House Church

The reputation of the people of God isn’t healthy. You can’t scroll down a newsfeed without seeing someone post something negative about the church—a scandal, church hurt, foolish words from the pulpit, and more. People don’t respect Christians anymore. If God’s glory is supposed to be shown through his people, something is very wrong. We need major rebranding. Rather than claiming that this low reputation is spiritual warfare, we need to own our role. In Rebranding the Church, Dr. Mason invites followers of Jesus to join God in the work of restoring dignity in the church.

David was not allowed to build the temple, but Yahweh told him that he would build a house for him. David was a man of war and had blood on his hands, so he was not qualified to build the temple. Solomon was allowed to build the temple and the house of David, but he was warned about keeping his heart right and being a man of integrity like his father before him. Neither of them was qualified to build the Father's house because that responsibility was reserved for Yahshua the Messiah.

In most cases, when a church needs a lawyer, it hires a lawyer. When it needs a plumber, it hires a plumber. But when it comes to making business decisions, most churches convene well-meaning but often inexperienced volunteers to form a committee, then they take a month and vote on the color to paint a door in the nursery. Conducting business this way kills the vision and drains the passion out of right-brained, creative, relational pastors and ministry leaders.

People in Glass Houses tells how a small church in a suburban Australian school hall became a multimillion-dollar tax-free enterprise and a powerful international force. Providing memorable portraits of charismatic leaders Brian and Bobbie Houston, this is a powerful, personal, and at times very funny exploration of an all-singing, all-swaying mega church. The church is more than a faith—it’s a brand. And one fraught with scandal.

Matt Woodcock returns with this sequel to the best-selling Becoming Reverend. Follow Matt’s journey as he starts work at one of Hull’s oldest, biggest, and emptiest churches. It’s a shadow of its former self, with a small congregation and huge bills to pay. Adding the entrepreneurial (and somewhat excitable) Matt to their clergy line-up is the last throw of the dice for this 700-year-old institution.

In Be Light, Samuel Rodriguez - described by Fox News and CNN as "America's most influential Latino Evangelical leader" - provides a blueprint for confronting darkness in every realm of our lives. He issues a clarion call for individual believers and the church to rise up and once again be that bright city on a hill that doesn't simply expose the invading darkness but overcomes it with God's blazing light.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied started out a dynamic, optimistic, naïve, youthful grass-roots organiser and oil rig worker before she found herself taking on the heft of the Australian political and media establishment, unintentionally. From her new home in Europe she brings her characteristic warmth, clarity and inquisitive nature to the concepts of 'the private and public self' and 'systems and society' that structure this collection. In 'The Private and Public Self', Yassmin shares her passions for cars and cryptocurrency as well as the personal challenges around her activism and leaving Australia.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is an idea that was seeded into the minds of nationalist Jana Sangh leaders when they began to envision India after Independence. Much like the very core the freedom struggle was built on, they saw India as a demographically, culturally and historically cohesive and unified nation—as Bharat.

Sometimes we get stuck in life, doing the same thing day in and day out. We can become unmotivated and unfulfilled, longing for a change. But every day presents the chance to begin anew, to see circumstances and situations differently, and to choose the path that leads to a life that's better than ever. With personal stories and her signature humor, April Osteen Simons reminds us that we have a choice every day to embrace the positive and turn away from the negative.

Church congregations all across the United States are searching for the magic bullet, the secret to attracting people, growing their membership and their cultural relevance. They are looking for the right program, or the right environment, or the right features to help bring people back into the pews. With all of this searching for the right answer, they're missing what's right in front of them: Word and Sacrament.

A perfect Christmas for Lela Edwards this year would include the presence of her husband, her three daughters, and her favorite granddaughter, Darcie. They would each be happy, healthy, and properly married. But life doesn't always unfold in a perfect way, even for God-loving, churchgoing people like these. Lela's husband of fifty years, Walter, has recently passed, and the daughters now live in towns and states far from the Chicago neighborhood where they were raised.

Serial killer Neva has been conditioned not to ask questions of the mysterious Network, to remain perfectly incurious and perennially cold-blooded. She must simply execute the targets they text her and live to bury the tale. But then she’s tasked with terminating a fellow assassin and glimpses her own future in her colleague’s fate. When she leaves flowers on the gravesite, someone notices.

Filled with real-life stories from the authors’ own experiences, Teach a Man to Fish provides churches and missions organizations with a blueprint for helping people help themselves in order to create lasting change and long-term sustainability and independence.

In Radical, David Platt's plea for Christians to take back their faith from the American Dream resonated with readers everywhere and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Now in Radical Together, the author broadens his call, challenging us to unite around a gospel-centered vision. How, he asks, might such a vision reshape our priorities as the body of Christ?

A sweeping history of one of the nation’s most important African American churches and a profound story of grace and perseverance amidst the fight for racial justice—from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Kevin Sack.

When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote English countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start, away from the bustle of London and the scene of a violent assault she is desperate to forget. But a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative-writing class. When a troubled student starts turning in chapters that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognizes herself as the main character in his book - and he has written her a horrific fate.

Jesus came to earth with a mission to seek and save the lost. He established the church to carry out this mission he started. This inspiring and practical manual is based on the premise that planting churches is the single most effective way of fulfilling the Great Commission.

Before September 11, 2001, one terrorist group had killed more Americans than any other: Hezbollah, the “Party of God.” Today it remains potentially more dangerous than even al Qaeda. Yet little has been known about its inner workings, past successes, and future plans–until now.

Discover how every member of the body of Christ is affected and empowered for ministry when elders give healthy oversight to the church. This biblical model communicates the family character of the church as teams of servant-leaders equip, protect, and love the local church. Complete with evaluation questionnaires, sabbatical guidelines, sample church by-laws, keys to developing a vision statement, biblical steps to make godly decisions, maintaining a leader’s health, and much more.

When the jolly Italian peasant-turned-cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli of Venice was elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, change was in the air. The Church, many said, had refused to enter the twentieth century. In response, Pope John launched Vatican II, an “ecumenical council” that summoned hundreds of church leaders to Rome. It marked one of the most progressive turns the Church had taken in centuries: “medicine of mercy,” as Pope John called it. Yet not everyone in the Church was prepared to accept this modernization.