Family Ministry

You love God. You love your kids. So why don’t they love Him? God promises lovingkindness to a thousand generations for families who love and obey Him (Deut. 7:9). Why are children who grew up in Christian homes leaving the faith, and how do we get them to come back? No matter how old your children are, there is a solution.

On the lovely spring afternoon of April 20, 2018, a backyard tree cracked, and a heavy limb fell. Twelve-year-old Evelyn suffered a devastating blow to her head as she shielded her puppy. A significant, compressed skull fracture required emergency neurosurgery. This freak, life-threatening event shook the Overlease family to the core, and an unbelievable experience was instantly set in motion that may take a lifetime to fully understand.

Traditional psychiatry, psychotherapy, and pastoral counseling - many Christian parents have tried these methods to help their troubled tweens, teens, and young adults, but have found that nothing works. These parents are frustrated, feel criticized by their church community, and no one seems to understand their teen, with caregivers providing outdated advice. In Your Teen’s Miraculous Brain, Dr. Nina Farley-Bates combines Christian principles and scientific methodology to bring relief to struggling families, gleaning from her 20 years of experience to help teens thrive.

Loving a prodigal is a long and desperate journey, filled with fear, worry, anger, self-recrimination. You wait for the phone call - will it be from jail or the hospital? You plead with your loved one. You search for help. You feel the shame. You cry out to God, "How long, Lord?" Author Judy Douglass knows these lovers of prodigals well. She is one herself and has created a large and growing community with others. When You Love a Prodigal is a collection of 90 essays - 90 days of perspective on what God offers to you as you love your prodigal.

Understanding Manna is written to explain God's plan including life's biggest questions, such as the meaning of life and the purpose of creation. In Understanding Manna, Dr. Daniel James Branagan systematically and clearly examines and explains Christian doctrine, including who is Jesus. Furthermore, the book focuses on explaining Jesus's love for all mankind and how his sacrifice on the cross established a clear path to salvation, for those who choose to take this path.

Almost overnight, America's public schools have become morally toxic. They are especially poisonous for the hearts and minds of children from religious families of every faith - ordinary families who value traditional morality and plain old common sense. Parents' first duty is to their children - to their intellect, their character, their souls. The facts on the ground point to one conclusion: Get out now.

Mama Made the Difference comes straight from the heart of the Jakes family to yours. In his uplifting and powerful voice, Bishop Jakes shares personal stories about growing up in his mother's home, revealing the time-honored lessons and values she taught him. Woven into his personal vignettes are inspirational biblical stories about mothers, heartfelt advice for modern-day moms, and testimonials from other prominent African-American figures about the importance of motherhood.

> Ownership Road calls Christian parents to the ole of the chief discipliners and gives them a vision for how to raise their children with the post-high school transition challenges in mind. This journey of discipleship involves leading kids down the road from followship to ownership: the path that all believers must tread to develop a real, authentic walk with Christ. This is your deepest desire for your children and what you will find along Ownership Road.

One family makes a daring decision, discovers the power of purpose, and encounters a God-sized passion for living. Something kept pulling at Jay and Beth Loecken, telling them there’s more to life than the pursuit of a large home, nice cars, and all the trinkets and trappings for a suburban family of six. They felt something stirring, a feeling that God had a different purpose for them, and they knew they had to do something—something big—to get started.

When Kim de Blecourt and her husband decided to adopt a child from Ukraine, they knew that the process might be challenging. Nothing, however, could have prepared de Blecourt for the twisted nightmare she would endure. During her year-long struggle to extricate her newly adopted little boy from that post-Soviet country's corrupt social service and judicial systems, de Blecourt was insulted, physically assaulted, and arrested. Worse, her months of loneliness, worry, and fear drove her to the brink of spiritual despair. But God had no intention of abandoning de Blecourt or her family.

Growing with Purpose elevates God’s grace to its proper place, above sin, where love always triumphs over lists of rules, where no one is forgotten, and where everyone gets more than a second chance. This one-year devotional is an unusual and compelling combination of conversational pictures, humorous prose, and practical suggestions firmly planted in biblical theology.

This audiobook, inspired by God, has two parts. Part One: The author was to tell how God chooses certain people to follow a plan or a set of paths laid out for him/her. Part one tells how God trains them, guides them, and even protects them from harm. Part Two: God wants all people to know how our culture is going down the wrong paths. The paths we are taking are diametrically opposed to what God has instructed us to do in the Holy Bible.

Brian R. Webster is a physician assistant, who has pursued God most of his adult life. He lost his two best friends in high school, due to an amusement park ride accident. He came close to dying, as well. He’s practiced medicine in various specialties, Substance Abuse, and in maximum security prisons.

When we talk about pregnancy, we too often end up talking clinically and sentimentally. Pregnancy is medical details and a whirl of emotions. It is vitamins and baby showers and feelings. But it is so much more. In Showing, Agnes Howard takes us beyond clinical reductionism and fluffy sentimentality to show us how to take pregnancy seriously as hard but important work. It is not just a bodily process, she argues, but an active work of care - one that underscores the generosity and mutual dependence we all require in order to live.

En este revolucionario libro devocional, Peter Scazzero reintroduce y desarrolla la antigua disciplina espiritual del Oficio Diario. La premisa básica es simple: los cristianos deben pausar intencionalmente dos veces al día para estar con Dios, de modo que la práctica de la presencia de Dios sea una realidad en sus vidas. Con el mismo ritmo poderoso que el devocional Espiritualidad emocionalmente sana, cada día presenta dos oficios.

With real-life talk, humor, and convicting biblical truths, Kristin Funston helps hardworking mamas to look at each day and each facet of their life to discover what happens when they believe God has more for them than what they think the world needs from them. And what He has available is a whole and holy life, just waiting to be claimed - a salvation and day-to-day reality complete just as it is. The pieces of each mom’s life - the work life, mom life, social life, etc. - are mended together through Christ to complete her one whole life, set apart because of Him.

Normal for Me tells the story about the author hitting rock bottom when she received the diagnosis that her second oldest son was on the autism spectrum. One evening she fell to her knees asking God, “Why can’t we be a ‘normal’ family?” God whispered, “This IS normal for you.” This epiphany began her journey from anguish and grief to acceptance, peace, hope, and joy. This audiobook is ideal for not only families struggling with autism but anyone who has had to face a life detour or help someone along the way.

The stakes have never been higher as daughters of every age are navigating a world of hyper-sexualization, social media hangover, extreme loneliness, and a flood of confusing messages. Whether listeners desire to know more of who they are created to be or are raising daughters who are just beginning their own journeys, Courageous leads women and those they love through transformation as they experience confidence in who God made them to be.

Loving your neighbor as yourself would be easy if your neighbors were all people you understood, people you agreed with, people like you. But what about playground bullies, colleagues, refugees, online adversaries? They're all our neighbors, and Jesus said to love them. Every one. But how? Lauren Casper believes the key is the lost art of empathy, stepping into other people’s shoes and asking what if? - what if it were my child? What if it were me? Learn to connect in simple but life-altering ways and shine God’s unconditional love into a dark world.

What and who should get the best of us? And why is it so enticing to choose lesser things instead of lasting things? As moms, we know the magnetic pull to steer away from what's important and choose what feels irresistible in the moment. In Shiny Things, Amanda Bacon and Anne-Renee Gumley bring to light the distractions moms face every day.