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When the leadership of Patterson Park Church looked for a book explaining the process of transitioning from a board-run church to an elder led form of church government, a structure they had come to believe was more in line with Scripture, they found none. God honored their efforts and two of their elders decided a book still needed to be written. Elder Governance: Insights into Making the Transition examines church government from a biblical and historical context and tells the story of Patterson Park's transition. The authors are hopeful that God will use their experience to help others considering such a transition.

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Interpreting Life depicts one Christian woman's struggle to determine her place in the home and church as the traditional roles of the 1950s gave way to the chaos created by the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Burke's lengthy journey brought her from a state of confusion to a conscious awareness of the effects of her cohort, conservative religious beliefs, and close relationships on her personal and spiritual development. From childhood, she worshipped with a church where submission scriptures in the New Testament were taken literally and women were not allowed to participate in any public leadership roles such as leading prayers and songs, teaching adults, or preaching. As society changed and women gradually acquired leadership roles in other organizations, these church practices became more stifling, preventing many conservative women from using their God-given talents.
Because of her marriage to a minister, where she felt her family was living in a glass house, it became exceedingly frustrating to adhere to traditional religious values. Throughout this process, their marriage relationship was repeatedly challenged, but their commitment to each other and the church helped them resolve their differences and work together to reinterpret women's roles in the church.
Journal writing was the technique used to make sense of the contradictions and internal conflict experienced as this Christian woman attempted to remain faithful to her religious beliefs and yet develop to her full potential. Excerpts from over thirty years of writing reveals the strategies Burke employed to remain positive and productive as family and church priorities took precedent over her own dreams.

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From Gethsemane to Pentecost is an eight-week Bible study for small groups or individuals. Drawing from the study of history, archaeology, literary studies, and the original languages, this in-depth look at the inspired texts of the Gospels and Acts provides a one-of-a-kind walk down the Via Dolorosa, from the Garden of Gethsemane, to Calvary and a borrowed tomb, to the wind and fire of Pentecost. On the way, you will gain both insights into the texts and practical lessons to apply to the Christian life.

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel to a far-off and distant place to share with an unreached people group the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? The Region Beyond is a journey with two young cousins to the remotest mission station in the world in 1972. Travel with Barry and Bob Blackstone from northern Maine to the Gibson Desert of western Australia to experience another culture and climate far beyond their imagination or expectation. Experience with them their first overseas flight across the width of the great Pacific; journey with them into the barren wilderness that is central Australia on a day-and-a-half railroad ride; fly with them through the interior of western Australia were mile after mile is nothing but flat, open wasteland; work with them on a million and a quarter acre sheep and cattle station and witness up close and personal the struggles of such a hostile land; drive with them deeper into the desert to an isolated community of Aboriginal natives and a few missionaries, three hundred miles–north, south, east, or west–from any other settlement; and share with them the ups and downs of living in a strange land for a summer. Their spiritual adventure will include a kangaroo hunt, dust storms that blotted out the sun, teaching aboriginal children the Story of Jesus, building a laundry and shower building in the heat of a hundred degree Australian winter, catching–by running after a caboose–a train heading east at a desert junction, watching a tribal fight with spears and knives, experiencing the hospitality of fellow believers unmatched until the author visited India. Learn what it takes to be a missionary to The Region Beyond, and discover your life's calling despite the desire to return. On the fortieth anniversary of this miraculous trip, Pastor Blackstone recalls the events that made this memorable summer of '72 possible, and the lasting effects of his journey into The Region Beyond!

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Metaethics is the study of moral language, moral ontology, and moral epistemology. This book addresses each of these in a way accessible to both students and professional philosophers.
Van Reken defends the classic view of moral realism, advanced by philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Kant.
Moral language tends to be the focus of much current metaethical discussion, but this volume concerns itself more with questions of moral ontology and moral epistemology. The concept of the moral field is introduced, which helps distinguish what is moral and what is amoral (a discussion too often overlooked by moralists), and–adapting an epistemological theory developed by Alvin Plantinga–an argument is made that we can know moral truths.
Principia Meta-Ethica presents a return to the core issues of metaethics and strengthens the case for moral realism with new arguments, distinctions, and concepts.

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Scientists have constructed a vast and wonderful objective universe by building on the «quantitative» features of their experience. That universe cannot support cosmic purpose because it is without consciousness–it is completely inert. However, the «qualitative» features of human experience suggest the existence of an equally vast and wonderful subjective universe that complements the objective universe in scope and in reality. This edifice can and, I believe, does support a form of cosmic purpose that is determined by its structure, and by its relationship to human consciousness.
Every experience of yours is an amalgam of quantitative and qualitative parts that comprise your own objective and subjective worlds. Each one is as real a part of your life as the other; and each is as real a part of the wider universe as the other. There is no reason to assign reality to one and illusory to the other. Using a minimal construction based on qualitative experience, the subjective universe is found to have a cosmic purpose that is consequential for humans. We look for and find evidence of that purpose in human history.

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China's Urban Christians: A Light That Cannot Be Hidden looks at how massive urbanization is redrawing not only the geographic and social landscape of China, but in the process is transforming China's growing church as well. The purpose of this book is to explore how Christians in China perceive the challenges posed by their new urban context and to examine their proposed means of responding to these challenges. Although not primarily political in nature, these challenges nonetheless illustrate the complex interplay between China's Christian community and the Chinese party-state as it comes to terms with the continued growth and increasing prominence of Christianity in modern China.

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A group of authors led by Shaphan, King Josiah's secretary, wrote some three hundred chapters of Scripture–one-third of the Hebrew Bible. For the first time ever, we can learn the names of those who composed Joshua, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Songs, Daniel, and half the Minor Prophets. (Probabilities throughout the book strongly support these findings.) Moreover, those authors together constitute Dtr, the long-sought editors of Deuteronomy through Second Kings. One of the most important discoveries of The Shaphan Group is that Huldah the prophetess signed many chapters of Hebrew Scripture. Judged from her use of coded writing, Huldah was arguably the most accomplished writer among the group's fifteen authors. She was joined by the Priestly Source and Second Isaiah (both of whom are named), as well as others–unrecognized until now–who risked their lives to shape the Hebrew Bible. The Shaphan Group offers students of whatever age, not only a book full of discoveries, but also a new way to approach Holy Scripture.

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The Letter to Titus is often branded as incoherent, its salutation inchoate. Such premature conclusions are directly related to the authenticity debate that has marred analyses of the so-called Pastoral Epistles. From the corridors of academia echoes the cry to study the letters individually and independently of the authorship issue. This book does exactly that. It lays bare intricate and novel persuasive strategies, strategies that belie the charge of incoherency. In fact there is not one, but three ways to describe the structure of this masterfully composed letter. In Persuading the Cretans, Aldred Genade does this utilizing a technique known as text-generated persuasion analysis. Careful thought has gone into the composition of the letter to communicate timeless truths relevant for generations of Christians. This is first-century outcomes-based communication at its best and communicators, preachers, and scholars stand to benefit from the lessons in communication the author of Titus can teach us.

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Losing a dearly loved family member or friend suddenly, unexpectedly, and tragically jars us at our very core. We shudder at the thought of it. When that loss results from a suicide it defies and assaults everything in us. The unthinkable is often considered not survivable. In Surviving the Unthinkable theology professor Don J. Payne exits the classroom and invites you into the chambers of his personal experience of that indescribable loss. This intensely personal narrative traces his process through shock, grief, anger, fear, and a host of unexpected sensations to redemption and hope. Yet, he offers no psychological analysis or formula to make it all OK. Here you will find hope–gritty, realistic hope that will deepen the resources of anyone who walks the unthinkable path of losing someone they love to suicide. Life on the other side of such a nightmare will never be the same, but there is life and it can be good. Don Payne gives voice to the experience in a way that extends a healing hand to any who wonder if they can survive.

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