Church Ministry

Spiritual writer, theologian, and philosopher Jesuit Fr. Robert Spitzer tackles the topic of recognizing and overcoming spiritual evil. His focus is the human heart. His goal: our moral and spiritual transformation, which leads to true peace and genuine happiness. The book is divided into two main parts: the realities of God's goodness and of spiritual evil, and recognizing and overcoming diabolical tactics, which range from temptation and deception to the Deadly Sins.

Churchless reveals the results of a five-year study based on interviews with thousands of churchless men and women. Looking past the surface of church attendance to deeper spiritual realities, Churchless will help us understand those who choose not to be part of a church, build trust-based relationships with them, and be empowered to successfully invite them to engage.

Evangelism and missions are parts of the Christian life often accompanied by fears, insecurities, and cultural pressures. In this addition to the Union series, Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves argue that an individual's relationship with God influences their evangelism and missions more than anything else. Scripture clearly shows that a believer's responsibility is to make God known in the world, but this cannot be done without first knowing and enjoying God.

Sloppy talk about Christianity has become an acceptable prejudice. Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To provides humorous yet knowledgeable commentary on the way religion is talked about today. Daniel explains Christian ideas and practices in non-academic, yet non-facile terms. In her signature style, she outlines four types of non-church-goers: no-longer, no-way, never-have, not-yet.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, even those who have never struggled with mental health have found themselves reeling, looking for answers they don't know how to find. For Christians, especially those who've despaired of help from a church that has too often stigmatized poor mental health as a lack of faith, the way forward can be particularly difficult to see. Jonathon Seidl aims to fix that. Having fought his own way through crippling anxiety, life-altering OCD, and suicidal thoughts, he knows the value of concrete advice grounded in strong biblical truth.

In the most basic sense, worship is the act of offering praise to God. But worship is a much more powerful act than we are often aware. It is nothing less than an opened floodgate, unleashing a supernatural flow between heaven and earth. For the first time, multiple generations of apostolic, prophetic, and warfare worship leaders join together to reveal the ways in which God is working through praise and worship today! Discover how you can participate in it, and what you can expect from this fresh move of God!

Arguing from Scripture and history, Dr. Boyd makes a compelling case that whenever the church gets too close to any political or national ideology, it is disastrous for the church and harmful to society. Dr. Boyd contends that the American Evangelical Church has allowed itself to be co-opted by the political right (and some by the political left), and exposes how this is harming the church's unique calling to build the kingdom of God.

In A Change of Allegiance, Taylor takes the listener on a moving journey through the Scriptures, Christian history, and his own life's story demonstrating the incompatibility of Christianity and war. Ultimately, Taylor challenges his listener to consider where their allegiance really lies.

"What do you wish your pastor knew about women in the church?” The question went out to hundreds of Christian women. This book is the result of that survey: powerful new insights and guidance that can help pastors build up women, heal them, empower them, and help them contribute fully and gladly to the church.

The Art of Overcoming explores how we deal with loss, grief, and hurt, and challenges listeners to keep what looks like endings from discouraging or derailing us. The pain we experience is real—but there’s a difference between acknowledging it and giving into it. Rather than seeking a fake hope that pretends loss doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter, author and pastor Tim Timberlake encourages us to pursue hope rooted in God and gives this reminder: don’t quit!

In recent decades, Americans in Rome have revived an ancient Christian custom: the daily pilgrimage to dozens of Rome's most striking churches during Lent and Easter Week. Along this historical and spiritual pathway, pilgrims encounter hidden artistic wonders and treasured Christian commentaries while also confronting the great mysteries of the Christian faith through a program of biblical and early Christian readings. The itinerary of the Roman station church pilgrimage offers Christians an opportunity to reflect on their religion and ponder the quality of their discipleship.

The book of Revelation is filled with angels and dragons, fantastic beasts and golden cities, bottomless pits and mysterious numbers. It’s dramatic, sure - but what exactly does that have to do with the tests we face today? Actually, a lot. When the apostle John penned the book of Revelation, believers lived in a time of deception and injustice. But his message doesn’t just reflect their cries for things to be made right; it reveals heaven’s perspective of the bigger picture.

To many in the West, Orthodoxy remains shrouded in mystery, an exotic and foreign religion that survived in the East following the Great Schism of 1054 that split the Christian world into two camps - Catholic and Orthodox. However, as the second largest Christian denomination, Orthodox Christianity is anything but foreign to the nearly 300 million worshipers who practice it. For them, Orthodoxy is a living, breathing reality; a way of being Christian ultimately rooted in the person of Jesus and the experience of the early church.

People are leaving the church J. D. Greear pastors. Big givers. Key volunteers. Some of his best leaders and friends. And that's exactly how he wants it to be. When Jesus gave his disciples the Great Commission, he revealed that the key for reaching the world with the Gospel is found in sending, not gathering. Though many churches focus time and energy on attracting people and counting numbers, the real mission of the church isn't how many people you can gather.

Spirit and Sacrament by pastor and author Andrew Wilson is an impassioned call to join together two traditions that are frequently and unnecessarily kept separate. It is an invitation to pursue the best of both worlds in worship, the Eucharistic and the charismatic, with the grace of God at the center. Wilson envisions church services in which healing testimonies, creeds, exuberant praise, and ancient liturgy coexist, and in doing so, deepen our worship and increase our joy.

In the years following the senseless and tragic shooting on the campus of New Life Church in Northern Colorado Springs, Colorado, senior pastor Brady Boyd has received countless questions from the faith-filled and faithless alike. As the nation watched the suffering congregation reel from the gunman's rampage and, later, steady their stance once more, the one question on everyone's mind was, "How has new life weathered such a horrible storm so well"?

What are Christians called to do during these turbulent times? How can you make a difference in your family, among your friends, and within your community? Church in the End Times serves as the next step in equipping ourselves with the tools and insights we need to be a guiding light to a world coping in the last days' darkness of chaos and deceit.

How can pastors become resilient in a rapidly changing world? Is it possible to love well and lead faithfully? In the wake of crises that have exposed and accelerated massive cultural shifts, we see more clearly the seismic shifts of post-Christendom, the surging storms of a new paganism and pluralism, and the scattered debris of the cultural aftermath. Drawing on new research from the Barna Group, scripture, and church history, Glenn Packiam addresses some of the most pressing questions for today's leaders.

"In my first seminary class, we were asked to introduce ourselves and say why we enrolled. I'll never forget what one student said: 'My denomination wants me to have an M.Div., but once they see I can grow a big church, I don't think they'll make me finish the program.'" The priorities of this future pastor were startling, but he's not alone in them. In the years since that class, author and minister Skye Jethani has seen more and more pastors swallowed by the celebrity syndrome. Immeasurable will help ministers recognize the forces shaping their view of the calling.

“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for White Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.