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A Mennonite Boy's Odyssey is a story of courage and discovery. Some individuals are fully content to embrace answers provided by their own elders to life's great questions. For others, their elders' way proves untenable. They must forge their own path, awakening through assimilation from alternate sources. A Mennonite Boy's Odyssey traces one such awakening, a life journey of spiritual development from growing up Mennonite in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s, through decades of reading, thought, and enquiry. The book balances life experience with intellectual and spiritual transformation. This book is an accounting of a Hero's Journey, in the parlance of Joseph Campbell.

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This book uses the metaphor of walking to gain insight into the spiritual life. Walking is the most basic movement of the human body. For many people, walking carries no value on its own except to transit between two points. From the spiritual perspective, we can derive many benefits through the act of walking. As a spiritual discipline, walking not only has health benefits but generates different states of well-being that are good for the human soul and spirit. Walking gives us pleasure, joy, happiness, and serenity. Metaphorically speaking, walking gives us a sense that we are on a journey with God. It also helps us to know the importance of engaging our physical bodies in our spirituality. It keeps us attuned to the present moment, cultivates in us a sense of wonder in the natural world, creates an inner space in our cluttered lives, highlights the need for solitude and silence, and gives us the freedom of simplicity that the soul enjoys.

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The book of Job has captured the imagination of Christians and non-Christians alike. In this study, Ronald Hesselgrave shows how the personal story of Job's intense struggle with suffering is representative of the pain and vexation within the entire creation, and how Job's eventual healing and restoration in the context of his relationship to God is connected to the «grand narrative» of God's purpose to redeem humanity and defeat evil in the world. He explores the themes of creation, evil, lament, justice, and God's sovereignty, grace, and redemption within the separate speeches in Job and against the backdrop of wisdom literature as a whole. A further concern of this study is with the pastoral or practical value of the book of Job, both for caregivers and those who may themselves be going through the valley of deep trauma and suffering. Dr. Hesselgrave brings together theological, social, and psychological insights in a way that deepens our understanding of suffering and provides the basis for a more holistic and comprehensive response to the needs of those who suffer. A final summary of the implications of Job for a practical theology of suffering is given in the conclusion.

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Every Christian mother knows the stress of trying to raise her child for Christ. How do the Ten Commandments apply to that child beyond the superficial legalistic disciplines? How do they apply to me? What does Christ and his sacrifice on the cross have to do with any of these laws? If you want to love God more with all of your heart and help your child to do the same, this book will help point you in the right direction of Calvary. With stories of her own children and from her own life, we can identify with the author's journey toward having a godly family dedicated to God. Spiritual blessings from God's hand are evidenced and encouraged in these pages.

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The Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith examines the conflicting views of Marcus Borg and N. T. Wright on the long-standing question of the relationship between the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and the Christ of faith as depicted in the New Testament. Demetrion has created a study designed to supplement and expand on the discussion laid out in Borg's and Wright's widely read, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Views. While the author is more empathetic to Wright's emphasis on the continuities between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, as illuminated throughout the New Testament, he is critical of Wright's overemphasis on history. In placing his interpretive emphasis on the revelatory dynamic of the canonical Scripture and the Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy, Demetrion calls for a fourth quest for the historical Jesus that starts from a position firmly rooted in biblical faith and works backwards in search of historical roots. In this, he draws on the Pauline vision of «God . . . reconciling the world to himself in Christ» (2 Cor 5:19) as his underlying hermeneutics. In exploring the broad range of issues that underpins the continuity/discontinuity question, Demetrion has provided a resource designed to span a wide audience, from Christian adult study groups interested in tackling books like The Meaning of Jesus to graduate level seminary students and professors.

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Relive through reminiscing and remembering, a Maine pastor's recollections of boyhood experiences that turned into a minister's messages in old age. After five decades (Barry's first message was preached in 1966), travel back in time with a lifelong Maineaic to his home place, the Blackstone homestead of Perham, Maine. What sparked these homilies was his inheritance of seven acres of the family farm, homesteaded in 1861, and the receiving of his grandparent's house built in 1924 at the death of his Uncle Paul. You will probably come to the same conclusion as this coastal Maine pastor–that his seminary training began long before he attended a Bible school in South Carolina in the early 1970s. Flash back with him to the 1950s and 1960s when spiritual lessons were everywhere on his rural potato and dairy farm. Pastor Blackstone didn't know it then, but realizes now that he was surrounded by family Bible teachers and friendly Biblical instructors that eventually would inspire this series of sermons. Homestead Homilies is a collection of scriptural observations inspired by a dog named Rover, an uncle named Read, a moonlit night, a barnyard hedge, a day plowing, a grandmother's helpful hand, a bee hive, a simple prayer, a sparrow's song, and many more simple events in a past age where homilies were being preached and now eventually heard. It is the author's prayer that these simple sermons will provoke the reader to remember long lost messages from their distant past.

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Berkeley Street Theatre chronicles Christian World Liberation Front's 1969-1975 ministry to the counterculture. Founded by Jack Sparks, CWLF was featured in the June 1971 Time Magazine's epic «Jesus Revolution» edition. Reverend Billy Graham sponsored the CWLF outreach and referred to CWLF as a highly effective outreach to the counterculture. The book included a foreword by David W. Gill, former CWLF leader, scholar, and author, contributing chapters from BST's members: Gene Burkett, Charlie Lehman, Susan Dockery Andrews, Father James Bernstein, and Jeanne DeFazio, editor of the book. Part Two of this work outlines Christian Guerilla theater following the timeline of BST with contributing chapters from: JMD Myers, Joanne Petronella, Jozy Pollock, Olga Soler, and Sheri Pedigo. William David Spencer's afterword details the cultural contributions of the Jesus movement. This book will appeal to the baby boom generation as well as millennials. It is a resource work for anyone interested in religious history, Christian theater and the arts, and in how baby boomers embraced the Jesus Movement. The photos of BST's Sproul Plaza performances will charm all readers.

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How do the dark moments of suffering which we all encounter at some point in our lives connect with the divine? The words of Paul the Apostle offer an answer to this universal question in the vibrant figure and pattern of Jesus Christ, so eloquently expressed in the Philippians Christ Hymn. It is in moments of loss, moments of experience of creation and community, and moments of transformative unity with God that we discover our deep connectedness to God and one another. Laura Hogan weaves the truth of these three facets of divine-human relationship together with Paul's undivided trust in divine effectiveness; that is, that the paradox of the cross reveals that God, no matter how dire the circumstance, is supremely effective to accomplish his will. Paul's words encourage us to express the pattern of Jesus Christ in our words, actions, and very lives, a singular articulation of Christ in our time, place, identity, and circumstances. This daily living of the Christ pattern, which this book explores in lives past and present, gives rise to a true joy in God as we become increasingly aware of our relationship with the divine in all moments, from the darkest to the brightest.

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Have you ever wondered if you could help another person become a stronger, more consistent Christian? At some point in your own Christian walk, you probably received help, guidance, instruction, and encouragement from another believer in order to seek Christ and become more like him. How grateful we are for those who invested themselves in us! I believe that you personally can help someone else understand and live out their faith in Christ. The «Disciple Investing» Life is written to help you invest your life in another person who wants to grow as a Christian. Read it and discover how God can use you in someone else's life in their journey toward Christlikeness.

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Do you want your life to be a vigorous, purposeful, and liberated journey? That is exactly what an encounter with Jesus Christ offers. This book presents a way to engage Christ through a detailed yet accessible look at the four major events of his life and provides suggestions about living out the implications of those events on a daily and practical level.

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