Spiritual Church

Studying the views and lifestyles of your forerunners in the faith can provide incredible guidance for how you live out your spiritual convictions today. In Wisdom from the Ancients, author and scholar Bryan Litfin paints a vivid portrait of the first five centuries of the Christian church, packed with fascinating history and applicable insights for modern believers.

Forty years as a 4th generation member of a conservative Presbyterian "church family" didn't count for much when this author's wife had an affair and he sought council from his church shepherds. Robinson tithed his time, his talents, and his money, and church young people ate at his table at least once a week, but when he and his teenaged daughter went to their pastor and board of elders for help, they were branded as despicable liars and turned away. Eventually, even after the truth came out, they were still shown the door.

If Jesus wrote you a letter, what would he say? What might he say to your church, or to the church across town? We actually have a living, breathing template in Scripture that provides great insight to these vital questions. The first three chapters of the Revelation contain dynamic messages that Jesus spoke to seven local churches.

This audiobook begins with a look at the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans - as well as medieval feudalism and Calvin's Geneva, in laying the moral foundations for both feudal Virginia and Puritan New England. It looks at some early spiritual wanderings...and a great awakening that brought American back on course - in time to fend off a British effort to end America's spirit of independence. It covers the creation of the new republic, the growing divide over slavery, and the civil war that followed.

Leading churches is so much harder than it used to be. You used to be able to grow by improving the preaching or the music or the children’s ministry. But that’s just not the case anymore. That’s frustrating! And it makes us feel like failures. Eventually, most of us realize that getting our churches to be bigger and better is not God’s top priority. We begin to understand that what God really wants is to heal the world.

God wants you to know, feel, and believe in his love and presence in your life each and every day—so don't put him off any longer!

Maddie Rey provides in this book the journey she went on growing up in the church. She shares the experiences, the sacrifices, the realities, and how, through it all, she found her testimony as a pastor's kid growing up in the church.

Christmas is one of the most joyful times of year, and it can also be one of the most stressful. It comes laden with expectations and, for many, overshadowed by difficult memories and emotions. If every other day of the year has us running in different directions, driven by the bleeping demands of our phones and devices, Christmas makes us run faster still.

Most people do not realize how spiritually unhealthy they are and how that affects every area of their lives. The healthy Christian life is attainable if you pursue the truth of the Scripture and apply it to your life. As a Christian, the grace and life of God is already inside you. Learn to practice those truths that will keep you strong in him. My desire is that you not only have a healthy Christian life and receive all the benefits that come from that, but also to be such an example that you inspire your family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances to want to know him more.

The Bible teaches us that we are to love our neighbors and even our enemies. In fact, Jesus said that this would be a distinguishing characteristic of his followers. In Love Is the Answer, Pastor Rick White walks us through 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Pastor Rick will show scripturally how we can represent this love in our day to day lives.

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.

Ushering in the local church is much more than just shaking hands and passing offering plates. Fulfilling your role as an usher is just as important to the body of Christ as that of a prophet, teacher, or evangelist. This book covers both the biblical and the practical aspects of church ushering. Buddy Bell, founder of Ministry of Helps International, combines humor with informative teaching to help you become more effective in your ministry. You will be challenged to serve with excellence.

Does it feel like all hell is breaking loose in the church right now? This time of shaking is actually an act of God - a refiner’s fire through which he will bring radical, glorious reformation to the church through exposure, confrontation, and cleansing. Through this upheaval, God is seeking to mold and mature his people into the supernatural community they were destined to be!

The world’s racial wounds seem as deep and as ugly as ever. Is there really any hope? The answer is yes, absolutely. In As It Is in Heaven, Ken Claytor explores this question, debunks myths and stereotypes about race and the issue of racism in the modern church, and encourages believers to get involved in enacting change right where they are. Can we change the entire world? No. But we can begin to change our world by holding conversations, listening, studying Scripture, and humbly admitting where we’ve been wrong.

The Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful, subversive passage of words given to the church by Jesus. It forms our imaginations and—given time—transforms us. And today, we are in desperate need of renewed imaginations. Christians are living in a wilderness of secularism. In Liturgy in the Wilderness, Anglican priest D. J. Marotta shows how the Lord’s Prayer provides a framework in our secular age for understanding, believing, and living in light of Jesus Christ.

God makes amazing promises about what He will do when his people truly live in repentance. Perhaps nowhere else in the Bible is this promise so clear as in Acts 3:19 (NASB): “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” Repentance brings forgiveness from sins, but there is also a second promise attached to repentance: the presence of God.

The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented spiritual, technological, demographic, political and social transformation—moving from an older, mostly white, mostly Protestant, religion-friendly society to a younger diverse, multiethnic, pluralistic culture, where no one faith group will have the advantage. At the same time, millions of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether in favor of disorganized disbelief. Reorganized Religion is an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues.

When Satan claimed to have authority over the kingdoms of the world and said he could give them to whomever he chose, why did Jesus not contradict him? Why instead did Jesus go on to describe Satan as the "god of this world?" If Satan is the spiritual head over the world's governments, can there be such a thing as a Christian nation? In Fight the Powers, Cody Cook compiles the relevant biblical data which draws connections between political power and spiritual forces, seeking to answer the question of how Christians ought to relate to the state in light of these connections.

What is it about prayer and worship that so improve health, happiness, and longevity? There are actual physical effects within the brain. That, in turn, benefits both mind and body. Peppered with inspiring stories of transformed lives, Holy Health presents the faith factor’s many pathways to better health and well-being, and how you can take full advantage.

The call upon God's people has always been to live as a demonstration of his gospel as well as to declare his gospel message to the world around us. A lack of understanding about walking in a culture of discipleship among God's people seriously hinders that call. It results in people self-identifying as Christians but not following Jesus or seeking to live according to his commands. Therefore, we need a revolution of discipleship among his people.