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All over Canada, from coast to coast, there is new life in the Christian church. In spite of declining numbers, every Christian tradition has stories to tell of new ministries, fledgling Christian communities, and fresh expressions of church springing up, sometimes in unlikely places. Here, seventeen authors with experience in areas such as church revitalization, innovative ministry, evangelism, and church planting, reflect on what they are seeing and how the lessons they have learned can guide us into ways of health and vitality. They tell us about immigrant churches and indigenous ministries, about youth research and environmental concerns, about churches in the city and churches in the country, about leadership and spirituality. Scattered throughout the book are ten exciting stories of new ministries and new churches, from different traditions and different parts of the country, all seeking to engage their communities with the Gospel. Does the church in Canada have a future? The answer these authors give is a resounding yes–green shoots can grow out of dry ground–if we are prepared to rise to the challenge and follow where the Spirit of God leads. This book is timely, comprehensive, challenging, and deeply encouraging.

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"McGill has the power to make ideas, concepts, differing perspectives vivid–to 'in-flesh' them. . . .Then comes the «switch» or reversal or inversion empowered by the very confrontation McGill has arranged. . . . McGill leaves only the demonic as the object of our worship. Just when we supposed that he was about to come to the defense of this «world-governing, background God,» he dismisses such a God, leaving us with the demonic, leaving us room to affirm our own doubts and perplexities, leaving us with a harsher formulation than we might have ventured, leaving us attentive to what he is going to do next and to where he is going to lead us. Because by now we are following him." –From the «Introduction.»

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God seeks our attention and relationship in so many ways. Figuring out how to notice, listen, and respond to God as we move through the daily exercises of our life is the stuff of our spiritual journey. For centuries we have practiced and shared some of our favorite and most fulfilling methods for relating with God and allowing that partnership to inform and transform our lives. Some methods work better than others. Probably the best for each of us are ones we tailor to meet our individual needs.
In Wednesday Wonderings Gary Nelson invites the reader into his own spiritual journey through the lens of the camera he carries with him. He has experimented with many methods and discovered that the camera lens often provides him one of the best means to notice, listen, and respond to God. The camera offers the opportunity to wonder about life lived in relationship with God and others. Through the process this pastor and pastoral counselor's devotions, called Wednesday Wonderings, offer helpful insights for life and an invitation for all of us to find our own means to wonder.

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In a period of tumultuous transition for the church as it moves out of the Christendom era and into the unknowns of the post-Christian era, it is strange that so little has been written about the church's calling out of the dominion of darkness (Satan) and into the kingdom of Light (or, God's dear Son). The very word ecclesia speaks of a people «called out.» In the New Testament the theme of spiritual warfare is ubiquitous, and yet is relegated to the margins in our present cultural whitewater. In The Church and the Relentless Darkness, Robert Henderson approaches the topic of spiritual warfare directly, and focuses on its manifestation in local Christian communities. Using the Letter to the Ephesian Christians as his base, Henderson portrays the relentless darkness that comes with all satanic subtlety on unsuspecting communities, but he brings with this a message of hope and encouraging disciplines.

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The emotional separation of boys from their mothers in early childhood enables them to connect with their fathers and their fathers' world. But this separation also produces a melancholic reaction of sadness and sense of loss. Certain religious sensibilities develop out of this melancholic reaction, including a sense of honor, a sense of hope, and a sense of humor. Realizing that they cannot return to their original maternal environment, men, whether knowingly or not, embark on a lifelong search for a sense of being at home in the world. At Home in the World focuses on works of art as a means to explore the formation and continuing expression of men's melancholy selves and their religious sensibilities. These explorations include such topics as male viewers' mixed feelings toward the maternal figure, physical settings that offer alternatives to the maternal environment, and the maternal resonances of the world of nature. By presenting images of the natural world as the locus of peace and contentment, At Home in the World especially reflects of the religious sensibility of hope.

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Secular contemporary development discourse deals with the problems of societal development and transformation by prioritizing the human good in terms of vital and social values with the aim of providing the basic necessities of life through social institutions that work. While such an approach is profitable by promoting economic growth, it does not take note of other dynamics of social progress and development. Also, it fails to notice the consequences of development strategies on human flourishing, well-being, and happiness.
Ogbonnayu argues for an integral approach to development by engaging in a fruitful dialogue between Bernard Lonergan's philosophical anthropology with contemporary development discourse, as represented in select theories of development, and in select principles of Catholic social teaching. It makes a case for social progress and transformation as emanating from human understanding. Also, it highlights the parts of Lonergan's theory that contribute to an understanding, specifically of his treatment of bias, and of the shorter and longer cycles of societal decline. In view of the reality of moral impotence and limitations, it considers the reversal of societal decline as possible through the supernatural solution of God's grace.

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Integrating counseling–theory and practice–with the biblical revelation has now been attempted many times and with considerable success. However, in Walking Alongside, Bill Andersen has attacked the connection from a different angle. His starting point is what the Bible says about people, and God's relationship with them. He has chosen, from biblical theology, major features that should characterize Christian life, and has used these as presuppositions for any form of people-helping, but especially for counseling. From here the task has been to trace their therapeutic effects in the lives of those human beings needing such help.

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The person of exile may be considered a wanderer, a nomad, a refugee, or a rebel. People of exile can be the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the outcast, the left out, and the pushed away. Different terms are used, but what defines them all is separation. Exile is a dangerous and dominant theme that runs through Scripture, through the lives of the people of Israel, and through the universal church. Women who have known the sacred place of exile are uniquely qualified to form a women's mission.
The case is made for a momentum shift in missiological thinking. There is a desperate and aching need for a women's mission, which could lead the way to a women's missionary movement. The emergence of such a mission/movement is indeed fraught with skepticism and suspicion from many of those inside the church and leaders in the missionary world. But the radical, disruptive, costly following of Jesus to those «outside the camp» is our calling.

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This book offers a swift trek through two millennia of Christendom, with all the information provided by boring textbooks. The author presents the Christian story within the framework of a warning of Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount: «You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt becomes dumb, with what shall one salt?» (Matt 5:13). The story is told with wit, spiked by satire and a gallows humor. There are three chapters (symbolizing the Trinity), each encompassing seven centuries (symbolizing the seven days of creation), with four parts in each chapter (symbolizing the four Gospels). Chapter headings and subtitles are eye-catchers, such as «Edifice Complex» for the Middle Ages with its zeal for architectural and sacramental edification. Idiosyncratic features are highlighted, like the «pillar saints,» monks who spent their lives on pillars in the desert; «castrated believers,» who experienced the procedure as a refinement of penance; and competing popes, who succumbed to secular pleasures. Word plays, the wisdom of proverbs, and «dumb» Christian ways prevent readers from getting bored. A witty preface and a serious epilogue provide food for new insights.

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In a world where advertisements lead us to hope for a life free from suffering, facing the reality of suffering can be a particular challenge. Yet the reality of suffering is one that we all face in the course of our lives. While Christianity often has the reputation of a tradition that promotes the idea that all suffering is good for you and makes you a better person, there is, in fact, much more variety and nuance to the tradition. While there are those who advocate a wholesale acceptance, there are others who question the source of suffering and call for it to be fought against. This book delves into the world of five theologians–Gregory the Great, Julian of Norwich, Jeremy Taylor, C. S. Lewis and Ivone Gebara–to understand their perspectives and draw on their approaches as a way of understanding what Christian responses to suffering look like. This book constructs a contemporary theology that affirms the importance of the call to combat unjust suffering through acts of love and mercy, while also affirming that acceptance of the reality of endemic suffering, found in all five theologians, can provide us with opportunities to grow spiritually, live more faithfully and to experience the blessings in the midst of suffering that are a foretaste of heavenly bliss.

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