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Today, we need to marshal all the healing resources at our disposal. A growing body of evidence shows that spiritual healing practices have a positive impact, both on healing and on the quality of life that people experience while under medical care. Dr. Bruce Epperly calls on Christians to embrace these varied resources. He crosses both the boundaries between formal scientific medical practice and spiritual healing, and the boundaries between healing practices that come from a variety of spiritual and religious traditions. He then incorporates these into a distinctly Christian theology of healing practice. Where healing takes place, he sees God at work. Healing characterized the ministry of Jesus, and Epperly believes that it should characterize the life and ministry of Christians in all times and places. This is a balanced call that doesn't pit one tradition against another and also does not place spiritual healing practices in opposition to medical science. This is about embracing what heals. Today, we need to marshal all the healing resources at our disposal.

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The Christian life is a holy adventure. Bruce Epperly has opened up that adventure to everyone in his previous books Process Theology, Process Spirituality, and Process and Ministry . Now he connects this adventure to ancient roots in Celtic spirituality. This book takes a meditative, experiential approach to the complex, often difficult topic of process theology and brings it to life for everyday spiritual practice, while rooting it in Celtic wisdom. This is not the place for rigid doctrine and adherence to a set of commands. Instead, Epperly hears God's call to embrace a God who is available to us, a call to adventure, and the hope for new spiritual vistas. This spiritual journey will resonate in how we live and build community. This is a short volume, designed for anyone to read. It is suitable for individual or group study. It aims to make both process theology and Celtic wisdom available to everyone.

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What one believes about God shapes how one worships, prays, thinks, and lives. Dr. Bruce Epperly, who provided a very short introduction to process theology in Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God, now provides a short and succinct guide to spiritual practices for those who want to embrace and live the adventurous spiritual <br/> <br/>life. From times of worship, to prayer, to solitude, and even to study, he provides a guide to living with a God who is deeply and intimately involved in our lives. Holiness <br/> <br/>and spirituality are not about being other-worldly. Rather, they are about being even more in the here and now than any of us may have thought possible.

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This concise book, the sixth short guide on process theology and its practical implications by Dr. Bruce Epperly, applies process thought to the calling and activities of pastoral ministry. Short and to the point as are all books in the Topical Line Drives series, this text will provide pastors and others involved in caregiving ministries a new and adventurous way of thinking about and meeting the challenges of their vocation. God is already present in the hospital room and even the funeral home. You have the opportunity to experience the vision of what can happen when we discover that God is always opening up new possibilities, empowering us to partner with God in healing the world, and strengthening us for and comforting us in the difficult times of life. Learn to connect more closely to the divine and the human, to see more clearly, and to participate more completely, as God does. A practical, deeply theological, and challenging guide to the adventure of pastoral care.

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Get ready for another adventure in process theology. Theology can transform your ministry and process theology provides a spiritual GPS to help us navigate the complexities of twenty-first century ministry and congregational life. Process theology reminds us that the physical, geographical, and spiritual limitations we experience are the womb of possibilities. In the concreteness of our ministries, we discover God’s vision for ourselves and our congregations. This text invites us to claim our pastoral role as shamans of the spirit, wise preachers, healing companions, and prophetic witnesses. Written by an experienced theologian, pastor, and spiritual guide, this brief text provides a flexible and open-ended vision for 21st century ministry in our postmodern, pluralistic, and post-Christian world.

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Can you imagine reading the Lord’s Prayer as a gateway to adventure? Bruce Epperly, who has introduced process theology to the masses through concise, readable guides, presents this well-known prayer through a vision of a relational, open-spirited, profoundly personal, always creative, and forward-looking God, who invites us to be companions in the holy adventure of healing the earth. This is not your routine book on the Lord’s Prayer. Instead, it is an invitation to to holy adventure through sharing in the prayer of Jesus. Each short chapter includes a section titled “Living the Prayer of Jesus.” In the back, there are a series of questions for conversation. This book is short (only 35 pages of text besides the questions) and concise, but it is also challenging. It would make a good church wide or small group study, and is suitable for individual reading.

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There is a tendency among modern Christians to avoid comment on the idea of miracles or mysterious events that might indicate the direct intervention of God. There is an even more pronounced belief that modern liberal or progressive Christians will avoid these ideas. A God who is distant, the source of everything, is acceptable, but the idea of supernatural activity is embarrassing at best. There is virtually no room for theological discussions of angels, demons, and paranormal experiences.
Bruce Epperly is a process theologian and a leading thinker in progressive Christian theology, and he believes we need to take another look at God and God’s involvement in the universe in which we live. Rather than finding ways to defend the intrusive interventions of a distant, supernatural God in the traditional sense of the word “miracle,” Bruce sees God as closer; so close, in fact, that God is part of all events. God providentially acts in all things, not in terms of outside intervention, but through ongoing natural interactions that change our lives and the world.
Join Dr. Bruce Epperly as he explores a world of wonders in which is God uncomfortably and comfortingly, subtly and actively present.

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How does one read the literature of a patriarchal society in a 21st century context? Where can one find good role models for girls and women in the Bible? All too often these questions are answered by presenting the answers given by patriarchal society and not by looking for liberating, examples. It is all too easy to let God's message of setting the captives free ring forth, but directed to a limited audience. But Ruth and Esther provide strong counter-examples of women who had to struggle against the cultural norms in order to live and to do great things for their people. All too often these women are excluded from our studies or when included are portrayed as subordinate people. But Dr. Bruce Epperly, pastor, father, grandfather, and theology sees them as women of agency and adventure, resourceful and proactive women in patriarchal cultures. But despite being subject to the apparently arbitrary decisions of males with authority, both women were agents in their destiny fulfilling their vocations in their particular culture. If you are a Christian pastor or teacher, you owe it to those in your circle of influence to let them experience these two Bible books in new ways, to see them as liberating documents that let everyone know that God doesn't exclude them. From these women of agency and adventure, those who find themselves excluded from power can find encouragement to stand up and be the persons of agency and adventure that God created them to be, no matter what restrictions others have placed upon them.

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What if someone you thought you knew very well started behaving strangely? What would you do? Now suppose the person acting strange was &mdash; God? Jonah thought he knew God. In fact, he was a prophet. He knew he heard God&rsquo;s voice. Life might have its difficulties, but no matter what happened, he could count on his God. Then one day God started saying things he couldn&rsquo;t possibly mean.

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Bruce Epperly calls Healing Marks a «very personal book» as it comes from over thirty years of experiencing the healing stories of Jesus. From his early years as a young college professor, he sought to make sense of the growing interest in complementary and alternative medicine. For seventeen years, Bruce was a chaplain and professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and was among the first to teach courses on spirituality and medicine at a major medical school. While embracing Jesus' healing ministry as a pastor, professor, reiki teacher, and spiritual guide, he has also wrestled with the meaning of Jesus' healing ministry and God's role in healing and sickness in a personal way as a pastor, friend, child, spouse, and parent, in hospital rooms, hospices, gravesides, and healing services. «I have heard testimonies about the power of God to cure illness, but I have also sat at the bedside of dying friends and congregants, who have done everything right, according to the principles of their faith traditions and philosophies – personal and intercessory prayers, positive thinking and affirmations, meditation and diet, complementary medical treatments, and visits to faith healers and energy workers – along with the best modern medicine has to offer in treatment and palliation,» says Bruce. Each chapter includes a spiritual practice related to the healing story being considered that is easily shaped for the reader's personal and spiritual needs. Rev. Epperly also includes questions and spiritual practices for group study and spiritual formation at the end of the book. Chapter titles include Transforming Faith, Forgiveness and Healing, Healing Takes Time, Healing Broken Spirits, A Healing Lifestyle, Healing in a Pluralistic Age, and God, Why am I Sick?.

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