Community Building

As a response to the increasing violence in our culture, the widening ideological divides, and the growing gap in economic well-being, there is greater awareness that a deeper sense of community is desperately needed. But even as we acknowledge the need to build community, the dominant on-the-ground practices about how to engage people, civically and organizationally, remain essentially unchanged. We still believe community is built with better messaging, more persuasion, and social events for people to get to know each other better. All of which is naïve.

Never in the history of civilization have we been more connected and felt more alone. We are all so lonely. What if fundamentally the ways we have set up our lives is broken? We've withdrawn rather than moved through it. We want supper clubs and friends, instead of war partners. We have a wrong...

An authentic brand community is more than just people buying your product or working alongside one another. This audiobook articulates the critical roles of mutual concern, common values, and shared experiences in creating fiercely loyal customer and collaborator relationships. Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl argue that in an authentic and enriching community, members have mutual concern for one another, share personal values, and join together in meaningful shared experiences, whether online or off. On the deepest level, brands must help members grow into who they want to be.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE ECPA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD The author of Get Out of Your Head offers practical solutions for creating true community, the kind that’s crucial to our mental and spiritual health. “My dear friend Jennie Allen shows us how to make true emotional...

299 Days: The Community, the third book in the 299 Days series, reunites Grant Matson with his family after his wife, children, and in-laws accept that the only way to survive the Collapse is to flee the comfort of their suburban lives and join him at his isolated cabin in the woods. With riots becoming more violent, power outages more widespread, and the military crumbling, Grant and others throughout Washington State realize they must organize if they want to endure.

Leadership can be a blessing or a curse. It can help people rise up to a better life, or it can cause people to fall into despair. Become part of the solution by becoming a high-road leader. The world’s most influential leadership expert, John C. Maxwell, tackles the problem of our divided...

Where power is measured in cards, Arthur stands among the elite as a Legendary card wielder now forever linked to a frighteningly powerful dragon. Or Brixaby will be once he grows from the size of a parrot. Before that can happen, a chance encounter whisks Arthur and Brixaby away to a place they...

Ten years ago, Bell Hooks astonished readers/listeners with Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Now comes Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope - a powerful, visionary work that will enrich our teaching and our lives. Combining critical thinking about education with autobiographical narratives, hooks invites listeners to extend the discourse of race, gender, class and nationality beyond the classroom into everyday situations of learning. Bell Hooks writes candidly about her own experiences.

Are you feeling isolated, unseen, or unsure how to reconnect in a disconnected world? You're not alone—and there's hope. In Overcoming Loneliness: Strategies for Finding Joy and Building Community, therapist and pastoral counselor Leslie Parker Taylor draws from decades of experience and a deep well of compassion to guide readers through the complex emotional terrain of loneliness. Whether you're dealing with grief, major life transitions, social anxiety, or simply feeling out of step with others, this book offers clear insight and practical tools to help you move forward.

From a renowned psychiatrist comes the first book to explore the otrovert personality—someone who feels like an outsider in any group, regardless of its members—revealing all the advantages of being an otrovert and ways they contribute to the world. Were you the kid who never wanted to join...

A science-based, practical blueprint for cultivating a life—at work and at home—full of belonging, joy, and vitality, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code What is a meaningful life, and how do we make one? How do certain communities foster closeness, fulfillment...

The Art of Coaching Teams is the manual you never received when you signed on to lead a team. Being a great teacher is one thing, but leading a team, or team development, is an entirely different dynamic. Your successes are public, but so are your failures-and there's no specific rubric or curriculum to give you direction. Team development is an art form, and this book is your how-to guide to doing it effectively. You'll learn the administrative tasks that keep your team on track.

When does enlightenment come? At the end of the spiritual journey? Or the beginning? On After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, Jack Kornfield—author of the modern classic on American Buddhism, A Path with Heart—brings into focus the truth about satori, the awakened state of consciousness, and...

Using a new Legendary treasure-seeking card, Arthur and Brixaby travel to an unknown kingdom in search of a way to defeat the scourglings. They arrive in a land both familiar and strange. A continent where there have been no dragons for generations. One where human civilization now exists in...

Do you have a Third Place? Your first place is home, your second place is work, and your third place is where you go to socialize. As more of our lives are spent online and in digital spaces, these often overlooked "Third Places" play a crucial role in keeping our communities vibrant.

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER We all want to be known. Most of us just don’t know how to begin. When Jess Janz found herself craving deeper conversations—but trapped in a world of small talk—she took a leap. What started as a casual idea in a hair salon soon became Dinner With Strangers...

We can never forget that volunteering is a two-way street. Volunteers must be motivated, but volunteer organizations also need to maximize volunteer satisfaction. Blaming one or the other for the failures prevalent today in the world of Jewish volunteering helps no one. The search is for a win-win strategy.

Small Groups That Succeed. Small groups are the key to impacting lives in your church. But a healthy small-group environment—one that fosters meaningful, lasting connections—doesn’t just happen. So pull up a chair. Let’s talk about how to make it happen. Bill Willits and bestselling author Andy Stanley share their successful approach, which has resulted in nearly eight thousand adults becoming involved in small groups at North Point Community Church in Atlanta. Simply put, the five principles clearly described here have passed the test.

Introducing the 7 principles for practicing critical hope--because hope isn’t something you have; it’s something you do. Each person has a unique, ever-changing relationship to hope. Hope alone can be transformational--but in moments of despair, or when you’re up against profound injustice...

There Is Hope for Every Child, Every Parent, and Every Family Parenting under the best of circumstances can be difficult. And raising children who have come to your home from “hard places,” who have their own set of unique needs, brings even more challenges. You may have discovered that the...