LITMIR.BIZ

Small churches are not usually a pastor's dream. The fewer the number of people in attendance on a Sunday morning, the more the question persists–why? While books dealing with church growth provide strategies to increase membership, they do not focus upon the root cause of why congregations lose members. They also do not answer the question: Why do some churches remain small? Avoiding A Small Church Mentality answers both of these questions in a manner that is sensitive to the unique needs and challenges of the small church pastor. This book is designed for all pastors and church leaders who want to see their congregations grow numerically, as well as in spiritual maturity. It is also ideal for use in Bible college and seminary classrooms as a new generation of Christian leaders prepare for service in God's Kingdom.

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Dr. John H. Leith (1919-2002) enjoyed Christmas. He appreciated it especially as a celebration of the goodness of this world that God not only created but also, in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, entered, blessed with his presence, and redeemed. And at Christmas he especially wanted to be in contact with, and to minister to, those whom he loved, those whom he had taught, and those whom he cherished as colleagues in the Christian and Reformed ministry of preaching, teaching, and pastoral care.
This little book comprises a collection of Leith's Christmas letters to his former ministerial students at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. The letters grew lengthier and richer through the years. We have gathered them here so that others may enjoy reading them also.

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Virtue theory has become an important development in Christian ethics. Efforts are made in this volume to bring pastoral theology into conversation with these developments. This book probes the philosophical theology of Jonathan Edwards, who proposed that virtue is a form of beauty defined as «consent to being.» This leads to the notion of compassion as ontological consent. Since language is the vehicle by which our experiences are conveyed, the book probes the issue of how moral vision is expressed in «experience-near» language through parable, poem, and lament. Moral vision is articulated most adequately through such language, and finding it is a kind of quest.
The last chapter is a proposal for a mature pastoral theology of virtue as an expansion of Edwards's concept of «consent to being» from the vantage point of pastoral theology. A dynamic vision of virtue requires some connection between the experience of suffering and the inward striving toward the greatest good. The essence of virtue can be best understood, from a pastoral theological perspective, as the relational dynamic of «suffering with» another human being.

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Rendezvous In Paris is a series of practical devotionals and personal meditations written by a Maine pastor as he traveled to the Charles De Gaulle Aero port to meet his daughter who was returning home sick from a summer missionary trip to Togo, West Africa. As he traveled on buses and planes through forty hours of wondering why, this pastor was inspired by everything from a fly on the flight to the plight the world was in during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The book includes the opinions and observations of a tourist in France and the spiritual insights he drew from the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Parc Du Champ De Mars. Traveling just weeks before 9-11, there are also some considerations on just what happened and how it happened that terrorists were able to get through national security and attack the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The book also includes the miraculous events required to take this trip, the ultimate purpose of God when He calls us suddenly out of our «comfort zone,» and the blessings and pleasures that come by «letting go and letting God.» On a personal note, this group of short stories reveals the deep emotion and loving connection between a father and his daughter and the extraordinary adventure they shared together in a day in Paris!

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Tom Dow asserts that Job does not go through his trials to somehow improve him. He is being tried by Satan, who seeks to break Job's and God's trust in one another. When that trust survives the worst that Satan and insensitive friends can do, both Job and God are vindicated. When Storms Come shows how the book of Job can be related to New Testament teaching, and how it can be a great help to people experiencing suffering and stress. It also serves as a resource for people ministering to those going through the storms of life.

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The Glory Walk is a brief work explaining to Christians what living for God's glory is all about. It is a summons to believers to live in the bigger picture of God's kingdom with God's purposes in view. We must face the reality that western culture is man-centered, that one's natural tendencies are toward self-glory, and that the grace of God is what is deeply needed to fulfill our purposes in God's created order. Christians need to be God-centered, oriented by the truth of God's Word, focused on the gospel, and completely dependent on God. We must see clearly that our God is infinitely glorious. Thus, He is worthy to receive our worship and praise. The believer's duty is to live intentionally for God's glory alone. However, duty must not carry with it the idea of drudgery. Instead, by God's grace, we delight in him and desire his glory to be known. The teachings in The Glory Walk call believers to the joyful life of exalting Christ!

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If you would like to read many reasons for admiring and loving Jesus, then this is the book for you! If you admire and love Jesus but have difficulty identifying yourself as a Christian or have difficulty joining a church because of problems with this or that aspect of Christianity, then this is a book for you, too! Among other things, Love of Jesus points out that Jesus accepted and even encouraged doubters. Important as scholarship is, Love of Jesus is not a scholarly book. Rather, it reaches out to lay people, believers, and non-believers. It takes at face value a wide range of New Testament stories about Jesus and asks of them why we should admire and love the man who inspired them. Then, hoping it has inspired the reader to admire and love Jesus-or to admire and love him even more-Love of Jesus offers answers to the questions, «How should we follow him?» and «How should we relate to one another as Christians when we have different understandings of Christianity?»

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Small churches need the work of all of their people to survive, and this means that there's a productive place in the church family for every person, no matter how gifted or challenged. Small churches are uniquely personal, and they provide an unparalleled opportunity for Christians to learn, grow, and live out their faith consciously, every day.
Small churches become a family, children of God, and brothers and sisters of Jesus together. There's no place to hide in a small church. The normal human dramas of good and evil, sin and repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation all happen in our relationships in the family.
A small church is a place where people can serve an apprenticeship in faith, learning from those before them and passing on their experience to those around them. In a small church the pastor provides context by preaching and teaching, serves as a role model in encouraging the ministry of others, and, by loving the people, helps them see themselves through God's eyes. The rest is up to the people themselves and to God.

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The popular Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has sold more than 62 million copies since the first volume appeared in 1995. Jerry Falwell pronounced it the most important series of books in the history of modern Christianity. Many readers have assumed it gives the true facts about the way the world will end and what will happen to all the people in it. But according to real biblical scholarship, this series is seriously flawed. Based on a misreading of many scriptures, including Daniel and the Book of Revelation, it has fed a kind of hysteria in the Christian populace that has led many people to reorder their existence in expectation of an impending doom and the sudden, unexpected return of Jesus. In this book, William Powell Tuck carefully and authoritatively refutes the premises and faulty theology of the Left Behind books, critiquing them in the light of genuine biblical scholarship and common sense.

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There are a number of ministers today that are unaware of the characteristics of postmodernism and of how it affects our young people. This book is written for all who work with youth and young adults in ministry; be they youth minister, youth pastor, director of religious education, Sunday school teacher, high school or college campus minister, or pastor or pastoral associate. It is an introduction to and framework for youth ministry and postmodernism. By bringing together and synthesizing the present literature on postmodern theory and guides for youth ministry, this book begins the discussion and lays the groundwork for a more comprehensive model and study for the future of youth ministry with a postmodern generation together with ideas for the working youth minister to begin implementation today.

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