Social Ministry

It was an annus horribilis for Iran's Supreme Leader. The Green Movement had been crushed, but the regime was on edge, anxious lest democratic protests resurge. International sanctions were dragging down the economy while talk of war with the West grew. Hooman Majd was there for all of it. A new father at age fifty, he decided to take his blonde, blue-eyed Midwestern yoga instructor wife Karri and his adorable, only-eats-organic infant son Khash from their hip Brooklyn neighborhood to spend a year in the land of his birth.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy has delighted millions of fans worldwide in book and movie form. With the theatrical release of the two-part film The Hobbit slated for 2012 and 2013, attention will once again turn to J. R. R. Tolkien's classic works. In a culture where truth is relative and morality is viewed as old-fashioned, we welcome the chance to view the world through hobbit eyes: we have free will, our choices matter, and living a morally heroic life is possible....

Have More Fun is for anyone who has forgotten that fun is an option. In a world where political dramas and cultural uncertainties churn through our news feed every day, Mandy is here to suggest that the answer to many of the most pressing questions is fun.

Pete and Geri Scazzero developed The Emotionally Healthy (EH) Relationships Course over a 21-year period to directly address core biblical principles to guide you and others into an experience of discipleship that will deeply change your life. In the EH Relationships Course, everyone will learn eight practical relationship skills to develop mature, loving relationships with others.

Beatrice Bruteau was a philosopher whose vision of life was an inspiration to some of the most influential thinkers of our time. In Radical Optimism she shines new light on the deepest truth we can know about ourselves: each of us is one with God, here and now. She helps us to understand what this really means, to know the happiness it brings, and to cultivate a contemplative consciousness. This book is both enlightening and immensely practical.

Jesus Christ is coming back. It is certainly a Christian's greatest hope during these difficult times. The Bible warns us that the last days will be tumultuous - wars and rumors of wars will spread (Matthew 24:6). In our age, the world seems to be spinning out of control, creating fear, confusion, and uncertainty. In addition to violence, pestilence, and epidemics, the Bible predicts a great "falling away" from God in the end times. Bible teachers call that "the great apostasy".

There's lots of bad religion out there. But the answer isn't no religion, it's true religion: living out - publicly and communally - what we say we believe privately and individually. At a time when most people practice their faith in the extremes - either extremely publicly, with a legalistic, combative tone that creates division, or extremely privately, to the point that our faith becomes functionally irrelevant - award-winning author Greg Paul offers a vision for religion that is good for us and good for the world.

As the Church has become increasingly entangled in the pursuit of politics, the Gospel has become tarnished and often abandoned as the primary focus of the Body of Christ. Jesus Untangled is a prophetic call for the Church to awaken from the "American Dream" and to return to her first love. Because, as the author powerfully demonstrates, you can't convert a culture that has already converted you.

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.

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.

From age-defying makeup to the latest diet fad, our culture continually tells women they need to have a flawless face and a supermodel figure. Exposing the lie of physical perfection for what it really is, True Beauty directs women to the truth of God’s Word, which proclaims an entirely different - and refreshingly liberating - standard for beauty. Carolyn Mahaney and her daughter Nicole Whitacre set forth a path to freedom from the false idols that society, the Devil, and the human heart have created.

Pro-life Christians, take heart: the pro-life message can compete in the marketplace of ideas - provided Christians properly understand and articulate that message. Too many Christians do not understand the essential truths of the pro-life position, making it difficult for them to articulate a biblical worldview on issues like abortion, cloning, and embryo research. The Case for Life provides intellectual grounding for the pro-life convictions that most evangelicals hold.

Wesley Hill writes for gay Christians and those who love them. Part-memoir, part theological reflection, Hill shares the struggles that gay Christians face as they seek to live faithful to God's "no" to homosexuality.

What do you do when your inner world is crumbling in the aftershock of this devastating betrayal? Listen to this book! From the seven steps for self-care and learning how to deal with the emotions that follow this unwelcome news to considering the “why” of his behavior and deciding on a plan of action, this book gives women a process to follow once they find themselves in “aftershock.” Based on biblical principles and sound advice, Aftershock is designed to help women heal, grow, and receive restoration for themselves, their husbands, and their marriages.

In a culture in which science is believed to hold the answers to every question, spiritual realities like the soul are often ignored or ridiculed. We are told that neuroscience holds the key to explaining every aspect of human behavior. Yet Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland argues that scripture, sound philosophical reasoning, and everyday experience all point to the reality of an immaterial soul.

Colleges, universities, and seminaries do more than just transfer knowledge to students. They sell themselves as "experiences" that transform young people in unique ways. The conservative evangelical Protestant network of higher education has been no different. In Fundamentalist U, Adam Laats shows that these colleges have always been more than just schools; they have been vital intellectual citadels in America's culture wars. These unique institutions have defined what it has meant to be an evangelical and have reshaped the landscape of American higher education.

In The Courage to Stand, best-selling and award-winning author Russell Moore calls listeners to a Christ-empowered courage by pointing the way to real freedom from fear - the way of the cross. That way means integrity through brokenness, community through loneliness, power through weakness, and a future through irrelevance. On the other side of fear is freedom: the freedom to stand.

Award-winning author Paul David Tripp instructs believers to view digital media and technology through the lens of the gospel and points them toward a biblical framework for communication. Explaining how God wants the church to engage with culture and each other, Tripp encourages Christians to think wisely about their interactions and be a beacon of light in an age of toxicity.

In Another Man's War, follow Sam Childer's remarkable transformation from violent thug to a man of faith, and his ongoing battle to save children in one of the world's most lawless areas.

In I Am a Leader, Angie explores the concept of "calling" as it applies specifically to women leaders - those women of influence both in Christian ministry and the broader world: What is calling? How do you discover it? And what does it look like to live out that calling practically amid a multitude of challenges? Thoroughly researched, theologically and biblically integrated, and uniquely personal, I Am a Leader will resonate no matter where you are on the calling journey.