The Living Church

The Living Church

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  • Author: John Stott
  • Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
  • ISBN: 1844747654
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 130

What exactly is a living church? Author John Stott explains, 'We need more radically conservative churches: "conservative" in the sense that they conserve what Scripture plainly requires, but radical in relation to that combination of tradition and convention that we call 'culture'. Scripture is unchangeable, but culture is not.' 'The Living Church' brings together a number of characteristics of what the author calls 'authentic' or 'living' church. The marks, being clearly biblical, are timeless and need to be preserved. We are encouraged to become learning churches, caring churches, worshipping churches and evangelising churches. John Stott unpacks the Bible's wisdom rigorously with a teacher's skill and applies it faithfully with a pastor's heart. Becoming a living church is not an impossible goal.


Understanding Homosexuality

Understanding Homosexuality

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  • Author: David N. Glesne
  • Publisher: Kirk House Publishers
  • ISBN: 9781886513952
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 196

This book is born out of the experience of one ministering in a congregational setting to the joys and sorrows of people struggling with a variety of life issues— including homosexual experiences. The author addresses the critical questions regarding homosexuality from within the setting of the local church and seeks answers that are consistent with Scriptures and historic Christianity.


The Meaning of Protestant Theology

The Meaning of Protestant Theology

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  • Author: Phillip Cary
  • Publisher: Baker Academic
  • ISBN: 1493416677
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 351

This book offers a creative and illuminating discussion of Protestant theology. Veteran teacher Phillip Cary explains how Luther's theology arose from the Christian tradition, particularly from the spirituality of Augustine. Luther departed from the Augustinian tradition and inaugurated distinctively Protestant theology when he identified the gospel that gives us Christ as its key concept. More than any other theologian, Luther succeeds in carrying out the Protestant intention of putting faith in the gospel of Christ alone. Cary also explores the consequences of Luther's teachings as they unfold in the history of Protestantism.


The Three Conversions of the Christian Life

The Three Conversions of the Christian Life

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  • Author: Kevin E. Martin
  • Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
  • ISBN: 1666733792
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 74

Christianity is a religion of conversion, but what is conversion? This book explores the fullness of the Christian life and the threefold turnings that it demands of Jesus’ followers. Starting with St. Paul while looking in detail at his Damascus Road experience and examining the remarkable lives of exemplary Christians, the authors unfold dynamics of conversion and call all followers to grow deeper in their discipleship.


Missa Est!

Missa Est!

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  • Author: Eugene R. Schlesinger
  • Publisher: Fortress Press
  • ISBN: 1506418597
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 300

The twenty-first-century church cannot afford to neglect mission. When church and culture no longer share a common outlook, the only way forward is mission. Pope Francis recognizes this in his call for a missionary conversion of the church. Responding to this invitation, is a constructive work in ecclesiology addressing the relationship between liturgy and mission in the church's life. It advances a notion of the church grounded in both liturgy and mission, where neither is subordinated to nor collapsed into the other. The church's liturgical rites disclose and enact the church's identity as a missionary community. Close examination of the sources at the heart of traditional communion ecclesiology: Trinitarian theology, the sacraments of initiation, and eucharistic theology, yields an ecclesiology in which the church is constituted by both liturgy and mission. These are two distinct ways of participating in the triune life of God, which is revealed in the paschal mystery. The church's pilgrimage to God's kingdom takes it through the world in mission. The church, as the body of Christ, is given away to God and to the world, for the world's salvation. The result is a contemporary restatement of traditional ecclesiology, transposed into a missional key.


The Household of God

The Household of God

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  • Author: Lesslie Newbigin
  • Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
  • ISBN: 1606082221
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 157

This book discusses the question that the author regards as central in the present ecumenical debate: the nature of the Church itself. He thus describes the plan of theÊbook: The First chapter sketches the present context of the discussion and touches on the Biblical meaning of the word Church. The next three chapters examine the three answers to the central question, which may be roughly categorizedÊ as Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal. The last two chapters argue that the Church is only to be understood in a perspective that is at once eschatologicalÊand missionary, the perspective of the ends of the earth. Bishop Newbigin's evaluations are provacative, scholarly, and filled with profound passion and insight. He is concerned with the searching questions men today are asking: Is there in truth a family of God on earth to which I can belong, a place where all men can be truly at home? If so, where is it to be found and how is it that those who claim to be spokesmen of that holy fellowshipÊare themselves at war with one another as to the fundamentals of its nature? I think there is no more urgent theological task than to try to give plain and simple answers. This he does, drawing deeply upon biblicalÊsources.


Love is the Way

Love is the Way

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  • Author: Bishop Michael Curry
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • ISBN: 052554304X
  • Category : Self-Help
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 273

Walk the path of love with one of the warmest, most beloved spiritual leaders of our time, and learn how to put faith into action. As the descendant of slaves and the son of a civil rights activist, Bishop Michael Curry's life illustrates massive changes in our times. Much of the world met Bishop Curry when he delivered his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Here, he expands on his message of hope in an inspirational road map for living the way of love, illuminated with moving lessons from his own life. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey, Love Is the Way shows us how America came this far and, more important, how to go a whole lot further. The way of love is essential for addressing the seemingly insurmountable challenges facing the world today: poverty, racism, selfishness, deep ideological divisions, competing claims to speak for God. This book will lead readers to discover the gifts they need in order to live the way of love: deep reservoirs of hope and resilience, simple wisdom, the discipline of nonviolence, and unshakable regard for human dignity.


Holiness and Desire

Holiness and Desire

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  • Author: Jessica Martin
  • Publisher: Canterbury Press
  • ISBN: 1786221284
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 104

What if the problem with desire is not that we want what we can’t have, but that we don’t want it enough? What if desire itself - the gap between wanting and having - is the key to living well? Holiness and Desire explores these questions, considering what a distinctive holiness might look like in our highly sexualized modern culture.


Your Living Compass

Your Living Compass

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  • Author: Scott Stoner
  • Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
  • ISBN: 0819229407
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 177

If Barbara Brown Taylor and Steven Covey ever wrote a book together, this might be the book! Living Compass is a church-based faith and wellness program designed for individuals and small groups. Readers engage in a 10-week, self-guided wellness retreat, consisting of daily ten-minute readings, plus small, meaningful action steps designed for getting “your life, your relationships, and your work headed in a new direction,” according to the author. Deeply spiritual and exceedingly practical, this book joins the national Living Compass network, which includes a website, workshop series, wellness resources (including a free Living Well with Living Compass app), social media, and soon, a new multi-million-dollar wellness center to be located in the offices of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Structured holistic wellness program for individuals and groups based on a highly successful retreat model developed by priest-psychologist. Builds on the national network of Living Compass workshops, presentations, and publications, and soon, a multi-million faith and wellness center in Chicago. Each chapter includes questions for reflection.


Church of the Wild

Church of the Wild

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  • Author: Victoria Loorz
  • Publisher: Broadleaf Books
  • ISBN: 1506469655
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 262

2024 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner in "Religion / Spirituality of Western Thought" CategoryWinner of the Living Now Book Award, Church of the Wild reminds us that once upon a time, humans lived in an intimate relationship with nature. Whether disillusioned by the dominant church or unfulfilled by traditional expressions of faith, many of us long for a deeper spirituality. Victoria Loorz certainly did. Coping with an unraveling vocation, identity, and planet, Loorz turned to the wanderings of spiritual leaders and the sanctuary of the natural world, eventually cofounding the Wild Church Network and Seminary of the Wild. With an ecospiritual lens on biblical narratives and a fresh look at a community larger than our own species, Church of the Wild uncovers the wild roots of faith and helps us deepen our commitment to a suffering earth by falling in love with it--and calling it church. Through mystical encounters with wild deer, whispers from a scrubby oak tree, wordless conversation with a cougar, and more, Loorz helps us connect to a love that literally holds the world together--a love that calls us into communion with all creatures.