LITMIR.BIZ

Do you ever feel hopeless or depressed? Join the club. It's almost impossible to live in this world without experiencing lows from time to time. Some people can overcome these feelings of loss through sheer willpower. However, there are occasions when we are weighed down by personal defeats that lead to an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
Hope for the Broken Spirit presents a series of poems and Scriptures to help the reader overcome anxiety and depression.

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This book explores some of the «difficult» sayings of Jesus. They are «hard» sayings because through the centuries these sayings challenge the church and continue to challenge us. This study explores both how the church through its history has handled these sayings and what these sayings may say to us today. Over the centuries there have been many attempts to soften these saying to make them more palatable to the contemporary church. This book explores these alternatives while allowing the reader or class to come to their own answers about the meaning of these passages. Through careful examination of the wording, key terms, historical context, and the historical attempts to understand the «hard» saying, this book will allow the reader or class to explore the saying in greater detail and clarity.

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The Pentecostal movement emerged at the turn of the twentieth century emphasizing the need for Christians to have a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit. It advocated the return to a pristine early Spirituality in which empowerment by the Spirit was essential. Recently Pentecostal and Charismatic movements are playing down the classic expressions and moving towards more mainline approaches. As church movements develop they become more structured, less spontaneous and more routine. But is this always inevitable? The author explores a contemporary Pentecostal movement to discover whether a radical spirituality still can effectively interface with a complex twenty-first century world. This insightful research finds a Pentecostal spirituality that is flexible, adaptive and innovative and despite humble origins now is making inroads into the middle class. While tensions over charismatic freedom remain, the developing organizational structure is facilitating significant growth. Valuable lessons for Christians of all persuasions are found and some creative theological developments are suggested for church structure and for expanding traditional understandings of «baptism in the Holy Spirit.»

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Theopoetics is a plea for a more fully human way of speaking about God in the twenty-first century, a way that offers new life to dry and dying platitudes. Drawing deeply from linguistics, theology, philosophy, and even quantum mechanics, theopoetics attempts to reimagine the relationship between human language and speech about God through poetic phrasing and metaphor–thereby proposing a new God-talk. Interacting with selective works from within the discipline, Silas Krabbe offers a guide that not only maps the diversity of thought but also charts what is going on in the depths of the field. Using the metaphor of a river, Krabbe attempts to baptize the reader into theopoetics by leading an immersive exploration: sounding its waters, hearing resonances and echoes, feeling its flow, and becoming entangled in the braiding of its streams. Plunging ever more deeply into the differences that exist within the discourse of theopoetics, Krabbe is able to identify common aims, currents, and even hints of where this theopoetic river may lead. Not only a text about theopoetics, A Beautiful Bricolage is a work of theopoetics itself. It thereby draws the reader into a mode of inquiry that repudiates those who attempt to grasp it.

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We are pilgrims on a journey; that means we will leave our home and move to another one at least once during our lifetime. This book is a resource for taking leave of a home, focusing primarily on the psychological and spiritual tasks of moving. Chapter 1 offers suggestions on how to take leave of one's home slowly. Chapter 2 presents occasions when one must quickly take leave of a home because of poor health, a health emergency, age, the death of a spouse, finances, a job transfer, etc. Because nature can precipitate a move, chapter 3 offers suggestions for taking leave of a home when one has been faced with such a disaster as a tornado, a flood, an earthquake, a fire, etc. Chapter 4 presents a short prayer service to be held on moving day. For every one of the entries a few verses of a Scripture text that is appropriate for the topic under consideration are given. A reflection follows. The reflection is followed by an activity, which involves the members of a family in some way. A prayer concludes the exercise.

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The scriptures of the Christian faith speak of a life qualitatively different from that which we see portrayed on videos, movie screens, and the pages of magazines. The Scriptures proclaim that we can experience the «life of God» here and now. Most of us long for such a life, but have discovered that experiencing this life of God is not simply a matter of following seven specific steps or nine important principles. In this book, Rev. Douglas J. Early reminds us that the way to the fullness of life that God offers us has little to do with our own striving and far more to do with receiving what is already at hand. Using wisdom found in 1 John, Abide In Me serves as a guide to experiencing a life of joy, purpose, and love. Readers are invited to explore the breadth and depth of the life that comes from abiding in the presence of Christ and attending to the Spirit of Christ abiding in each of us. For anyone wanting more in life but tired of working hard and getting nowhere, this book offers hope for experiencing the life of God in Christ, here and now.

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This book was born out of a passion for mentoring disciples for Christ. The author has experienced effective mentoring as a follower of Christ. The necessity of mentors is imperative in the lives of children, youth, young adults, and of all ages. The author desires to see positive, encouraging, and Spirit-led mentoring to take place in churches. This book informs the reader regarding biblical, historical, theological, and practical mentoring. It examines the similarities and differences between mentoring and discipleship. It helps leaders understand the ingredients of effective mentoring by looking at Scripture, the role of the Holy Spirit, and applications of mentoring. This book also helps answer the question of how to make a powerful difference in the lives of individuals by the method of missional mentoring. This book will encourage today's servants of the Lord not only to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but to mentor others to become missional. Missional mentoring under the leading and design of the Holy Spirit will transform lives, churches, and communities for the glory of God.

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Many churches are involved in short-term mission trips. Most of these trips, however, are focused on economic or social development projects, coupled with «relational evangelism.» Not many are focused on discipleship, or, more specifically, training indigenous pastors in the essential doctrines of the faith so that they can, in turn, disciple their church. In fact, reproducible models for in-depth theological education during short-term missions are rare. As a missionary presently ministering in a number of underdeveloped nations, Steve Curtis has witnessed the need for, and potential benefit of, such models. The reality is that there are countless pastors throughout the majority world who have had little to no formal training in Bible or doctrine. This book suggests a practical way that churches can use their short-term missions program–together with their adult discipleship program–to help meet this critical, global need.

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Each Other's Angels: Practicing Personalism in the Catholic Worker Tradition introduces readers to author Toni Flynn's vision of justice and compassion, informed by the Scriptures and inspired by the Catholic Worker Movement of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Part memoir and part tribute to various people she encountered on the margins of society, this book shows readers how seemingly insignificant and ineffectual efforts to be an angel to others can turn out to be signs of God's grace. Following Jesus, going to places of cultural darkness and brokenness, Toni inevitably takes us through troubling and troublesome terrain–the desert, homeless encampments, jails and prisons, and seedy hotels. As you will see, Toni fearlessly exposes her flaws while forging a conduit of compassion that connects her to the wounded human condition and allows her–and her readers–to hope for a better world where everyone is tended to and appreciated.

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Jesus told us where he «lives,» and that he would prepare us a place there. Is our death the entry point? Must we struggle on, trying to be perfect? At a heavy pain-point in life, Judith was given a summer at an old, run-down ranch. And she wrote.
Sky Mesa Journal is the account of a soul's unraveling and reweaving–and the simple metaphors of nature that moved her forward. The birds and beasts and ragged hills spoke up–in paradigm. They told her what she had never really known of that sacred understanding: God's Kingdom. It happens down deep or not at all. This mysterious inner «landscape,» she discovered, is the summation of our best intents and dreams and fairy tales, the answer to our hidden poverties, our inexplicable wanderings.
The hills are alive! They have spoken! This is the gist of what happened on Sky Mesa Ranch.
This journal is about life lived on a larger scale, for having seen the small signposts raised before her. The journal simply tells how it happened for one disheartened soul. It has been many years since that summer; for Judith, nothing has ever, ever been the same.

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