Long before there was a mountain man called Preacher, a young adventurer set off with a team of fur traders from St. Louis for the time of his life. On a wild frontier, he sought a fortune. Instead, he found blood, betrayal, and the beginning of a legend. Armed only with a knife, surrounded by a fierce Blackfoot war party, the young man was forced to kill a warrior chief in an act of audacious courage. But when a grizzly bear attack left him half-dead, he could no longer protect himself. By the time the Blackfeet found him again, he had been abandoned and doublecrossed, with only one last trick up his sleeve: the ability to talk himself out of an impossible situation -- and into a battle for his life. So began William Johnstone's masterful saga of the courageous loner who would become known as Preacher. Because when he was alone and desperate, he drew on a preacher's skills -- and a mountain man's cunning -- to give his enemies hell.
The devil is afraid of unified individuals, united generations, and Kingdom advancement. In the last days, Scripture reveals that there will be a great generational synergy: fathers and sons, mothers and daughters–multiple generations coming together to see the Kingdom of God advanced and the powers of darkness destroyed! For this...
You can teach the craft, but you must first form the heart. Many preachers want to preach better, but they don't always know how to go about improving, and most books on preaching focus on the mechanics of the craft. But preaching involves more than the steps from a text to a sermon, because every time a preacher stands up to preach, their character shines through—for better or for worse. In The Heart of the Preacher, Rick Reed focuses on the personal heart preparation required before any preacher is ready to preach. He explores issues preachers often wrestle with—like discouragement, insecurity, and pride. He then offers practices to fight these challenges and form a heart that carries the fruit of the Spirit into the pulpit. It takes more than a good speaker to preach. It takes a Spirit-filled person. This book will help you check your heart and cultivate the most important aspect of preaching: your character.
Have records, compact discs, and other sound reproduction equipment merely provided American listeners with pleasant diversions, or have more important historical and cultural influences flowed through them? Do recording machines simply capture what's already out there, or is the music somehow transformed in the dual process of documentation and dissemination? How would our lives be different without these machines? Such are the questions that arise when we stop taking for granted the phenomenon of recorded music and the phonograph itself. Now comes an in-depth cultural history of the phonograph in the United States from 1890 to 1945. William Howland Kenney offers a full account of what he calls "the 78 r.p.m. era"--from the formative early decades in which the giants of the record industry reigned supreme in the absence of radio, to the postwar proliferation of independent labels, disk jockeys, and changes in popular taste and opinion. By examining the interplay between recorded music and the key social, political, and economic forces in America during the phonograph's rise and fall as the dominant medium of popular recorded sound, he addresses such vital issues as the place of multiculturalism in the phonograph's history, the roles of women as record-player listeners and performers, the belated commercial legitimacy of rhythm-and-blues recordings, the "hit record" phenomenon in the wake of the Great Depression, the origins of the rock-and-roll revolution, and the shifting place of popular recorded music in America's personal and cultural memories. Throughout the book, Kenney argues that the phonograph and the recording industry served neither to impose a preference for high culture nor a degraded popular taste, but rather expressed a diverse set of sensibilities in which various sorts of people found a new kind of pleasure. To this end, Recorded Music in American Life effectively illustrates how recorded music provided the focus for active recorded sound cultures, in which listeners shared what they heard, and expressed crucial dimensions of their private lives, by way of their involvement with records and record-players. Students and scholars of American music, culture, commerce, and history--as well as fans and collectors interested in this phase of our rich artistic past--will find a great deal of thorough research and fresh scholarship to enjoy in these pages.
Trygve Johnson invites us to consider a new metaphor of identity of The Preacher as Liturgical Artist. This identity draws on a theology of communion and the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ to relocate the preacher's identity in the creative and ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ. Johnson argues the metaphorical association of the preacher and artist understood within the artistic ministry of Jesus Christ frees the full range of human capacities, including the imagination to bear upon the arts of Christian proclamation. The Preacher as Liturgical Artist connects preachers to the person and work of Jesus Christ, whose own double ministry took the raw materials of the human condition and offered them back to the Father in a redemptive and imaginative fashion through the Holy Spirit. It is in the large creative ministry of Jesus Christ that preachers find their creativity freed to proclaim the gospel bodily within the context of the liturgical work of God's people.
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER | A SUNDAY TIMES UK BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR | SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION AWARD “So much to relish here . . . and the writing is just lovely!” —Diane Setterfield, New York Times bestselling author of The Thirteenth Tale and Once Upon a River A fantastic tale set in the far north of Sweden in 1852 following a runaway Sami boy and his mentor, the famous pastor Laestadius, as they investigate a murder in their village along with the mysteries of life. Jussi, a runaway, becomes Laestadius's faithful son and disciple, and the two set out on botanical treks filled with philosophical discussions where Jussi learns all about plants and nature; and also how to read and write and about spirituality. But their quiet days are interrupted when a maid goes missing in the forest. When she is found dead, the locals suspect a predatory bear is at large. The constable is quick to offer a reward for capturing it, but Laestadius sees other traces that point to a far worse killer on the loose. After another maid is severely injured, Jussi and the pastor work to track down the murderer, unaware of the evil that is closing in on them. For it is revivalist times, and impassioned faith spreads like wildfire among the locals. While Laestadius's powerful Sunday sermons grant salvation to farmers and workers, they gain him enemies among local rulers, who see profits dwindle as people choose revival over alcohol. A completely absorbing and unforgettable novel, To Cook a Bear both entertains and burrows deep down into the great philosophical questions of life.
First Published in 2002. A Century of American Popular Music is an annotated index to over 2,000 of the most popular, best remembered, historically important and otherwise influential and interesting popular music, from the landmark publication of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag to the latest rap hit. It provides information all in one place that is available no where else: song title, composer, lyricist, publisher, date of copyright and genre. The annotations include, where possible, a discussion of the history of the song, how it was written, who popularized it, notable recordings with their original issue numbers, as well as covers and other versions that helped keep the song in public attention. Also included are indices by composer, publisher and year of publication.
You were born to make an impact in this world and you know it. You feel it deep down in your bones. Apathy is your nemesis and your hunger to change the world keeps you up at night. But no matter how deep this hunger growls, we can only make a meaningful impact if we are rooted in Jesus. And here’s the thing: God is not interested in developing your vision first. He is interested in developing you. In Rooted, Banning Liebscher takes us to the life of David to show how God expands our root system in the hidden places before leading us to where we all desire to go, the visible world. It was in a field of prayerful devotion, a season of serving, and a cave of community that God prepared David for his crown, the same way God prepares us. Take a look at your own life. Are you embracing God’s process, the sometimes painstaking and maddening process? When we can release ourselves to God we will find that we can thrive while He develops us, rather than succumb to discouragement. Whatever your age or season of life, it takes immense courage to slow down enough to let God grow a root system in your life so that you can bear fruit that remains. You are where you are because God has planted you there. Discover what it looks like to embrace His process so you can do what He has called you to, change the world.
We hear plenty of discussion about missional theology, missional leadership and missional church planting. But what about missional preaching? In this groundbreaking work, Patrick W. T. Johnson develops a new missional homiletic to aid preachers in their witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in this post-Christendom world.
