your Gifts book, you can grow in your understanding and use of your own gifts and become better equipped to recognize and unleash the gifts of others.
In these ten baptismal sermons, George M. Bass explores some of the questions that surface during Lent and Easter: - Does the cross really have anything significant to say about life and death? - Why is baptism so important in the worship of Lent and Easter? - What does my baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ really mean? - Is baptism more than an initiation ceremony into the Christian church? - How do baptism and communion affirm the meaning and validity of the cross during Lent? In the exploration of these questions, Bass hopes to assist pastors and their people to experience a fuller participation in Lent and Easter and the new life all share in Christ. The sermons in the book are cast in the context of the question: "Is the cross still there?" George M. Bass is professor of preaching emeritus, Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota. He occupied the Alvin N. Rogness Chair of Pastoral Theology and Ministry, Homiletics. He has studied at Susquehanna University, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Temple University, the University of Edinburgh, the pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and Cambridge University. His CSS books include The Song and the Story, Great Stories of the Faith, and Lectionary Preaching Workbooks, Cycles A, B, and C.
Each of us has gifts to offer to the world around us, but we have not always identified or deployed them effectively. Incorporating new research on the impact that our gifts can make, Don Everts explores the many kinds of gifts God gives, whether spiritual, civic, artistic, or entrepreneurial. Discover how our gifts can pave a way for reconnecting with our communities.
In this Good and Beautiful Series book, James Bryan Smith helps you to live in relationship with others as apprentices of Jesus. He shows how to bring spiritual formation and community engagement together, and he offers spiritual practices that root new, true narratives about God and the world in your soul.
Hope and Healing in Urban Education proposes a new movement of healing justice to repair the damage done by the erosion of hope resulting from structural violence in urban communities. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from around the country, this book chronicles how teacher activists employ healing strategies in stressed schools and community organizations, and work to reverse negative impacts on academic achievement and civic engagement, supporting their students to become powerful civic actors. The book argues that healing a community is a form of political action, and emphasizes the need to place healing and hope at the center of our educational and political strategies. At once a bold, revealing, and nuanced look at troubled urban communities as well as the teacher activists and community members working to reverse the damage done by generations of oppression, Hope and Healing in Urban Education examines how social change can be enacted from within to restore a sense of hope to besieged communities and counteract the effects of poverty, violence, and hopelessness.
What does public health have to do with Christianity? How should Christians and churches in Atlantic Canada and beyond respond to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic? In this first volume of East Coast Theology, the faculty of Acadia Divinity College reflect biblically and theologically on these questions. Dr. Robert Strang, chief medical officer of health for Nova Scotia, offers his insights as well. This book provides church members and leaders with theological foundations and practical ideas for ministering through health care. As a result, we hope that followers of Christ will be at the forefront of efforts for relief and healing on Canada's East Coast both today and in the future. As people called by God to care for others, our vision should be nothing less than this.
