A Spiritual Companion to How to Get Along with Your Church PDF Download

Author: Beverly A. Thompson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1608991865
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
If you are like most pastors, you earnestly thought you knew what the congregation you are serving was like when you answered God's call to serve them. Something has opened your eyes and now you know that you really don't know. The good news is, you are ready to find out!--from Day One: "I thought I knew . . ."When churches are in crisis, pastoral leadership is under attack, and pastors and church officials struggle to find a way to better understand why things happen or don't happen. Thompson's own pastoral experience led her to look beyond the popular "family systems" model to seek something that helps churches grow strong and pastors to become leaders. She found solutions in George B. Thompson, Jr.'s book, How to Get Along with Your Church: Creating Cultural Capital for Doing Ministry, and was inspired to develop a spiritual guide that strengthens the usefulness and effectiveness of his book.Specifically keyed to How to Get Along with Your Church, this spiritual companion provides 100 days of daily meditation and journaling for pastors who are learning--with a culture model--to lead their churches into a new understanding and rediscovery of their corporate calling.

Author: Stephen W. Smith
Publisher: David C Cook
ISBN: 9781434700643
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"... defines the true 'abundant life' for everyday people and shows us through eight practical ways how we can experience the life Jesus lived."--back cover.

Author: Alan Jacobs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191786
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"While many of us are familiar with such famous words as, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here." or "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," we may not know that they originated with The Book of Common Prayer, which first appeared in 1549. Like the words of the King James Bible and Shakespeare, the language of this prayer book has saturated English culture and letters. Here Alan Jacobs tells its story. Jacobs shows how The Book of Common Prayer--from its beginnings as a means of social and political control in the England of Henry VIII to its worldwide presence today--became a venerable work whose cadences express the heart of religious life for many.The book's chief maker, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, created it as the authoritative manual of Christian worship throughout England. But as Jacobs recounts, the book has had a variable and dramatic career in the complicated history of English church politics, and has been the focus of celebrations, protests, and even jail terms. As time passed, new forms of the book were made to suit the many English-speaking nations: first in Scotland, then in the new United States, and eventually wherever the British Empire extended its arm. Over time, Cranmer's book was adapted for different preferences and purposes. Jacobs vividly demonstrates how one book became many--and how it has shaped the devotional lives of men and women across the globe"--.

Author: Gordon MacDonald
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
ISBN: 161970059X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
MacDonald uses the massive foundations of bridges not visible to the eye but essential to long term viability as a metaphor for the spiritual life of Christian leaders.

Author: David G. Benner
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830876804
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
We need companions on our spiritual journey. In this inviting guide, David G. Benner introduces readers to the riches of spiritual friendship and direction, explaining what they are and how they are practiced. Through prayerful, guided attunement to God's activity, sacred companions provide care for the soul, and Benner models the kind of traveling companion who can move us toward deeper intimacy with God.

Author: Stephen D. Bryant
Publisher: Companions in Christ
ISBN: 9780835898409
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Companions in Christ is designed to develop you as a leader in guiding the spiritual life of your congregation. This resource gives you an overview of the Christian spiritual life and the practices that help people enter into the formative pattern of Christ's life: a life of prayer, study and service. Help your small-group members move from information (knowledge about) to experience (knowledge of) in the means of grace--ways in which Christ meets people, renews their faith, and deepens their life together in love. This revised Leader's Guide provides detailed guidance for leading a small group through the 28 weekly sessions. The plans have been tested and refined by groups in churches across the country. This books contains all you need, including --the Getting Started Guide, which was formerly a separate piece --a revised plan for a Closing Retreat --Weekly Needs at a Glance --page references for both the comprehensive 1-volume Participant's Book and the new 5-volume series

Author: Duane R. Bidwell
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807091243
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
An exploration into the lives of people who embrace two or more religious traditions, and what this growing community tells us about change in our society Named a best book of 2018 by Library Journal In the United States, we often assume religious and spiritual identity are pure, static, and singular. But some people regularly cross religious boundaries. These “spiritually fluid” people celebrate complex religious bonds, and in the process they blur social categories, evoke prejudice, and complicate religious communities. Their presence sparks questions: How and why do people become spiritually fluid? Are they just confused or unable to commit? How do we make sense of them? When One Religion Isn’t Enough explores the lives of spiritually fluid people, revealing that while some chose multiple religious belonging, many more inherit it. For many North Americans, the complicated legacies of colonialism are part of their family story, and they may consider themselves both Christian and Hindu, or Buddhist, or Yoruban, or one of the many other religions native to colonized lands. For some Asian Americans, singular religious identity may seem an alien concept, as many East Asian nations freely mix Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, and other traditions. Some African American Christians are consciously seeking to reconnect with ancestral spiritualities. And still other people are born into religiously mixed families. Jewish-Christian intermarriage led the way in the US, but religious diversity here is only increasing: almost four in ten Americans (39 percent) who have married since 2010 have a spouse who is in a different religious group. Through in-depth conversations with spiritually fluid people, renowned scholar Duane Bidwell explores how people come to claim and be claimed by multiple religious traditions, how spiritually fluid people engage radically opposed truth claims, and what this growing population tells us about change within our communities.

Author:
Publisher: SkyLight Paths Publishing
ISBN: 1594733023
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
The Celtic Christians beheld the world around them and perceived the divine life of God as upholding every aspect of the material universe. Their prayers and poems, their liturgies and theological interpretations give Christians a sense of faith that is confident in a merciful and infinitely creative, healing God.

Author: Paul Nixon
Publisher: The Pilgrim Press
ISBN: 0829818995
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
God has called all of us to lead healthy, growing, spiritual churches. For this very reason, Paul Nixon refused to lead a dying church. Paul invites you to join his commitment in refusing, ever again, to lead a dying church. This commitment entails six choices: choosing life over death; choosing community over isolation; choosing fun over drudgery; choosing bold over mild; choosing frontier over fortress; and choosing now rather than later.

Author: Celia Allison Hahn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1566996864
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Parishioners today look to their congregations to feed their spiritual hunger. But many members and clergy are not sure how the words "congregation" and "spirituality" fit together. Author Celia Hahn interviewed 30 lay people and clergy from five Episcopal congregations to discover their stories of congregational spirituality and to help them identify the congregation's gifts for spiritual development. Hahn becomes a spiritual companion and resource for the searching congregation, guiding the church as it begins to discover its gifts. How is God at work in our congregation? How do members empowered by the transforming Spirit minister in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and families? How do members move into a deeper relationship with one another and with God?