Pastoral Helps
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Preaching The Miracles Series 2 Cycle B
$15.95Add to cartWhile this book offers information for the sermon writer, the design of its contents provides more than the ho-hum. It avoids presenting a ready-made cloak of words for a morning sermon. Instead it invites preachers and their audiences to explore the gap between the “back then” and the “now.” It not only helps answer questions, it generates them — a crucial element in understanding the miracles of Jesus.
Five sections are devoted to each of the nine miracles in Cycle B (all from Mark):
Text — For easy access the entire lectionary text is provided, preventing the need to flip back and forth to the Bible.
What’s Happening? — This gives a synopsis of points of action within each miracle story. By reviewing the story action, readers define its movement, the conflict and the change or resolution.
Connecting Points – Conversations — This section offers the central material of each chapter. Here Brauninger engages the preacher in an imaginary exchange before the text is given its usual preparatory attention. A visit with main characters and an occasional bystander nudges readers toward stepping into their sandals. This section invites the preacher and listening audience. This section invites the preacher and the listening audience to ask questions relevant for them, thus expanding their questioning, and therefore their understanding.
Words — Here significant words are examined. While this work is not intended as a scholarly study, it assists in placing things in proper context.
Gospel Parallels — This section highlights similarities and differences among parallel stories and other gospels.There is also a helpful bibliography included.
This new series from Brauninger promises to be a favorite among preachers. Through it audiences will become aware of how God speaks to them through miracle stories and will enable them to hear their inner voice and more clearly understand it themselves.
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Church For The Unchurched
$22.99Add to cart6 Chapters
Additional Info
CHURCH FOR THE UNCHURCHED
A rebirth of the apostolic way.This work shows that there is an apostolic way for a congregation to live out the gospel. This book calls for revolution–the revolution that must take place if the churches in America are to thrive and to fulfill the Great Commission. Church for the Unchurched is about the “abolition” of the laity.
God’s dream for his church from the earliest time has been that we practice the priesthood of all believers, that we be a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6). In its first 300 years of history, the church had no clergy. Rather, it was made up of believers who understood they were to be apostles, sent on mission by the living Christ. With the phenomenal growth of that early church, both numerically and in influence, two classes of Christians emerged, leaders and spectators. The spectators were supposed to learn sound doctrine, to pray, sing, listen to sermons, and pay the bills. But when the question is asked, as it often is, “Why doesn’t the church do something about…,” “the church” is synonymous with “the clergy.”
This book studies a number of apostolic congregations from various traditions and assorted geographical locations that are successfully reaching the unchurched. It is full of recipes that any serious congregation could copy and use. Reading this book could result in a Copernican revolution in the church-the empowerment of the laity.
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Prepare The Way Of The Lord
$12.95Add to cartThose looking for a resource that will deepen and enrich their spiritual life during the Advent/Christmas season will find that resource here. These reflections will strengthen the reader’s mental preparation and will serve as a starling point for prayer and meditation.
Pastors will be helped with themes and illustrations for Advent/Christmas preaching
Teachers will use this material in their classes to help renew the right spirit of Christmas among their students
Those who are seeking a deeper spiritual life will be uplifted and inspired by these daily meditations -
Fringe Front And Center Cycle B
$12.95Add to cartFor many years Professor Hoyer was editor and writer for Currents In Theology And Mission. In that publication he called the homiletical section “Preaching Helps.” But he explained that the emphasis was to be put on the second word. “It is more than a noun. It’s a verb,” he said. “Preaching does help! Preaching conveys both the wisdom and power of God.”
When sermons only talk about the gospel, they fail to utilize the power. They may be wise, but they don’t work the work of God. Medics who answer a 911 call do more than talk about CPR. They diagnose. Then they supply the breath of life. In these Gospel-based sermons Hoyer shows how to draw out the power of the word. His messages breathe life and hope into listening ears.
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Light In The Land Of Shadows Cycle B
$12.95Add to cartLight In The Land Of Shadows contains 16 sermons for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Transfiguration Sundays.
This book makes connections between Old Testament themes and contemporary issues. The preacher will find it exegetically sound yet filled with illustrations and insights. The lay person will find it comprehendible and useful for exploring ultimate issues within the context of meaningful Bible study.
(The) sermons are fleshed out in normal, everyday language, grammar and sentence structure — Yet the faithful preacher can take comfort in the fact that they are backed up by sound biblical exegesis. (from the Introduction)
Hal Warlick is a master at weaving a fascinating story or illustration into the sermon, dramatically portraying the scriptural message. This is Old Testament preaching at its best.
Sermon titles include:
Lighting A Fire In A Cold Room
All Dressed Up And Somewhere To Go
Any FAX From God Today?
Will We Enjoy Heaven?
Pain And Promise In The Hand Of God -
Minding The Soul
$26.00Add to cartDrawing on 40 years of experience, Ashbrook joins theological and pyschological theory with the fruits of brain research as he offers a comprehensive vision of pastoral counseling and a foundational principle for caregivers: You must remember who you are in order to be a “rock” for those hurting.
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Church Growth Handbook
$20.99Add to cartHere are twenty tested church-growth strategies that have been implemented by church consultant William Easum with more than 4,000 chuch leaders across the United States and Canada. The handbook provides diagnostic tools, which now can be used with the Complete Ministry Adult.
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Purpose Driven Church (Reprinted)
$28.99Add to cart1998 GOLD MEDALLION WINNER
Every church is driven by something. Tradition, finances, programs, personalities, events, seekers, and even buildings can each be the controlling force in a church. But Rick Warren believes that in order for a church to be healthy it most become a purpose-driven church, built around the five New Testament purposes given to the church by Jesus. “The issue is church health, not church growth!” declares Warren. “If your church is healthy, growth will occur naturally. Healthy, consistent growth is the result of balancing the five biblical purposes of the church.” In this landmark book, you’ll learn the secret behind the fastest growing Baptist church in American history. Saddleback Church grew from one family to over 10,000 in worship attendance in just fifteen years, while planting twenty-six other churches. . .and without owning a building. Founding pastor Rick Warren shares a proven five-part strategy that will enable your church to grow. . .warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism. The Purpose-Driven Church shifts the focus away from church building programs to emphasizing a people-building process. Warren says, “If you will concentrate on building people, God will build the church.” Discover in these pages the practical insights and helpful principles that Rick Warren has taught in seminars to over 22,000 pastors and church leaders from sixty denominations and forty-two countries.
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Preaching Liberation
$26.00Add to cartIn Preaching Liberation, Harris is not talking about Liberation Theology but about the power of the Word Of God to transform and liberate the listener. Harris examines preaching in the African-American traditon and how the idea of liberation is deeply rooted in that tradition. 136 pages from the Fortress Press Resources for Preaching series
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God Images In The Healing Process
$19.00Add to cartWhat does it mean when a seriously ill person has a vision or other vivid experience of God? How should a caregiver respond? Armistead sensitively explores these questions, offering practical psychological and theological guidance for pastors and counselors. Discover how to empathize with care-seekers, interpret their religious language, and more.
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Claiming The Center
$28.00Add to cartCLAIMING THE CENTER, by Jack Rogers The thesis of this book is that the root cause of mainstream church decline is an internal confict of worldviews. Using the Presbyterian Church (USA) as an example Rogers argues that the worldview that some members have developed has caused them to see life in conservative terms, whereas others have acquired a worldview that gives a liberal interpretation of life. Confict occurs when Christian people make their theological elaborations or ideological application or experiential colorings the ultimate reference point rather than the religious worldview itself. Rogers writes: “Hope for reconciliation and renewal lies in both leaders and members claiming the center and reconstituting a common worldview. This begins by patiently returning to a common affirmation of the root religious worldview that is more fundamental than any ideological application. Recognizing that those who differe with us accept the same religous worldview could enable us to build together on a foundation of Jesus Christ, the head of one body.”
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Gift Of Anger
$32.00Add to cartAll people experience anger at some point in their lives, although the way in which anger is experienced and expressed is often shaped by social context and religious background. Carroll Saussy offers this book to assist people in learning how to evaluate, understand, and effectively express authentic anger. She explores the psychology, the ethical considerations, and some practical ways of dealing with anger and proposes a theology of anger that is instrumental in addressing injustice. She also identifies ways that anger can be harmful and ways it can provide an impetus for constructive action. A helpful three-step technique for evaluating and expressing anger is presented and illustrated
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Worship God
$24.99Add to cartAn excellent resource for pastors and worship leaders who want to lead their churches in spiritually vital worship. This book explores the principles of worship found in the Book of Psalms and provides timely and practical answers to the challenging questions concerning worship and its function in the local church.
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Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers
$20.99Add to cart11 Chapters
Additional Info
William Easurn shows how an atmosphere of permission-giving, which signals the end of permission-giving, which signals the end of leaders as enablers, will help church leaders transcend bureaucracy and gratuitous regulations, and will enhance spiritual gifts rather than assign them. The sacred cows of control and regulation can be devoured, as leaders and people are converted to a new style of ministry. -
Leading Adult Learners
$20.99Add to cartA handbook for adult Sunday school classes, this book includes reproducible handouts as well as guidelines and training helps.
Leading Adult Learners offers practical help in determining what topics to study and the best teaching styles for particular age groups. It includes information about publicity and teacher and leader training, and also numerous survey questionnaires to help determine class format and study preferences. Guidelines/responsibilities for class officers are also provided.
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Team Ministry : Putting Together A Team That Makes Churches Grow
$16.99Add to cartUsing a step by step approach, Dick Iverson explains the biblical pattern for local chruch admisistration – a plurality of elders led by God’s “set man”. He provides a method for establishing a team ministry within any local chruch that includes 12 principles on how to maintain the leadership team once it is put into place. He concludes the text with information on how to discover and train young leaders within the church.
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What Do You Say To A Burning Bush Cycle A
$12.95Add to cartMany who preach from the lectionary are drawn to the gospel for their sermon focus. Yet Steve Burt’s alluring treatment of these first lesson texts will stimulate the desire to proclaim the captivating tales drawn from these Old Testament lessons. In many ways it is easier for the contemporary hearer to identify with these Old Testament characters. They are less perfect, approachable, very human in their faith struggles and in many respects much like us.
Titles include:
* What Do You Do When Life Ain’t Fair? (Genesis 29:15-28)
* The Face of God (Genesis 32:22-31)
* Need Help Removing that Roadblock? (Exodus 14:19-31)
* But You Can’t Get Water Out of a Rock! (Exodus 17:1-7) -
Stained Glass Ceiling
$24.00Add to cartAs record numbers of women graduate from seminaries,they are increasingly filling positions once held exclusivelyby men. Purvis documents what happened in the lives of two congregations that appointed women senior pastors and the impact these appointments had on all concerned. She carefully assesses the changes and discerns the significance of female leadership as opposed to male leadership in these two settings.
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Effective Keys To Successful Leadership
$14.99Add to cartLearn, from this dynamic model, what it takes to build an effective leadership team and healthy local church. Common ministry temptations and tensions are candidly discussed, emphasizing the need for personal vision and mission in your ministry.
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Real Hope In Chicago
$19.99Add to cartWhen Wayne Gordon and his wife started a Bible study for high school kids in North Lawndale, Chicago, people warned them that a white couple moving into a black neighborhood as a recipe for disaster. That was twenty-five years ago. Today, what began as the Gordons’ seedling Bible study has become the Lawndale Community Church. It has a staff of 150, has renovated more than 100 local apartments, has helped more than 50 young people graduate from college, runs a medical clinic that treated 50,000 patients in 1994, and has become a vital part of rebuilding an inner-city neighborhood into a community of faith and hope. Real Hope in Chicago is Wayne Gordon’s inspiring account of how people, white and black, rich and poor, old and young, worked together to transform a decaying neighborhood into a place where love is lived out in practical and miraculous ways. It offers an exciting model for interracial cooperation, urban-suburban church partnering–and real hope for the inner cities of our nation.
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Getting The Word Across
$31.99Add to cartIf you’ve had little or no speech training, here’s how to “get the Word across.” Offering practical lessons in disciplined speech, Jacks, a professor of speech communication in ministry, discusses various methods of effective oral interpretation, as well as voice and diction techniques to improve the impact of God’s Word on your audience.
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Taking Care : Monitoring Power Dynamics And Relational Boundaries In Pastor
$25.99Add to cartClarifies how to distinguish between healthy therapeutic relationships and ones which have become abusive.
Carrie Doehring propose an approach to pastoral counseling that focuses on taking care of ourselves and those we minister to by monitoring power dynamics and relational boundaries in our relationships. When we monitor the power struggles within us, between us, in our communities and cultures, and the ways in which we are pulled to disengagement and merger, we will be able to prevent abuse and neglect. We will also be more likely to experience empowering, empathic moments in our relationships, and use these to “get our bearings.”
Taking care by monitoring the interaction of power dynamics and relational boundaries is a theological task. It is one way of seeing our potential for sin and our capacity for violence. When empowering empathic moments come, we glimpse who God is: both the immanent God whose grace shines through our uniqueness and the uniqueness of our relationships, and the transcendent God who goes far beyond who we are.
Doehring uses case studies from the fiction of John Updike, Sinclair Ross, Toni Morrison, Iris Murdoch, and Margaret Atwood to reflect on power dynamics and relational boundaries in cases of clergy sexual misconduct, racism, and the dilemmas of faith in a post-modern context.
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Seek The Peace Of The City A Print On Demand Title
$19.99Add to cartThis is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable.
This volume sounds a ringing summons to today’s churches to give primacy once again to urban ministry. Informed by a high degree of theological and social- scientific insight and by a wealth of experience in the urban milieu, Villafae lays out a vision of a church that, unlike the trend today, refuses to retreat from the challenges of city life. Includes chapters by Douglas Hall, Efrain Agosto, and Bruce W. Jackson. Foreword by Harvey Cox.
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Help For The Small Church Pastor
$12.99Add to cartChurches of less than 150 remain the rule rather than the exception in American Christianity. However, seminaries don’t equip their students in every way that’s necessary to effectively lead smaller congregations — despite the fact that most seminary graduates will becomes small-church pastors. Help for the Small-Church Pastor offers pastors of small churches the guidance and encouragement they need. In this common-sense book, Steve Bierly draws from his eleven years in ministry to show what makes smaller congregations tick. Help for the Small-Church Pastor provides practical insights on uniquely “small-church” issues, such as– The characteristics of small churches – How to work effectively as an “insider” within the small church – How God is at work in powerful ways in smaller assemblies – How to motivate your church toward positive change and true growth – How to invest your own time and energy in the right directions – How your church can reach out to the community in ways that are practical and productive — “There are many ways for even the smallest congregation to be true to the church’s calling,” says Steve Bierly. Help for the Small-Church Pastor will steer you through the strengths and weaknesses of your small church to unearth its true riches.
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Theology And Pastoral Counseling A Print On Demand Title
$28.99Add to cartThis is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable.
This volume lays out an important new interdisciplinary approach to the relationship between theology and psychology in the work of pastoral counseling. Hunsinger sets forth a method for relating theology and psychology from a Barthian theological perspective. Her work shows that Barth’s theology provides a wealth of material for pastoral counselors who wish to bring a consistent theological perspective to the interpretive task.
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Surviving The Death Of A Child
$20.00Add to cartSurviving the Death of a Child is about enduring and surviving the most painful of all loses: the death of one’s child. This is the story of a journey from grief to healing. But more, it is a story of faith and love told so that others may find comfort and understanding when faced with this most devasting loss.
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Young Children And Worship
$32.00Add to cart1. Introduction
2. Getting Ready To Be With God
Worship Center Order
3. Presentations
Stories
4. Patterns And InstructionsAdditional Info
Young children need a special environment where they can meet and worship God. They should have their own experiences where their faith can be nurtured and they can be prepared to join in the full life of the congregation.Sonja M. Stewart and Jerome W. Berryman have taken the needs of children into account and devised. an exciting way to introduce three- to seven-year-olds to the wonder of worship. Their approach, which integrates religious education and worship, has been presented at numerous workshops and training sessions. Based on the authors’ experiences, the methods described here will be invaluable to teachers helping children understand and participate in worship. For their part, children will be led to experience God, using all their senses.
Activities are developed around the order of worship commonly used in Reformed churches: assemble in God’s name; proclaim God’s Word; give thanks to God; go in God’s name. Stewart and Berryman suggest
beginning with the most essential parts of the service, adding to these as the children progress. -
Teach Yourself New Testament Greek
$26.99Add to cartAn understanding of the New Testament’s original language pays rich dividends to those who want more out of the Bible. But few laypersons have a spare year or more to learn Greek in a formal academic setting. In this study guide, Macnair uses the same innovative, non-technical methods that successfully jump-start today’s “English as a Second Language” learners.
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Gospel Sermons For Children Series A
$12.99Add to cartGospel Sermons for Children is a part of the Gospel A Series. It will provide you with 60 age appropriate sermons with texts taken primarily from the book of Matthew as given in the Revised Common Lectionary. After the name of the Sunday and the reference for the Gospel text, these follow: Focus-A brief statement of the theme. Experience-What you and the children will be doing. Preparatin-What needs to be done ahead of time.
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Designing Effective Womens Ministries
$24.99Add to cart5 Parts
Additional Info
Do you have a vision for women’s ministry? Here’s how to make it a reality.For nearly 25 years, Elmbrook Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has supported a variety of ministries by and for women. Today their program stands as a model. Yet, as the authors of Designing Effective Women’s Ministries will tell you, it did not happen overnight, but through trial and error.
In this book, the authors share what worked for them and what didn’t. They explain how to start where you are, with what you have, and how to do what God wants you to do.
This book includes tips and techniques for establishing groups and programs that meet the needs of today’s women. The book shows how to develop programs that are specifically tailored to your church and your community.
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Peace : Christian Living In A Violent World
$6.99Add to cartDiscover the potential for peacemaking and peace in each day’s events and especially in the ways you touch one another’s lives. These are troubled times and violent times. Experience the power of God’s gift of peace as you probe ways to solve differences and pursue justice with faith and courage in daily life. Six lessons.
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Faith : Confidence And Doubt In Daily Life
$6.99Add to cartWhat does Christian faith have to do with our ordinary day-to-day life? This question is presented in personal ways for you and your small group. Explore faith in life-cycle experiences–moods and situations, joy and discouragement, confidence and doubt.
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Hope In Pastoral Care And Counseling
$33.00Add to cartIn this ground-breaking book, pastoral counselor Andrew Lester demonstrates that pastoral theology (as well as social and behavioral sciences) has neglected to address effectively the predominant cause of human suffering: a lack of hope, a sense of futurelessness. Lester examines the reasons that pastoral theology and other social and behavioral sciences have overlooked the importance of hope and despair in the past. He then offers a starting point for the development of addressing these significant dimensions of human life. He provides clinical theories and methods for pastoral assessment of and intervention with those who despair. He also puts forth strategies for assessing the future stories of those who despair and offers a corrective to these stories through deconstruction, reframing, and reconstruction. This book will be invaluable to pastoral caregivers who are looking for a vantage point from which to provide care and to pastoral theologians who are seeking to develop a theological lens through which to understand the human condition.
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Faithquakes
$26.99Add to cartIn this book Leonard Sweet invites the church to take more than a stand, but to begin to take an active role in compliance with the time we live in. With up-to-the-minute monitoring of changes and trends that affect our lives, Sweet provides refreshingly unconventional glimpses into the future that must be grasped by church leaders. We learn: how to pursue a more effective, “go and tell” evangelism that reaches the “cocooning” culture; how to rekindle Christian imagination through sensuality, virtual reality, and energized prayer, music, or spiritual experience; how the church can open house for all of God’s people, and more!
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Conflict Mediation Across Cultures
$32.00Add to cartAugsburger boldly suggests that we can even reach the point of enjoying differences once we learn how to understand the cultural, psychological and social background from which these emerge. Oh yes, the spiritual and religious issues are also a vital part of the total scenario which produces conflict.
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Hum : Call And Response In African America Preaching
$20.99Add to cartIn The Hum: Call and Response in African Preaching, Evans E. Crawford, with Thomas H. Troeger, relates his analysis of African American folk preaching by relying upon an indigenous scheme for evaluation. The call/response tension in black preaching (derived from a West African tradition) is what drives the musicality of speech in black churches. Crawford refers to this musicality as “hum thoughts” and one can imagine the choir responding with a low rumbling hum to the musical intonations of a motivated preacher.
Key features: a new volume in the Abingdon Preacher’s Library, edited by Thomas H. Troeger; a different approach to preaching, firmly rooted in the black experience; leads the reader to understand preaching as an oral event; uses the term “homiletical musicality” to describe the musical understanding of the way sermons are heard and the oral response they awaken in the listener; and, coins new phrases for describing the preaching event.
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Turnaround Strategies For The Small Church
$22.99Add to cartIn Turnaround Strategies for the Small Church, the author shows what kind of leadership, evangelism, and outreach will bring about a desirable turnaround. He provides specific actions that will develop the skills of those who minister in the life of a small church, and helps pastors and other church leaders evaluate their ministry objectively, thereby enhancing their daily practice of ministry.
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Godly Play : An Imaginative Approach To Religious Education
$19.00Add to cart1. Playing And Reality
2. An Adult At Play
3. Children At Play
4. The Spoken Lesson
5. The Unspoken Lesson
6. The Imagination And Godly Play
7. The Theology Of ChildhoodAdditional Info
Meaningful, lasting learning comes from childlike curiosity and play. The approach of this book is to make relgious instruction fun, spontaneous and deeply spiritual. Godly Play is a practical yet innovative approach to religious education–becoming childlike in order to teach children. -
Hiroshima And Nagasaki Memories And Questions
$12.95Add to cartOf all the anniversaries associated with the end of World War II-the liberation of the death camps, Hitler’s suicide, the forming of the United Nations organization, etc. — the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the only event that engenders controversy among Americans.
This book of resources for the local church commemorated the tragic destruction of those two cities. Included is a chancel drama (dramatic dialogue) in which the pacifist Albert Einstein and the builder of the bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, debate its use. There is also an order of service which remembers the sufferings of those killed and injured without placing collective guilt and national recrimination. And there are several chapters of topics for discussion which canvass all viewpoints. All generations will find this material enlightening and fascinating.
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Diaconate
$54.95Add to cartHere is a highly readable, comprehensive, and definitive work on the diaconate. Drawing upon original sources., the book provides valuable insights into the development of the office of the deacon in the early church and situates it within the context of the church’s total ministry. The book ultimately proposes a restoration of the office to its original place as a full and equal order.
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Lift Up Your Heads
$12.95Add to cartAs the year 2000 draws closer the second coming of Christ will get more and more attention by Christians and non-Christians alike. If the past is any indication, speculative notions will be widespread, many of which will contribute to feelings of fear and anxiety at the prospect of an end to our world.
This book aims to help Christians evaluate the many conflicting ideas about the second coming by examining what the Bible actually says about it.
Important reading any time of year, these four chapters especially lend themselves to an Advent bible study for adult classes. Study questions for each chapter are provided at the back of the book.
Pastors will also find it a helpful sermon resource for Advent preaching.
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Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit Cycle A
$15.95Add to cartStorytelling is the way much of the Gospel is presented to us. Many or most of today’s dynamic preachers make wide use of narratives in their preaching. This book provides 56 stories that enhance the preacher’s ability to drive home the message of the scripture texts. It is a valuable addition to every lectionary preacher’s resource library.
*Two boys decide to paint their old car. They think it will be an easy task until their father teaches them that “preparation is the most important part of the job.”
*A tenant farmer collects scrap farm machinery to be sold for the production of war weapons …
*A grandfather teaches his grandson about the virtue of patience in waiting for a garden to grow.These themes and many others become skillfully woven word pictures. They keep listeners in rapt attention and enable the preacher to impress the meaning of the scripture texts on their minds.
Chapter titles include:
*Invitation From A Jogger
*The Credit Line
*The Bible Class
*Better Than The Lottery
*Even Junkyard Dogs Need Forgiveness
*New Life On A Dead Mountain -
Whispering The Lyrics Cycle A
$14.95Add to cartBased on texts from the Revised Common and Catholic lectionaries, Thomas Long provides inspirational messages to motivate and help preachers through their most difficult preaching time of the year, the seasons of Lent and Easter.
The road to Easter takes us through the most sacred stretch of the Gospel story, and the narratives simply overwhelm us … Congregations who blithely assume that their pastor eagerly relishes the chance to preach the passion and resurrection of Jesus are, for the most part, mistaken. To be sure the pews are more crowded as Easter approaches, the choirs are well-rehearsed and in full voice, and an electric charge courses through the sanctuary, but the preacher stands there with the obligation to proclaim the truths of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and it seems, at one and the same time, to be a set of claims too little to go on in a secular and cynical age and a range of mysteries too profound to speak. (from author’s foreword)
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God In Flesh Made Manifest Cycle A
$12.95Add to cartThe old saw, that the preacher’s task is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, proclaims a profound theological truth. For when we are afflicted, that is when God comforts us. If we are comfortable, God must first penetrate our false security. Only then can the news of the Messiah’s coming strike our ears as a word of comfort. From sermon for the second Sunday in Advent.
Mark Radecke has the ability to do both — comfort and afflict — through his provocative treatment of the lectionary texts for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and the Transfiguration. His illustrations are often electrifying in their capturing of the Gospel kerygma.
Sermon titles include:
Come, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come!
Would We Rather Be Comfortable Or Comforted
Holy Love And Herod’s Love
Light In Darkness, Speech From Silence
Jesus’ Counter-cultural Sermon
Don’t Sweat The Numbers
Main Features And Coming Attractions -
Empowered By The Light
$13.95Add to cartEach of the 17 sermon topics in this book consists of a charge or a command. We might even call them messianic imperatives. Since Christ has come, will come and is coming, how shall we live? The messages are eminently practical, but they do not constitute a self-help book. On the contrary, the call to be alert, to enlarge our horizons, to live together in harmony, to judge others charitably simply cannot be done in our human strength. The focus centers always on the Son. In a word, we are Empowered By The Light. (from the author’s introduction)
Sermon titles include:
Learn To Wait Creatively — James 5:7-10
Follow The Man With The Plan — Ephesians 1:3-14
Be Charitable In Your Judgment — 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
