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For centuries, Christians sought to rescue people from this world. Today, we're trying to fix it. While this shift is helpful in some ways, in other ways it can be quite dangerous. Endangered Gospel flips the script on this conversation by stressing the core gospel truth that rather than ushering in a new world through social activism, God's people already are the new world in Christ. It's not our job to make this world a better place, but to be the better place God has already made in this world. That's good news! If we let go of this truth, we become servants of the world and not God. We also lose the great joy and abundant life that God intended us to have in community. Jesus himself said that the world will know we are Christians by our love for one another–not the fervor of our activism. Social action makes us feel relevant and alive, but it can't be the center of our new life in Christ. Endangered Gospel explores how we might enthusiastically embrace the social dimensions of the gospel without divorcing them from the church or forcing them on the world. Read this book, hear the gospel story afresh, and embrace the good news of God's kingdom!

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Seed Falling on Good Soil is a unique book that combines a historically informed approach to Lucan parables with a critical understanding of social justice issues of our own age. The author proposes that the stories told by Jesus were narratives of resistance challenging audiences to participate in the personal and social transformation of God's kingdom. The author's experience in international community development provides a perspective rarely found among New Testament specialists. The book uses stories from the margins of our current world to connect the message of the parables with global issues of poverty, ethnic violence, gender discrimination, hunger and oppression. This book will appeal to people who long for the healing of a wounded world.

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In A Life of Dialogue: Love Letters to My Daughters, one finds an honest, unflinching, and authentic voice that creates a unique outlook on multiple sclerosis. Kramer juxtaposes the quest for spiritual awakening with hiding from the effects of his MS. In so doing, he offers poignant insights into living with an illness that is even now too little understood. Composed of short autobiographical letters to his two daughters, Kramer gracefully connects the personal with the universal, and the devastating emotions of MS with the unfinished joys of parenting–each bringing glimpses of new light. His spirituality informs seemingly mundane interactions with a refreshing candor. Turning toward others, trusting what is given, and responding openly, led him to becoming uniquely human in each interaction. This book is written in an uplifting and surprising way. It finds essential humanity through documenting triumphs within a life of ever-narrowing confines.

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This book posits that it is not possible for a civilization to maintain a human and humane culture without the assistance of religion. Religion can be misused or abused into having a negative effect, but an authentic religion, when properly managed, is the only effective source of durable, common, and humane values throughout society. Religion's assertion of the existence of God–who alone provides the transcendent power–is the only logical basis for asserting and maintaining common values for all people, going far above and beyond the indiscriminate and multifarious opinions of diverse and imperfect human beings. Some people can maintain certain values, derived from their own consciences, but human history and psychoanalysis shows that the majority of people cannot sustain a whole culture or civilization from a purely utilitarian and materialistic basis. Human nature is imperfect and needs the help of a transcendent power to support its spiritual needs in a humane society and to create a culture or civilization that lasts.

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Reframing the House continues the conversation of global theology as the future of the church. Jennifer Buck tells how women's voices from Africa, Asia, and Latin America serve as a critique of Evangelical theology of the church in the West. Three voices are highlights here from the Majority world: Mercy Oduyoye, a Ghanaian feminist theologian as representative of Africa; Kwok Pui-lan, a Chinese feminist theologian as representative of Asia; and Maria Pilar Aquino, a Mexican feminist theologian representative of the Americas. Working with these women along with Quaker, political, and feminist voices, this work presents a constructive global ecclesiology, exploring areas such as salvation, sin, peacemaking, and more.

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The four Gospels are the only books in the Bible to tell the same story from four different angles. Together, they show us not only what Jesus was like and how he lived, but how his life can become the model for our own. Four Gospels, One Christ offers an overview of the three years of Jesus' public ministry–what he did and how he did it–as seen through the eyes of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And by exploring the themes that run through the four Gospels, it invites us to reflect on what it really means to «follow Jesus.»

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The present study fills a gap in the study of the evangelical movement in Russia by presenting a comprehensive picture of their compassionate ministry during their longest stretch of relative freedom before the 1980s. Better known for their energetic preaching and literature work, Russian evangelicals also gave attention to compassionate ministry, although it was never extensive because of their marginal status. They established assistance funds, organized charitable institutions, practiced urban rescue ministry, participated in the Russian temperance movement, and established economic communities. Each area is distinct, yet all were supported by the same set of theological convictions. The Russian evangelicals were convinced that their witness should consist of good works as well as words, and that the gospel had the power to undo human suffering. While intentionally cultivating an attitude of concern for the needs of others, they taught that compassion was the concern of all members of the community, regardless of economic status or age. In their publications evangelicals devoted a good deal of teaching to the proper Christian attitude toward money and giving. They drew on Western models, but also their indigenous sectarian roots.

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What is a church? What makes a church a church? What is necessary to have a church? Is membership in a local church really that important? Might a group of people who claim to be Christians become so unlike what a church should be that they should no longer be called a church? Why are there so many churches of different traditions? What is tradition? Are the historical traditions of the church still relevant today? These and many others are questions related to the life and purpose of the church, which every Christian must wrestle with not only for themselves, as disciples of Jesus, but also for others to whom they are called to make disciples. One of the early confessions of the Christian church centers on the catholicity of the church–"we believe in the holy Catholic Church." It was Ignatius who first used the word catholic and rightly identified the church as the Catholic Church: «Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.» This book offers a fresh look at this important mark of the church from an evangelical perspective, and seeks to elucidate the life (being) and purpose (doing) of the church. The author believes that «catholicity is to the church as the Trinity is to God.» «We are Catholic» is a confession of our faith in Christ, our commitment to the unity of the church (local and universal)–anchored in the Word and in the Spirit–and our passion for the mission to all the nations as a community of disciples of Jesus Christ.

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Being a pastor has its rewards and pleasures. But churches can be unsafe places. They are filled with broken, imperfect people. Many ministers of the gospel walk into a church naive about the potential hazards of their vocation. They are vulnerable to difficult people, unresolved conflict, incompatible visions, hidden agendas, mission drift, and sin–their own and that of others. Other pastors feel trapped in a ministry hurricane and don't know what to do. They feel like failures. They're thinking about leaving the ministry. They are looking for help and hope–not from an «expert» detached from the real world of ministry–but from someone who has suffered through church hurricanes and lived to share the story. Moreover, they need to know they are not alone. Surviving Ministry: How to Weather the Storms of Church Leadership includes the author's own story as well as true stories from other pastors who have been in the eye of the hurricane. Discouraged ministers looking for biblical, practical, gospel-centered advice for storm proofing their churches, homes, and hearts have found a friend. Surviving Ministry will equip them to stay resilient before, during, and after seasons of difficulty.

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"Why are there so many different churches?" Tracing the family tree of the modern church back to the early Christian centuries, The Extended Family explains how and why the various Christian denominations arose. It outlines the distinctive beliefs, traditions, practices, and values of the many church families in modern Britain, what they have in common, and where they have either disagreed or agreed to differ. It also examines the vital question: whether any of the differences between churches should still matter today.

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