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Dakota Courage : Her Hero Is Closer Than She Thinks
Fear says you can’t. Love says you must.
Elaine Kent hopes a new name, a new town, and a new job will help heal her wounded spirit. All she wants is a quiet life free from her traumatic past. When a battered female teen escapes into her store, Elaine has seconds to decide if helping is worth the risk. Helping the hurt teen lands Elaine in the middle of a human trafficking ring and back into a world of fear and danger.
When Judah Demski walks into Elaine’s store with his daughter to buy a present, life takes a quick turn toward relationship land. But Elaine wants to remain in the friend zone. Her past and their presence threaten to unravel her a new comfortable lifestyle.
To save herself, and Judah and his daughter, Elaine knows she needs a hero … or the courage to become one.
Mark : Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus – 10 Studies
These ten Bible studies explore the book of Mark, encouraging us to turn our eyes fully on Jesus.
Jason Meyer unpacks this fast-paced Gospel section by section, helping us to see the structure of Mark and how the key themes fit together. As you study, let this stunning portrayal of Jesus challenge your perception of him and of yourself. Turn your eyes to Jesus, and be transformed.
Thoughtful questions and a guide for those leading the studies make this a great resource for small-group Bible studies.
Preaching To A Divided Nation
We live in angry times. No matter where we go, what we watch, or how we communicate, our culture is rife with division and polarization. Unfortunately, Christians appear to be caught up in the same animosity as the culture at large. While our faith calls us to Christian unity, the hard fact remains: our churches are tragically divided across class, ethnic, gender, and political lines. As these social chasms grow–both inside and outside the church–the role of the preacher becomes paramount.
This book issues a prophetic call to pastors to use the influence of their pulpits to promote reconciliation and unity in their churches and communities. Two scholar-practitioners who are experts in homiletics and reconciliation present a practical, 7-step model that empowers faithful leaders to bring healing and peace to their fractured churches and world. The book includes questions for reflection, salient illustrations, and an accountability covenant. It also includes useful appendixes on preaching themes, preaching texts, and sample sermons from three leading preachers: Ralph Douglas West, Rich Villodas, and Sandra Maria Van Opstal.
Strangers And Scapegoats
We live in a world of oppositional relationships and increasing in-group/out-group divisions. Christian sociologist Matthew Vos explains how the problem of the stranger lies at the root of many problems humanity faces, such as racism, sexism, and nationalism. He applies classic sociological theory on “the stranger” to matters of faith and social justice, showing that an identity in Christ frees us to love strangers as neighbors and friends. The book also includes two guest chapters, one on intersex persons and the church and one on stranger-making in the “correctional” system.
By Way Of The Moonlight
For as long as she can remember, Allie Massey, a gifted physical therapist, has dreamed of making her grandparents’ ten-acre estate in the middle of the city into a trauma recovery center using equine therapy, a dream her grandmother, Nana Dale, embraced wholeheartedly with her financial support. But when her grandmother’s will is read, the money left to Allie and her family is barely enough to cover the cost of hiring a lawyer, and worse yet, the property has been sold to a contractor.
With just three weeks until the house and barn will be imploded, a backhoe unearths one of Dale Butler’s best-kept secrets and perhaps a clue to keep Allie’s dream alive. As Allie cleans out her grandmother’s home and searches for the missing chest, convinced there is money somewhere, she uncovers bits and pieces of her grandmother’s past with her champion filly, Essie, a young man named Tommy, and one fateful night in 1943 during the Battle of the Atlantic.
Curious Faith : The Questions God Asks, We Ask, And We Wish Someone Would A
God created us to be curious. We innately wonder about the world, one another, ourselves, and our Creator. But fear of the unknown, cultural taboos, technology, or even church leaders can smother our curiosity.
Popular writer Lore Ferguson Wilbert has belonged to Christian communities that discouraged curiosity. The point of the Christian life was to have the right answers, and asking questions reflected a wavering faith. But Wilbert came to discover that the Bible is a permission slip to anyone who wants to ask questions.
Reflecting her own theological trajectory toward a more contemplative, expansive faith, Wilbert invites readers to foster curiosity as a spiritual habit. This book explores questions God asks us, questions we ask God, and questions we ask each other. Christianity is not about knowing good answers, says Wilbert, but about asking good questions–ones that foster deeper intimacy with God and others.
A Curious Faith invites readers to go beyond pat answers and embrace curiosity, rather than certainty, as a hallmark of authentic faith. Foreword by Seth Haines.
Diamonds Are Forever
I hit a bit of a rocky patch during my childhood. My little brother, Phillip, and I were young when both of our parents died. We were shuffled around to different foster homes, and none of them were good situations. Eventually, a wonderful couple adopted us and treated us like we were their own.
I was in high school when I fell in love with Bradley Clark, the star of the football team. Things happened with us, and I ended up being homeschooled during my senior year. I am now the single mother of a three-and-a-half-year-old boy named Mac whose football-star father has never so much as met him.
I was as happy as a single mother could be. Bradley was never there for us, so I didn’t know anything else. My life was what I made it, and I made it good. I had settled into a nice routine where I took care of my responsibilities and made time for writing children’s books, which was a passion of mine. I didn’t think I was lacking anything.
Until I met Drew.
Drew Klein magically entered my life while drifting by on his boat. I was daydreaming about writing children’s books while my son, Mac, napped in the afternoon sunshine. Drew approached us and proceed to give me an expensive diamond ring.
It was a fairytale encounter. One that would change the rest of my life.
Brooke St. James keeps you spellbound in this fairytale romance. She continues the saga of the second generation of the Bank Street crew in a story that will leave you cheering.
Diamonds are Forever (Bank Street Stories Book 3) is a whimsical, fairytale romance that proves your past mistakes can always be overcome.
Promise And The Blessing
The Bible is a collection of writings that together tell a unified story. But exactly how do all the pieces fit together? In a single volume, The Promise and the Blessing connects the dots of the Old and New Testament books to reveal the big picture of salvation history. Organized chronologically rather than canonically, this book traces the flow of Israel’s history and shows how the New Testament proceeds out of the Old. It begins with God’s creation of the cosmos and the initial problem of the fall of man. Then it traces God’s solutions to that problem as he selects first one man, Abraham, then his line, and then the nation of Israel to provide the Messiah. Finally, it focuses on the Messiah himself and looks at how the gospel of Jesus was spread throughout the known world. The Promise and the Blessing is easy to use and ideal for anyone who wants to understand the grand narrative of the Bible. It features numerous photos as well as sidebars and brief, engaging “breakouts” with supplementary information. Maps, illustrations, summaries, and insightful notes help to illuminate the text. Field-tested in the classroom, The Promise and the Blessing is designed for Old and New Testament survey classes and will provide all readers of the Bible with a better understanding of how the drama that began in Eden winds through Israel’s history to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
Year Of Playing Catch
Journey with prolific author and avid baseball fan Ethan Bryan on an exciting quest to play catch every day for a year, and discover the lessons he learned about the sacredness of play, finding connections, and being fully present to the human experience.
Ethan Bryan played and wrote about baseball for years. Then his daughters challenged him to set out on a yearlong experiment: to play catch with someone every day. This experience led him across 10 states and 12,000 miles on a quest both quixotic and inspiring.
Taking you from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to the home of the Daytona Tortugas in Florida, Bryan played ball and swapped stories with public school teachers, veterans, journalists, nurses, musicians, entertainers, entrepreneurs, athletes from every level–amateur to pro–and members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Plus, he visited famous destinations such as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Miracle League fields, and the original Field of Dreams in Iowa.
But throughout the book, Bryan reveals it’s about much more than who he played catch with: it’s what he learned from their vastly different stories. Lessons include:
*How play can reignite a fire within you and transform your life
*How to find joy in the simple things
*How one life can impact a whole community
*. . . and more.
For baseball fans and everyone who loves a good story, A Year of Playing Catch is an inspiring journey about finding joy in the simple things, and the power of play to transform our lives.
Trinitarian Dogmatics : Exploring The Grammar Of The Christian Doctrine Of
This introduction draws on the breadth of the Christian tradition to present a biblically grounded, globally informed, and conceptually precise account of the doctrine of the Trinity. It covers key themes and concepts, offering an alternative to introductory texts on the Trinity that are arranged historically/chronologically. The book incorporates majority world theology, engages important debates in contemporary biblical studies, and draws on neglected historical figures. It also contains a glossary of trinitarian terms and an annotated bibliography of major works on the doctrine of God.
