Fresh Expressions: A New Kind of Methodist Church For People Not In Church

The new faith communities listen to people and go where they are on the journey toward Jesus. They are deeply ecumenical but do not lose their distinctiveness because they learn fresh ways to communicate their identity through discipleship. Fresh expressions began in the United Kingdom where it ignited over 3000 new faith communities.

A wave of new christian churches are emerging to reach unchurched and dechurched people who live in a culture that is increasingly non-religious and multi-religious. These new forms of church gather and network with people who typically have never been to church. In the united states the movement is putting down roots in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Ken carter and audrey warren offer this book as a group study for church leaders and congregations who are in the grip of Holy Spirit motivation to renew their tradition by reaching people who are dechurched or not yet in a discipleship relationship with Jesus. Each chapter includes two Bible study experiences for group conversation.

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When Did Everybody Else Get So Old?: Indignities, Compromises, and the Unexpected Grace of Midlife

When did everybody else get so old? plumbs the physical, spiritual, and emotional changes unique to the middle years: from the emptying nest to the sagging effects of aging. Magnetic, and full of hope in the sustaining power of the Spirit, good-humored, this is a must-read for anyone facing the flux and flow of middle age.

Free downloadable study guide available here. Yet she illuminates the confidence and grace that this season of life can also bring. Grant acknowledges the complexities and loss inherent in midlife and tells stories of sustaining disappointment, taking hard blows to the ego, undergoing a crisis of faith, and grieving the deaths not only of illusions but of loved ones.

From writer and veteran columnist Jennifer Grant comes an unflinching and spirited look at the transitions of midlife.

The Soulmaking Room

We each need a space for this work—a soulmaking room. The woman from Shunem extends radical hospitality to the prophet, expecting no reward. Risher is captivated by this spiritually attuned, generous, honest, hospitable, and bold woman. Hidden in the story, how do we grapple with failure?• do we have the kind of faith that can ask bold questions in the face of death?• what openings does radical hospitality create in our lives?“Every human being goes through so much, are the questions that lead to a more authentic life:• What does it mean to build a holy room in our lives?• How honestly do we confront our inevitable losses and griefs? As we work to transform our world, ” Risher reflects, Risher believes, “and there is some heartbreakingly beautiful fruit we are to shape from that.

Embark with her on the adventure of creating and discovering the joys of The Soulmaking Room. If we cannot deal with failure, we can never fully join the joy and power of God’s story, and if we do not know who our people are, if we do not know how to put our deepest losses in our holy room, ” Dee Dee Risher asserts.

But when disaster strikes, she does not hesitate to hold Elisha accountable or talk back. In this personal story, dee dee Risher weaves experiences from her life with the biblical story of the prophet Elisha and the Shunammite woman. That is our own unique, authentic gift to the world. Her book encourages each of us to find a holy room in which we are in community with others and where we can shape our souls into their unique dimensions.

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Spoken into Being: Divine Encounters through Story

People of all ages are captivated by a good story. Storytelling helps us makes sense of the events of our lives, the world around us, and God. Not all stories serve us well, however. Using poetry, and retellings of biblical stories, personal narrative, Williams leads us to a deeper knowledge of the power of narrative.

The stories that capture our attention shape us into who we are now and the persons we will become. Stories of fear stop us in our tracks and become roadblocks on the journey, while stories of fantasy, no matter how alluring, are dead-end streets. Spoken into being** points to a path beyond fear and fantasy, a way toward encounters with the Holy where all things are being made new.

He reminds us that we have been spoken into being as part of a much larger story. Tell me a story. Countless parents and grandparents have heard that request from children. When we tell stories, we speak a world into being—just as God did in the creation accounts in the book of Genesis. In this book on storytelling as spiritual exploration, master storyteller Michael Williams shares stories from his life, guides us to reflect on our lives, and helps us tell our stories.

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"We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now": The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages

The story of low-wage workers rising up around the world to demand respect and a living wage. Tracing a new labor movement sparked and sustained by low-wage workers from across the globe, fast-food servers, home-healthcare aides, and adjunct professors who are fighting for respect, retail workers, safety, illuminating look at globalization as seen through the eyes of workers-activists: small farmers, hotel housekeepers, airport workers, “We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now” is an urgent, and a living wage.

. With original photographs by liz cooke and drawing on interviews with activists in many US cities and countries around the world, Mexico, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, South Africa, it features stories of resistance and rebellion, and the Philippines, as well as reflections on hope and change as it rises from the bottom up.

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Eleanor: A Spiritual Biography: The Faith of the 20th Century's Most Influential Woman

More than fifty years after her death, Eleanor Roosevelt is remembered as a formidable first lady and tireless social activist. Often overlooked, however, is her deep and inclusive spirituality. Eleanor: a spiritual biography provides insight into one of America's most famous women, particularly the spiritual influences that made her so active in social justice issues.

. Her personal faith was shaped by reading the new testament in her youth, giving her a jesus-centered spirituality that fueled her commitment to civil rights, women's rights, and the rights of all “little people� marginalized in American society.

She took seriously jesus' words and despite her life of privilege, she made the needs of those on the margins her priority.

One: Unity in a Divided World

Jesus didn't say that the world would know we are his followers by our biting rhetoric, our political leanings, our charity work, or even by our knowledge of Scripture. Deidra riggs wants us to put our focus on self-preservation aside and, like Jesus, make the first move toward reconciliation. In one, riggs shows readers that when Jesus offered himself up in our place, he was not only purchasing our salvation but also setting an example for us to follow.

She helps readers understand that they are secure in God's inexhaustible love, what they will endure, what they don't say, making them free to love others lavishly--not just in what they do but in what they say, and what they will forgive. Anyone who longs for unity in the church, in their family, and in their community will find in this book both inspiring examples of loving done well and encouragement to begin the often unnoticed hard work of building bridges with those around them.

He said the world would know us by our love for one another. Yet it's so easy to put others at arm's length, to lash out, to put up walls.

The Hidden Life: Awakened

When betty skinner was 42, her doctor told her, “You have a hole in your soul. In the 50 years that followed, clinging only to her faith and a glimmer of hope, now in her 90s, Betty, journeyed from desperate clinical depression to wholeness and profound wisdom—well before anti-depressants and mindfulness were mainstream.

Emerging science now affirms that the organic path Betty traveled has the power to heal the broken body, mind, and spirit. By changing her thought patterns, she changed her life. With utter vulnerability and the beautiful view of hindsight, she reaches back with joy to offer her spiritual friendship and powerful encouragement to those of us still struggling on our own journey to the higher places.

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The Same Sky: A Novel

This one’s going to haunt me for a long time—and it’s going to define the brilliant Amanda Eyre Ward as a leading author of socially conscious fiction. Jodi picoult, author of leaving time “riveting, heartrending, and beautifully written, The Same Sky pulled me in on the first page and held my attention all the way to its perfect conclusion.

In this elegant novel, the lives of Alice and Carla will intersect in a profound and surprising way. Carla is a strong-willed young girl who’s had to grow up fast, acting as caretaker to her six-year-old brother Junior. Poignant and arresting, the same sky is about finding courage through struggle, hope amid heartache, and summoning the strength—no matter what dangers await—to find the place where you belong.

Praise for the same sky“the same sky is the timeliest book you will read this year—a wrenching, honest, painstakingly researched novel that puts a human face to the story of undocumented youth desperately seeking their dreams in America. I devoured this book. Christina baker kline, author of orphan Train “Ward is deeply sympathetic to her characters, and this affecting novel is sure to provoke conversations about immigration and adoption.

The new york times book review“A deeply affecting look at the contrast between middle-class U. S. Life and the brutal reality of Central American children so desperate they’ll risk everything. People“amanda eyre ward’s novel of the migrant journey, The Same Sky, is the most important book to come out of Austin this year.



Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood

Patrick reyes shares his story of how the community around him — his grandmother, robed clergy, and neighbors — saved him from gang life, educators, abuse, friends, and the economic and racial oppression that threatened to kill him before he ever reached adulthood. A story balancing the tension between pain and healing, nobody Cries When We Die takes you to the places that make American society flinch, redefines what you are called to do with your life, and gives you strength to save lives and lead in your own community.

Part of the fte forum for Theological Exploration Series. When the screams of innocents dying engulf you, how do you hear god’s voice? will god and god’s people call you to life when your breath is being strangled out of you? For people of color living each day surrounded by violence, for whom survival is not a given, vocational discernment is more than “finding your purpose” — it’s a matter of life and death.

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Threading My Prayer Rug: One Woman's Journey from Pakistani Muslim to American Muslim

She discusses what that experience revealed about American society. It is also the luminous story of many journeys: from pakistan to the united states in an arranged marriage that becomes a love match lasting forty years; from secular Muslim in an Islamic society to devout Muslim in a society ignorant of Islam, grandmother, and from liberal to conservative to American Muslim; from student to bride and mother; and from an immigrant intending to stay two years to an American citizen, business executive, and tireless advocate for interfaith understanding.

Beginning with a sweetly funny, moving account of her arranged marriage, the author undercuts stereotypes and offers the refreshing view of an American life through Muslim eyes. In chapters leavened with humor, the driving force behind the muslim community center at ground zero, she recounts an immigrant’s daily struggles balancing assimilation with preserving heritage, hope, overcoming religious barriers from within and distortions of Islam from without, and insight, and confronting issues of raising her children as Muslims—while they lobby for a Christmas tree! Sabeeha Rehman was doing interfaith work for Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, when the backlash began.

One of booklist's top ten religion and spirituality books of 2016one of booklist's top ten diverse nonfiction books of 2017honorable mention in the 2017 san francisco book Festival Awards, Spiritual CategoryThis enthralling story of the making of an American is also a timely meditation on being Muslim in America today.

Threading my prayer rug is a richly textured reflection on what it is to be a Muslim in America today.