Personal Ministries

Many feel bombarded by images and experiences of broken families. This is not how God intended families to be! So often we examine the traits of unhealthy families, but Gary Chapman paints a biblical portrait of what a loving, stable family looks like. Chapman details five timeless characteristics that create a healthy family environment.

The Song of Solomon is an important biblical book for understanding God’s intentions for romance and sex. In Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God, pastor C. J. Mahaney leads men through this biblical book, making the case that sex is a good gift God gave his people to be enjoyed within the bounds of marriage between a man and a woman.

This book combines professional insights along with the author's own experience and insights to speculate on how believers can make sense of their Christian faith when confronted with tragedy and suffering.

Tony and Lauren Dungy have together known the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. They fell in love, built a family, and made sports history when Tony became the first African-American head coach to win the Super Bowl. Yet they've also gone through difficult, relationship-testing setbacks, including job loss and devastating personal tragedy. In a culture where it seems harder and harder to make marriage last, what has kept the Dungys strong through it all?

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.

From chronic physical pain to deep emotional hurts, we are all, at some level, in need of healing. And healing, writes author Stephen Arterburn, is a choice, although not our choice, it is God's choice. While that may lead us to understand that healing is out of our hands, there are several things we do or believe that can stand in the way of God's healing in our lives.

Is there really a such thing as a winning attitude? Do you know to know how you can turn a bad attitude around? John C. Maxwell not only discovered the winning attitude, but he has also experienced the incredible difference it makes.

Networked churches are fast becoming the most pervasive force in missions and church planting around the world—especially in North America. And many of these growing network movements have become the leading edge of the Great Commission. Yet this phenomenon is largely under-studied and under-appreciated. In Stronger Together, network leader, veteran church planter, and pastor Dave Harvey explores the development of church networks and provides a network matrix for churches to map their strengths and weaknesses as well as a vice audit to help strategically address problems.

Struggling with an ingrained negative attitude? There's real hope for you! You can change and become a winner. You can develop the attitude of mind which brings peace, courage, and success.

As a man, you may often feel the pressure of fulfilling many roles in life: husband, father, son, businessman, member of the church community. Now, T. D. Jakes comes to your aid with a guidebook to help you understand your own needs for emotional and spiritual support. He offers practical, sound answers to assist you in expressing your needs and having them met in healthy and wholesome ways by those you love. This is a candid, no-holds-barred look at sexuality, spirituality, and the seldom mentioned but extremely important emotions that shape success in every area of a man’s life.

Do you find yourself settling in life? This isn't the right job for you.... This relationship isn't healthy.... These bad habits are holding you back. You want something better, but you don't know how to let go of your current circumstances and past choices. Valorie Burton, best-selling author and life strategist, offers 40 tips to help you turn your life around. Each quick listen includes powerful advice, guiding questions, and a prayer to help you seek the ultimate source of strength.

Become the exceptional person God has called you to be with these seven practices for living a fulfilled and plentiful life from Lakewood Church co-pastor and bestselling author Victoria Osteen. In her latest book, Exceptional You! Victoria Osteen shares seven ways to become the exceptional person God has called you to be. She says, "If you're going reach your highest potential in life, you're going to have to develop the ability to see beyond where you are right now."

John Piper challenges fellow baby boomers to forego the American dream of retirement and live out their golden years with a far greater purpose in mind. They say it's a person's reward for all those years of labor. "Turn in your time card and trade in your IRAs. Let travel plans and golf-course leisure lead the way." But is retirement really the ideal? Or is it a series of poor options that ignore a greater purpose-and will kill a person more quickly than old age? John Piper responds,"Lord, spare me this curse!"

John Tesh has achieved more in life than he ever dreamed possible. But the road to success has been anything but easy - and those challenges have become the secret to his success. Through his story, we can learn how to be relentless, how to achieve what we didn't think was possible, and how to handle our inevitable discouragements.

Love Is a Verb takes his teaching to the next level. Rather than a typical marriage self-help book filled with lengthy explanations of principles and techniques, it is a compilation of true stories displaying love in action. These stories - written by everyday people - go straight to the hearts of readers, who often say that illustrations are the most effective parts of a book. Gary Chapman adds a "Love Lesson" to each story, showing readers how they can apply the same principles to their own relationships.

Are you looking for a love guarantee? In this extraordinary audio presentation, marriage expert Gary Smalley shows you how to stay in love through all the stages of life.

Building on their work at Chaddock, a nonprofit organization that has worked with some of the most challenging kids in the nation for more than 150 years, the authors empower frustrated parents with practical tips and real-life examples on how to minimize behavioral meltdowns, reduce conflict, increase cooperation, promote healthy attachment, and improve family relationships. The strategies they share work both for the child who is going through a difficult phase brought on by life disruption or trauma, and for the child who faces chronic struggles.

If you choose to stay in your marriage, you have options other than punishing, tolerating, or ignoring your spouse; extraordinary growth awaits a woman willing to deal with the pain of her husband's struggles with sexual purity. Even if your spouse will not participate in a program for healing, you can change your own life in powerful and permanent ways. Shattered Vows is inspired by Debra Laaser's own journey through betrayal, her extensive work with hundreds of hurting women as a licensed marriage and family therapist, and her healed marriage after her husband's infidelity.

Break free. Clean the clutter. Pursue your purpose. Your soul is made up of your mind, your will, and your emotions. It is what you think, what you want, and what you feel. A soul tie is an emotional bond or connection that unites you with someone else. The closer you are with someone, the stronger your souls become tangled.

No relationship is perfect - but it can be better. The secret to stronger relationships isn't to become more charming or funny or to solve the world's problems or to just try harder. All you have to do is listen. It's that simple. Yet our noisy culture hasn't equipped us to do this. With warmth and a touch of humor, personal coach and expert communicator Becky Harling shares simple, practical listening tools that will help you become a person others are drawn to and want to spend time with.