-
The Gospel Driven Church : Retrieving Classical Ministries for Contemporary Revivalism
Church & Leadership, LeadershipCharismatic renewal has at the core of its ideology an aspiration for revival. This is a laudable aspiration, but in recent years, in the absence of a large-scale evangelistic impact, it has encouraged a faddist mentality among church leaders. The Gospel-Driven Church documents this development and the numerous theological and pastoral distortions that take place when genuine revival fervor transmutes into revivalism. Moreover, Stackhouse aims to show how a retrieval of some of the core practices of the church, such as preaching, sacraments, the laying on of hands, and prayer is essential at this crucial stage in the trajectory of the renewal movement in the United Kingdom. He commends to church leaders a recovery of these means of grace - including Spirit baptism - as a way of keeping the church centered on the gospel rather than mere pragmatic concerns about size and numbers.£9.99 -
Discovering Kenarchy : Contemporary Resources for the Politics of Love
Culture & MissionThis book is a bold attempt to present a love-based personal and corporate politics fit for the coming decades of the twenty-first century. Taking as its starting point the love for friends, neighbors, and enemies embodied in the life of Jesus and recognized both inside and outside the church, this book sets out a contemporary practical politics called kenarchy that has already positively impacted many lives. Its contributors set out the key components of kenarchy, challenging the reader to confront the norms of personal rights, security, and economic gain with a love for "the other" that restores a female world perspective lost over generations of patriarchal dominance. Discovering Kenarchy is the promised response to the inevitable disintegration of the partnership of church and sovereign power outlined in its companion volume, The Fall of the Church. It is an inspirational resource for all those who desire to fill the emerging new political space with a loving, just, and practical alternative to the devaluation of human life by global capitalism and the reactionary religious and racist behavior that threatens the common good. "The authors of Discovering Kenarchy, in combining the concept of kenotic love with the '-archy' of order and relation in socio-political structures, have succeeded in both opening and enlarging the familiar radical inversions and apparent paradoxes of Jesus' teaching. Dismantling the conventionally understood exercise of sovereign power as the only means to peace, the book explores the self-emptying love expressed in the command to love your enemy, and its potential in our own troubled and violent times for transforming the inherently conflictual into a new politics of peace. That is an appeal which reaches far beyond the Christian and the theologian." --Jill Segger, Associate Director, Ekklesia, London, UK£12.00 -
Theology After Christendom: forming prophets for a post-Christian world
Culture & MissionChristianity must be understood not as a religion of private salvation, but as a gospel movement of universal compassion, which transforms the world in the power of God's truth. Amid several major global crises, including the rise of terrorism and religious fundamentalism and a sudden resurgence of political extremism, Christians must now face up fearlessly to the challenges of living in a "post-truth" age in which deceitful politicians present their media-spun fabrications as "alternative facts." This book is an attempt to enact a transformative theology for these changing times that will equip the global Christian community to take a stand for the gospel in an age of cultural despair and moral fragmentation. The emerging post-Christendom era calls for a new vision of Christianity that has come of age and connects with the spiritual crisis of our times. In helping to make this vision a reality, Searle insists that theology is not merely an academic discipline, but a transformative enterprise that changes the world. Theology is to be experienced not just behind a desk, in an armchair, or in a church, but also in hospitals, in foodbanks, in workplaces, and on the streets. Theology is to be lived as well as read£23.99 -
A Future and a Hope: Mission, Theological Education, and the Transformation of Post-Soviet Society
Culture & Mission, Everyday LifeAfter more than twenty years since the fall of the USSR, the evangelical movement in post-Soviet society has entered a crucial phase in its historical development. Setting out a transformative vision of mission and theological education, this book makes an important contribution towards the renewal of the church in this fascinating--but deeply troubled--part of the world. After the violent and disruptive events that followed the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity and Freedom in 2013/14, the evangelical movement in post-Soviet society now has an unprecedented opportunity to become a shining example of a "church without walls." Searle and Cherenkov reflect on the political, social, cultural, and intellectual legacy of the Soviet Union and offer bold and innovative proposals on how the church can rediscover its prophetic voice by relinquishing its debilitating dependence on the state and, instead, expressing solidarity with the people in their legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy. Notwithstanding the pessimism and lament expressed on many pages, the authors conclude on a positive note, predicting that the coming years will witness a flowering of evangelical ecumenism in action as Christian solidarity flourishes and overflows denominational boundaries and parochial interests.£15.99 -
Carnival Kingdom
Culture & Mission, Everyday LifeThe first Christians lived out a new social order and envisaged the world anew. Divisions, inequalities and injustices would be overturned as the world would reflect a new kind of reign. In the Kingdom of God, the powerful are brought low, while the oppressed are raised up; the hungry are filled with good things, while the rich are sent empty away; the wolf lives with the lamb, and the leopard lies down with the goat; the slave becomes the son, the master is the servant of all and the meek will inherit the earth. This same upside-down Kingdom is echoed in the Carnival festivals of the Medieval era, which both parodied the oppressive structures of their day and dramatically portrayed an alternative reality. In this book, twelve scholars, theologians, and social activists from around the world take up the Carnival's call for justice and a renewed society, and portray in their own contexts the Kingdom of God coming in justice and fullness of life - the coming of the Carnival Kingdom.£12.99 -
The Pilgrim’s Regress
Everyday Life, Spiritual GrowthC. S. Lewis here offers wisdom and lessons that illuminate our private dialogue with God-prayer-in this collection drawn from the breadth of his writings. The revered teacher and bestselling author of such classic Christian works as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis here offers wisdom and lessons that illuminate our private dialogue with God-prayer-in this collection drawn from the breadth of his writings. C. S. Lewis's insights on Christianity and his reflections on Christian life continue to guide us more than fifty years after his death. How to Pray showcases Lewis's enduring wisdom on prayer and its place in our daily lives. Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works, How to Pray provides practical wisdom and instruction to help readers nurture their spiritual beliefs and embrace prayer in all its forms. While many people would like to speak to God, they often don't know how to begin. Lewis guides them through the practice, illuminating the significance of prayer and why it is central to faith.£8.99 -
Compelling Reason: essays on ethics and theology
Everyday Life, Scripture & Prayer, Spiritual GrowthC. S. Lewis here offers wisdom and lessons that illuminate our private dialogue with God-prayer-in this collection drawn from the breadth of his writings. The revered teacher and bestselling author of such classic Christian works as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis here offers wisdom and lessons that illuminate our private dialogue with God-prayer-in this collection drawn from the breadth of his writings. C. S. Lewis's insights on Christianity and his reflections on Christian life continue to guide us more than fifty years after his death. How to Pray showcases Lewis's enduring wisdom on prayer and its place in our daily lives. Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works, How to Pray provides practical wisdom and instruction to help readers nurture their spiritual beliefs and embrace prayer in all its forms. While many people would like to speak to God, they often don't know how to begin. Lewis guides them through the practice, illuminating the significance of prayer and why it is central to faith.£8.99 -
How to Pray : Reflections and Essays
Everyday Life, Scripture & Prayer, The Inner JourneyC. S. Lewis here offers wisdom and lessons that illuminate our private dialogue with God-prayer-in this collection drawn from the breadth of his writings. The revered teacher and bestselling author of such classic Christian works as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis here offers wisdom and lessons that illuminate our private dialogue with God-prayer-in this collection drawn from the breadth of his writings. C. S. Lewis's insights on Christianity and his reflections on Christian life continue to guide us more than fifty years after his death. How to Pray showcases Lewis's enduring wisdom on prayer and its place in our daily lives. Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works, How to Pray provides practical wisdom and instruction to help readers nurture their spiritual beliefs and embrace prayer in all its forms. While many people would like to speak to God, they often don't know how to begin. Lewis guides them through the practice, illuminating the significance of prayer and why it is central to faith.£12.99 -
How to Be a Christian : Reflections and Essays
Everyday Life, The Inner JourneyHow to Be a Christian brings together the best of Lewis's insights on Christian practice and its expression in our daily lives. Cultivated from his many essays, articles, and letters, as well as his classic works. From the revered teacher and best-selling author of such classic Christian works as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters comes a collection that gathers the best of C. S. Lewis's practical advice on how to embody a Christian life. The most famous adherent and defender of Christianity in the twentieth century, C. S. Lewis has long influenced our perceptions and understanding of the faith. More than fifty years after his death, Lewis's arguments remain extraordinarily persuasive because they originate from his deep insights into the Christian life itself. Only an intellectual of such profound faith could form such cogent and compelling reasons for its truth. By provoking readers to more carefully ponder their faith, How to Be a Christian can help readers forge a deeper understanding of their personal beliefs and what is means to be a Christian, and strengthen their profound relationship with God.£12.99 -
In the Heart of the Temple: my spiritual vision for today’s world
Everyday Life, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyHighly provocative and practical spiritual writing on today's most pressing issues The spiritual vision that emerges in this book is a spirituality of both action and contemplation. For to be at the heart of the temple without being in the heart of the world, the author believes, is at most only half a spiritual life. Rather we are required to see what is going on around us and to do everything we can to square it with the will of a loving God for the world God created. Both highly provocative and immensely practical, In the Heart of the Temple addresses today's most pressing questions, challenging readers of every religious and political persuasion to personal, spiritual, social and moral change.£10.99 -
Forgetful Heart : Remembering God in a Distracted World
Culture & Mission, Everyday Life, The Inner JourneyWe live in a world full of distractions, where lack of time and the pressures of daily living contribute to our spiritual lives becoming sometimes treated with less priority, sometimes forgotten altogether. This is a book for the forgetful-hearted; those who frequently forget God in their lives, even when they desperately want to remember him. Lucy Mills asks what it means to remember God? Here she suggests that it is about more than simply `knowing' things - it is about how we live. Forgetful Heart is a beautifully-written book, full of personal testimony, biblical reflection and practical challenges and advice.£9.99 -
Undivided Heart : Finding Meaning and Motivation in Christ
Scripture & Prayer, The Inner Journey`"Give me an undivided heart."`Something in my soul has always been snagged by that phrase in Psalm 86. Something in it speaks to me of my own heart division, my own disarray. It captures a deeper longing, beyond the surface chatter of my mind. I find, amid the muddle that is me, that there is something - someone - calling me on, gathering together my disparate, fraying threads and weaving them into a story greater than I could ever perceive.'Why do we do what we do? What makes us who we are? And what could make us more?In Undivided Heart, Lucy Mills digs deep in search of an understanding of human identity, purpose and living by faith, asking what the influences are that shape us and define us. She explores what it might mean to have an undivided heart - to live a life compelled by Christ's love, undistracted by all other motives. This is not a book of easy answers. It is a book of deep questioning, of relationship, honesty and encounter, counter-cultural in our age of social media, soundbite news and mass communication. But God can meet us in our confusion and distraction as much as in our certainty. Join Lucy on her exploration of this demanding, fragmented life, and the quest for a faith that is deeper, stronger and undivided.£12.99
