English Church

The Urban Promise Prep School vows to turn boys into men. As students, J.B., Ramón, and Trey are forced to follow the prestigious "program's" strict rules. Extreme discipline, they’ve been told, is what it takes to be college bound, to avoid the fates of many men in their neighborhoods. This, the Principal Moore Method, supposedly saves lives. But when Moore ends up murdered and the cops come sniffing around, the trio emerges as the case's prime suspects.

In 1838, a group of America’s most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion.

Brokenness, communion, servanthood, and obedience. These four characteristics provide the framework for Leadership as an Identity. Examining each trait, Loritts undermines the pervasive and unbiblical assumptions about leadership.

Less and less Christian demographically, America is now home to an ever-larger number of people who say they identify with no religion at all. These non-Christians have increasingly been demanding their full participation in public life, bringing their arguments all the way to the Supreme Court. The law is on their side, but that doesn't mean that their attempts are not met with suspicion or outright hostility.

Reaching out to listeners of all religious backgrounds, Desmond Tutu shows us how to transform suffering into joy both in our lives and in our world. He tells us that God dreams of a world where laughter, love, and peace reign, and where we realize that we are all members of one family, God's family. In this extremely personal and liberating message, Father Tutu helps us "see with the eyes of the heart" and cultivate the qualities of forgiveness, humility, generosity, and courage.

In Jezebel Unhinged Tamura Lomax traces the use of the jezebel trope in the Black church and in Black popular culture, showing how it is pivotal to reinforcing men's cultural and institutional power to discipline and define Black girlhood and womanhood. Drawing on writing by medieval thinkers and travelers, Enlightenment theories of race, the commodification of women's bodies under slavery, and the work of Tyler Perry and Bishop T. D. Jakes, Lomax shows how Black women are written into religious and cultural history as sites of sexual deviation.

I have done my own research, including traveling to and touring the modern locations of each of these seven churches.

In February 2013, the arch-conservative Pope Benedict XVI made a startling announcement: He would resign, making him the first pope to willingly vacate his office in over 700 years. Reeling from the news, the College of Cardinals rushed to Rome to congregate in the Sistine Chapel to pick his successor. Their unlikely choice? Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,200 years, a one-time tango-club bouncer, a passionate soccer fan, a man with the common touch. Why did Benedict walk away at the height of power, knowing his successor might be someone whose views might undo his legacy?

What does it mean to "leave quietly"? It means making the worst mistake of your life. By leaving quietly, you inflict unspeakable harm on your children and grandchildren. The battle is raging. Two realms are seeking to influence the natural world--light and darkness. There is no middle ground. Depending on how you participate in life, either Heaven or Hell will advance its agenda into the Earth. The Holy Spirit is trying to show us what is at stake. He is trying to create something that will stop an evil every bit as hideous as Hitler.

As a child, Elias Chacour lived in a small Palestinian village in Galilee. When tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps in 1948, Elias began a long struggle with how to respond. In Blood Brothers, he blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict, touching on questions such as: What behind-the-scenes politics touched off the turmoil in the Middle East?

When Hannah and Jasper move to Silverbanks, a luxury gated neighbourhood, it’s a dream come true. This house, with its floor-to-ceiling glass doors, direct access to the sandy beach, and close-knit, caring community, will be the perfect place to raise their precious daughter, Pia. And then Hannah meets her next-door neighbour. The flicker of recognition in his eyes only lasts for a second, but it’s enough. Suddenly, her safe haven has become the most dangerous place she could be. Unless she does something about it.

America is unique. No other nation in the world has experienced the widespread levels of stability, individual prosperity, and personal freedoms that have defined this nation. What made us different from other nations? Was it the people, the principles, or the blessing of God? It was all three, and they caused America to become the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.

The Isle of Jersey was once a warm and neighborly community, but in 1943, German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule. Nazis have ordered Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, to destroy books that threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, she wants to fight back. So she forms the Wartime Book Club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course.

This Christian wisdom literature contains more than 400 thoughtful quotes of wisdom across over 30 topics (spanning from education and friendship to humility and happiness) from King Solomon's Old Testament Biblical book of Proverbs that can be great for anyone interested in living wisely.

Parents of any age or at any stage can cultivate the same virtues in prayer that Saint Monica discovered during her long wait for God's answer for her child. This devotion includes eighteen contemporary reflections, meditations taken from the writings of Saint Augustine, and prayers adapted from the liturgy and other ancient sources.

Why do youth ministries crumble? And what is the cost to students, parents, volunteers and church staff? Is a sustainable youth ministry possible, even after a youth pastor leaves? Youth ministry expert Mark DeVries knows the answer is yes, because he helps build sustainable youth ministries through his coaching service called Youth Ministry Architects. So take heart: No matter what state the youth ministry at your church is in—in need of a leader and volunteers, full of battles and stress, large or small in number—it can be built to survive and to last for the long haul.

Throughout history, there have been certain figures who have stood the test of time and had an enduring impact on the church at large. One such person was the famed Welsh preacher Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. In this carefully curated collection of sermons, contemporary listeners are introduced to one of the most influential pastors of the 20th century. Compiled and expertly edited by his daughter and grandson, this powerful anthology will help you learn from “the Doctor’s” prophetic preaching - even today.

If most pastors were pressed to describe an average day of ministry, they'd have trouble doing it. In a single day, a pastor may fill many different roles in quick succession, from counselor to theologian to student to CEO to custodian (well, let's hope there's usually someone else available to perform that last role). Some roles come more naturally than others, but every pastor wants to perform each role to the best of their ability.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life represent the basic conflict between the powers of darkness and the Kingdom of God. There Were Two Trees in the Garden is a study of the fundamental differences between these two trees and how they still affect our lives today.