Social Media Ministry

This audiobook outlines digital discipleship principles for building an online community and provides practical instruction for how to do it no matter how big or small a local church may be.

In the pattern of her popular 40-Day Sugar Fast, Wendy Speake offers you The 40-Day Social Media Fast. This "screen sabbatical" is designed to help you become fully conscious of your dependence on social media so you can purposefully unplug from screens and plug into real life with the help of a very real God. Take a break from everyone and everything you follow online. Disconnect in order to reconnect with the only one who said "follow me."

We live in a world full of shiny distractions, faced with an onslaught of viral media constantly competing for our attention and demanding our affections. These ever-present visual "spectacles" can quickly erode our hearts, making it more difficult than ever to walk through life actively treasuring that which is most important and yet invisible: Jesus Christ. In a journalistic style, Tony Reinke shows us just how distracting these spectacles in our lives have become, and calls us to ask critical questions about what we're focusing on.

Boys become men in much the same way across cultures, by integrating, through experience, each of five messages: Life is hard; You are not that important; Your life is not about you; You are not in control; You are going to die. Our culture has done everything in its power, it seems, to move away from this ancient wisdom. Men are lured away to dominate through money, sex, power, consumerism—and never really become men.

By the time he was 19, Frank Schaeffer’s parents had achieved global fame as best-selling evangelical authors and speakers, and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. He would go on to speak before thousands and publish his own best seller. But while coming of age as a rising evangelical star, Schaeffer felt increasingly alienated, and as a result, he experienced a crisis of faith that would ultimately lead to his journey out of the fold - even if it meant losing everything.

Words are one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and they can be used for good or evil. When God created our world, He did so with words. He said Let there be...and it was so. While our words cannot bring into existence things that are not, they do have the power to build courage into a husband's life, instill confidence into a child's heart, fan into flames the dying embers of a friend's smoldering dreams, and draw the lost to Christ. This book is for every woman who desires to use her words to build up rather than tear down....

It is a question at the center of many arguments against the existence of God and a conundrum that stumps even the most devout worshipers. What do we make of pain and suffering? What does it cost us? What is its value? How can an all-loving God allow for world catastrophe, grave illness, and devastating carnage?

Born the unwanted third daughter, Esther Ahmad grew up Muslim in Pakistan. Her faith and country drove every aspect of her first 18 years, from what she wore and what she ate to her prospects for work and marriage, even to the manner of her death. Unveiled chronicles Esther’s conversion to Christianity and her escape from radical Islam. Chapter by chapter, Esther lays out the lies of the Qur’an and holds them against the truths she found in the Bible.

Healing After Divorce is a breath of fresh air for all who are going through the divorce process. Rowland offers insightful advice about how to begin to rebuild one's emotional, spiritual, physical, romantic, familial, and financial life after divorce. Acknowledging the heartbreak, Rowland offers practical and easy-to-follow steps to begin to mend a broken heart and find hope, fulfillment, and love after divorce.

Movies do more than tell a good story. They are expressions of raw emotion, naked vulnerability, and unbridled rage. They often function in the same way as prayers, communicating our deepest longings and joys to a God who hears each and every one. In this captivating book, Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen brings a critic's unique perspective to how movies function as expressions to God of lament, praise, joy, confession, and more.

After her brother died unexpectedly and her mother moved into a dementia-care facility, spiritual travel writer and Episcopal deacon Lori Erickson felt called to a new quest: to face death head-on, with the eye of a tourist and the heart of a pastor. Blending memoir, spirituality, and travel, Near the Exit examines how cultures confront and have confronted death by investigating Egypt's Valley of the Kings, Mayan temples, Colorado cremation pyres, Day of the Dead celebrations, Maori settlements, and tourist-destination graveyards.

For the past 50 years, Wendell Berry has been helping seekers chart a return to the practice of being creatures. Through his essays, poetry, and fiction, Berry has repeatedly drawn our attention to the ways in which our lives are gifts in a whole economy of gifts. Berry presents us with the sort of coherent vision for the lived moral and spiritual life that we need now. His work helps us remember our givenness and embrace our life as creatures.

How to connect with what’s most important in a hyperconnected world. Social media has the power to do a lot of good, but it can also get in the way of authenticity and create a sense of disillusionment. In Overliked, pastor and author Rob Singleton asks listeners to take a closer look at the optics in their lives and in the world around them. This is an audiobook about understanding how to see “likes” and “selfie” culture for what they really are and how to connect with the heart of God to build out a new way of thinking about social image.

You have a voice. And you have God's permission to use it. In some communities, certain voices are amplified and elevated while others are erased and suppressed. It can be hard to speak up, especially in the ugliness of social media. Power dynamics keep us silent and marginalized, especially when race, ethnicity, and gender are factors. What can we do about it? Activist Kathy Khang roots our voice and identity in the image of God. Because God created us in our ethnicity and gender, our voice is uniquely expressed through the totality of who we are.

Social media will help your ministry go further, faster. In this practical book, you'll learn: how to get started with social media in your ministry; the best ways to create an endless stream of engaging content; essential checkpoints to consider before posting things online; 24 topics you can use to get your followers talking; and more!

Unlike many celebrities, Winfrey's is an overwhelmingly positive public persona. Here, religion reporter Marcia Nelson explores the spiritual dimensions that are prevalent in all aspects of the Oprah Winfrey media empire. Though Oprah is rarely explicitly religious on her television show or magazine, Nelson points out that there are several major Christian themes that weave through these aspects of her life and work: confession, redemption, healing, mission, forgiveness, and salvation.

Talking with Teens About Sexuality will help you understand your teen's world and give you effective strategies in the midst of cultural pressures. Drs. Robinson and Scott provide scientifically reliable and biblically based information about gender fluidity, types of intimacy, online dangers, setting boundaries, and much more. Along the way, the book provides useful conversation starters and insightful guidance.

What if all the bad news you've been hearing about Christians isn't true? Here are some facts that may surprise you: Evangelicals are more respected by society today than they were 20 years ago. Divorce rates of Christian couples are lower than those of nonbelievers. The percentage of young people who attend church has held steady over the past 20 years. All these statements are true, yet we’ve been told the opposite time and time again. Why is the church being misled?

The United States is recognized as the most religiously diverse country in the world, and yet its laws and customs, which many have come to see as normal features of American life, actually keep the constitutional ideal of “religious freedom for all” from becoming a reality. Christian beliefs, norms, and practices infuse our society; they are embedded in our institutions, creating the structures and expectations that define the idea of “Americanness.”

True Christians have been persecuted throughout the Church Age, and in some parts of the world continue in great trials. But the Savior is always there providing comfort and strength. No marvel, for Christ warned his followers that this would happen. Here, in Martyr of the Catacombs, we get a glimpse of the heinous persecutions in Ancient Rome and look inside the lives of those Christians whose very lives depended upon the place of refuge beneath the city of Rome.