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The Other Side of Chaos : Breaking through when life is breaking down
Everyday Life, Leadership, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyYour children have left home, you have lost your job, you have had to move to a strange town, your partner has died ... Every life is filled with changes and transitions. In The Other Side of Chaos, the popular writer and speaker Margaret Silf takes us on a journey through the pitfalls and the opportunities of change. Transitions may be awkward and uncomfortable, but they also put into places where new life can flourish. Silf invites us to embrace the inevitability of upheaval, and shows us how the leaving of our comfort zone can become an invitation to set ourselves free. Through stories and examples and down-to earth tips, she shows us how we can live our transitions constructively and creatively. `We will discover what new growth may be sprouting in our lives only if we risk the journey that takes us, like reluctant time travellers, hurtling through the uncharted universe of change.'£9.99 -
Daring Greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead
Church & LeadershipEvery time we are introduced to someone new, try to be creative or start a difficult conversation, we take a risk. We feel uncertain and exposed. We feel vulnerable. Most of us try to fight those feelings - we strive to appear perfect. In a powerful new vision Dr. Brené Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability, and dispels the widely accepted myth that it's a weakness. She argues that vulnerability is in fact a strength, and when we shut ourselves off from revealing our true selves we grow distanced from the things that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. Daring Greatly is the culmination of twelve years of groundbreaking social research across the home, relationships, work, and parenting. It is an invitation to be courageous; to show up and let ourselves be seen, even when there are no guarantees. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.£9.99 -
When God is Silent
Influences & Suggested Reading, Leadership, The Inner Journey“Barbara Brown Taylor’s concise, pithy and challenging prose is evidence that she is practicing what she preaches:that Christian pastors take more care with the words they use and treat language with economy, courtesy and reverence. . . .She offers concrete and practical suggestions for ways to improve our relationship with both silence and the words God has given us.” - KATHLEEN NORRIS, for Christian Century Renowned minister Barbara Brown Taylor focuses on the task of preaching in a world where people thirst for communication with a God who often seems to be silent. Originally delivered as the 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures in preaching at Yale Divinity School, When God is Silent addresses questions essential not only to preachers, but also to anyone yearning to hear from God.£12.99 -
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith
Church & Leadership, Everyday Life, Influences & Suggested Reading, The Inner JourneyIn the words of Frederick Buechner: 'This beautiful book is rich with wit and humanness and honesty and loving detail. It is a book about the wonderful mess of being alive in this world, and about the wonderful and terrible things that happen to us in it, and about the dream of God. I cannot overstate how liberating and transforming I have founs Leaving Church to be.'£12.99 -
Embracing Chaos
LeadershipUnderstanding the importance of chaos and complexity is well established in the sciences, and increasingly impinges on everyday life. But how does it affect our understanding of leadership and theology? This wide-ranging study looks at the key elements of chaos theory, and makes helpful connections with the practical issues of leadership within and beyond ministry.£3.95 -
A Generous Orthodoxy
Church & Leadership, Culture & Mission, Re-imagining ChurchA confessional manifesto from a senior leader in the emerging church movement, A Generous Orthodoxy calls for a radical, Christ-centred orthodoxy of faith and practice in a missional, generous spirit. Brian McLaren argues for a post-liberal, post-conservative, post-protestant convergence that will stimulate lively interest and global conversation among thoughtful Christians from all traditions. In a sweeping exploration of belief, author Brian McLaren takes us across the landscape of faith, envisioning an orthodoxy that aims for Jesus, is driven by love, and is defined by missional intent. A Generous Orthodoxy rediscovers the mysterious and compelling ways that Jesus can be embraced across the entire Christian horizon. Rather than establishing what is and is not 'orthodox', McLaren walks through the many traditions of faith, bringing to the centre a way of life that draws us closer to Christ and to each other. Whether you find yourself inside, outside or somewhere on the fringe of Christianity, A Generous Orthodoxy draws you toward a way of living that looks beyond the 'us/them' paradigm to the blessed and ancient paradox of 'we'.£8.99Rated 5.00 out of 5 -
Searching for Sunday: loving, leaving and finding the church
Church & Leadership, Everyday Life, Re-imagining Church, Seasons of Life, The Inner JourneyNew York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans embarks on a quest to find out what it really means to be part of the Church. Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals-church culture seemed so far removed from Jesus. Yet, despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing her back to Church. And so she set out on a journey to understand Church and to find her place in it. Centered around seven sacraments, Evans' quest takes readers through a liturgical year with stories about baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, vocation, and death that are funny, heartbreaking, and sharply honest. A memoir about making do and taking risks, about the messiness of community and the power of grace, Searching for Sunday is about overcoming cynicism to find hope and, somewhere in between, Church.£12.99 -
Struggling with God: mental health and Christian spirituality
Church & Leadership, Everyday Life, The Inner Journey'Remarkably beautiful and pastoral' JUSTIN WELBY, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 'Brimming with wisdom and humanity' DAME SARAH MULLALLY, DBE, BISHOP OF LONDON Struggling with God gets right to the heart of a great predicament for many Christians. When it feels as if our struggles are overwhelming - and our capacity for faith and hope and love is diminished - how is it possible to maintain, never mind nourish, our relationship with God? The truth, as this deeply compassionate volume reminds us, is that Jesus came alongside people wrestling with mental health problems. Many familiar conditions, such as anxiety and depression, and more severe ones, including bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia, are addressed by the authors here. Dispelling common myths and misconceptions, they explore the impact such mental health disorders can have on individual Christians, Church and society.. Each chapter includes biblical reflections relevant to its theme, prayers, questions to facilitate individual/group study, and pointers to further reading. In short, the book presents a Christian vision of spiritual and mental wellbeing through prayerful struggling with God.£14.99 -
Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: Re-shaping the Church for a Changed World
Culture & MissionThe most devastating experience of God's people in the Old Testament was the exile. But rather than destroying them, it resulted in them emerging from it with a fresh understanding of God and committed to new ways of worshipping him. For many churches and individual Christians, the Covid pandemic has also been a form of exile. How far have we emerged with fresh understanding of our faith, new ways of being and doing church, a reinvigorated commitment to the mission task? Mission, particularly the clear proclamation of the Gospel, is the core task of the church, our response to Jesus' Great Commission to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). Every individual Christian has their part to play in this, learning how to sing the Lord's song (the gospel) effectively in our current context, which is not always entirely friendly. Every Christian community, every local church, needs to be able to sing the same song through the quality of their life together. Whenever new people join us, we need to offer them a positive experience: comfortable facilities, meaningful worship, relevant teaching, and, above all, a genuine, warm welcome. Without this, any message we may proclaim is likely to fall on deaf ears.£14.99 -
Geography of Grace
Culture & Mission, Re-imagining ChurchHow do we make sense of God's love among the urban poor, and among the rest of us who are hungry for good news in the hard and sometimes forgotten places of our own lives? Rocke and Van Dyke invite us to discover for ourselves the unexpected nature of grace among those who have been labelled the least, last and lost-and their inextricable link to the forgotten and disturbing stories in the Bible. Graphic but never gratuitous, Rocke and Van Dyke are lyrical, poetic, irreverent, and playful. They are as rigorous in their study of applied theology as they are accessible in their storytelling. The authors share their own discovery of that which has been "hidden since the foundations of the earth," and they do it by standing with those who have stood alone, finding joy in being counted among the transgressors. They offer a new kind of orthodoxy that is as old as the gospel itself. Far from a dogmatic theology, the burden of this book is uncommonly light, but it is not without its demands. If you are up for a life-changing adventure, then get ready to "assume the risks."£12.99 -
Reading the Bible with the Damned
Leadership, Scripture & Prayer, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyExploring the challenges that both the churched and the unchurched have faced regarding giving and receiving the word of God, Bob Ekblad encourages us all to learn to read the Bible together as a whole. In this compelling book, he reflects on how Christians have often found it difficult to proclaim God's good news to every realm of society, while those who have needed it most have frequently deemed themselves unworthy due to social circumstances or sinfulness. In Reading the Bible with the Damned, Ekblad offers concrete advice on how to bridge this gap through a variety of insights ultimately leading to spiritual transformation. This book is full of examples of how Scripture changes lives for those who attend Bible studies and for those who lead them, offering practical suggestions on many passages from the Old and New Testaments.£16.99 -
The Anointing to Heal
Church & LeadershipAnointing to Heal is imperative reading for all individuals, churches or groups who wish to be involved in Jesus ministry of preaching the Kingdom and healing the sick.£7.99Original price was: £7.99.£5.99Current price is: £5.99.