English Church

In When the Church Harms God's People, Langberg unveils what she has learned about how churches cause harm and why Christian communities often foster unhealthy leaders who end up hurting rather than protecting God's people. She also offers hope for the future, describing how churches can reflect Christ not just in what they teach but also in how they care for themselves and others.

As an English-speaking denomination, Baptists originated within 17th-century Puritanism as an offshoot of Congregationalism. English Baptists migrated to the American colonies during the 17th century. During the 18th century, the Great Awakening resulted in the expansion of the denomination, and the conversion of many slaves to Baptist churches. Baptist congregations formed their first national organization the Triennial Convention in the early 1800.

With his creation of the infamous Church of Satan in 1966 and his bestselling book The Satanic Bible in 1969, Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997) became a controversial celebrity who basked in the attention and even made a successful career out of it. But who was Anton LaVey behind the public persona that so easily provoked Christians and others intolerant of his views?

On a cool June morning, Isa Wilde, a resident of the seemingly idyllic coastal village of Salten, is walking her dog along a tidal estuary. Before she can stop him, Isa's dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick - and to her horror, Isa discovers it's not a stick at all...but a human bone. As her three best friends from childhood converge in Salten to comfort a seriously shaken-up Isa, terrifying discoveries are made, and their collective history slowly unravels.

There is much at stake in God making humanity male and female. Created for one another yet distinct from each other, a man and a woman are not interchangeable — they are designed to function according to a divine fittedness. But when this design is misunderstood, ignored, or abused, there are dire consequences.

Blending firsthand accounts of tragedy with opportunity for raw self-examination and reflection, Vleisides delves into the realm of spirituality and belief amid loss and despair. For the "spiritual but not religious", who want to pursue God outside the walls of organized religion, Used to Go to Church is an invitation to rethink faith and open up to a life centered on grace, mercy, and love.

Drawing on the wisdom gleaned from thriving mega-churches and innovative business leaders while anchoring their vision in the Eucharistic center of Catholic faith, Fr. Michael White and lay associate Tom Corcoran present the compelling and inspiring story to how they brought their parish back to life. Rebuilt is a story of stopping everything and changing focus. When their parish reached a breaking point, Fr. Michael White and lay associate Tom Corcoran asked themselves how they could make the Church matter to Catholics.

Power has a God-given role in human relationships and institutions, but it can lead to abuse when used in unhealthy ways. Speaking into current #MeToo and #ChurchToo conversations, this book shows that the body of Christ desperately needs to understand the forms power takes, how it is abused, and how to respond to abuses of power.

Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help - not sabotage - those whom they desire to serve. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta, the voice of the Urban Perspectives newsletter, and the author of Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism for 40 years. His groundbreaking Toxic Charity shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.

The world hates the Church that Jesus founded, just as He said it would (John 15:18). It reviles her doctrines, mocks her moral teachings and invents lies about her history. In every age, but especially in our modern day, historians and political powers have distorted the facts about her past (or just made up novel falsehoods from scratch) to make the Church, and the civilization it fostered, seem corrupt, backward, or simply evil.

In this short, accessible account of the Eastern Orthodox Church, John McGuckin begins by tackling the question "What is the Church?" His answer is a clear, historically and theologically rooted portrait of what the Church is for Orthodox Christianity and how it differs from Western Christians' expectations.

The mission of the Church has always been to "go and make disciples of all people." But between "going" and "making" the Church has to Connect with people. The way disciples are made has not changed in 2000 years. But how we "go" and how we "connect" with people has changed dramatically in the 21st century.

What's the point of the church anyway? The emerging generation is opting out of the church in large numbers. They're embarrassed at how the church is portrayed in the media and dismayed at what appears to be their options for participation. Is church really necessary anymore? Is it even possible? Tim Soerens sees this unsettled state of affairs as an extraordinary opportunity: The church, he says, is on the edge of a new possibility at the very moment so much of it feels like it's falling apart.

The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue) Audio Bible is now available, ready for you to start listening to Scripture today. This audio Bible includes the entire New Testament so you can listen to Jesus’ own words and more. The NRSVue is intended to be as literal as possible so that the meaning of Scripture can be as clear to the lay person as it is to the dedicated biblical scholar.

In Sunday Matters, Paul David Tripp shares 52 devotions about the beauty and significance of church, helping Christians engage in vibrant gathered worship each week. Each short, accessible meditation highlights an essential spiritual topic, including divine grace, gratitude, our identity in Christ, and dependence on the Lord. Over the course of a year, Sunday Matters will strengthen each believer’s personal relationship with God and fill churches with joyful, engaged, and passionate worshipers.

Western civilization and the Christian church stand at a moment of great danger. Facing them both is a hurricane-force battle of ideas that will determine the future of Western civilization and the soul of the Christian church. The forces arrayed against the West and the church are destructive ideologies, policies, and worldviews deeply established among intellectual elites, the political class, and our schools. More menacingly, these forces have also invaded the Christian church.

Leaders in the church are called to be shepherds, not a board of directors. This requires involvement in a personal shepherding ministry among the people. The Shepherd Leader unpacks the four primary ministries of shepherds - knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting - on macro (churchwide) and micro (personal) levels, providing seven elements to be incorporated into an effective shepherding plan.

Practiced as a personal spirituality or in communion with others, Church of the Wild is more than a novel way to do church outside or declare nature your church. Expanding beyond religious and institutional boundaries, this book offers ways to rewild your spirituality no matter your spiritual heritage.

If you have suffered spiritual abuse from a toxic church, toxic organization, or toxic leader, your trust has been broken. You entrusted your life to someone you thought would care for you: someone who initially inspired you to know God, only to reject you in the end. Now you are left wounded and disillusioned, wondering if you can ever trust others, yourself, or possibly even God, again.

This deeply contextual biography centers on the tensions generated by the pope’s attempt to turn the Church away from power and tradition and outwards to engage humanity with God’s mercy. Through battles with corrupt bankers and worldly cardinals, in turbulent meetings and on global trips, history’s first Latin-American pope has attempted to reshape the Church to evangelize the contemporary age. At the same time, he has stirred other leaders’ deep-seated fear that the Church is capitulating to modernity.