Family Ministry

Sixty-eight stories that will inspire you to bless a child's life. Do you remember that one moment (or maybe there were several) that changed your life when you were a child - and shaped part of who you are today? Does it bring a smile to your face? Tears to your eyes? A wistful gaze back through time? We all have those stories and we can all, now, make those stories happen!

What does it take to be a great dad? The world is full of examples of men who weren’t there for their kids. But there are good and even great dads out there, who inspire their children and the men around them to reach for more. How do you become a dad like that - even if your own dad wasn’t such a good example? In The Dad Difference, Bryan Loritts explores the four gifts every kid needs from their dad: Relationship, integrity, teaching, and experiences. He walks you through what each of these mean and how to put them into practice.

If your relationship with God and your family are the most important in your life, you'll find joy and inspiration in Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, an affirming collection of stories for those who realize the miracles that result when you open your heart to Christ.

At the age of 33, Erik Reece's father, a Baptist minister, took his own life, leaving Erik in the care of his grandmother and his grandfather - also a fundamentalist Baptist preacher and a pillar of his rural Virginia community. While Erik grew up with a conflicted relationship with Christianity, he unexpectedly found comfort in the Jefferson Bible. Inspired, he undertook what would become a spiritual and literary quest to identify an "American gospel" coursing through the work of both great and forgotten American geniuses, from William Byrd to Walt Whitman to Lynn Margulis.

The Hurting Parent takes a realistic approach to the problems young people face today - peer pressure, easy access to drugs and alcohol, and cultural influences that pull them from their family's faith. The Lewises acknowledge there are no simple formulas or simple answers. But the biblical insight, emotional understanding, and practical encouragement they offer will be life changing.

In a world where men and women are constantly told they are not different, His Brain, Her Brain shows couples what they instinctively know - men and women are different, and these divinely designed differences, when understood, make a marriage stronger and happier.

In this 52-week devotional, Bruce Gordon challenges the idea that youth is the best part of life. He asserts that we make too little of our opportunities in later life - we were made for more than the golf course or the rocking chair! These practical devotionals, steeped in Scripture, will help you transition to a time of life that can be rich with purpose, significance, and hope as you serve God. You’ll be encouraged and empowered to build a life that matters now and for eternity. Discover for yourself that the best years, the most impactful years of your life, are still to come.

A family is much more than multiple biological members in a household. When members in a household provide spiritual support toward one another, they are more than roommates. God is calling all broken and lukewarm families to reunite and become whole again. If you are a father or a sibling or even a friend, you will learn how to become a positive influence. Your decisions will change your family for the better and will make a positive impact on other families as well.

Do you want your kids to grow up to be emotionally, mentally, relationally, and spiritually healthy? We do too! More and more kids today are struggling to live out this dream. As they go through life, they encounter people and situations that lead them to pack and carry some enormous emotional baggage that holds them back from living in the grace and freedom that Christ provides. Parents are in a unique position to help their kids "lighten the load" along the way.

You want your children to become Christ followers, obedient to His commands, and fruitful in their faith, but where do you begin? Though there isn’t a formula or prescription for raising godly kids, what you desire for your family begins with heeding God’s instructions to remember and declare His faithful works to the next generation.

We live in a fearful, anxiety-driven age where the problems and challenges of the world assault us from every direction and every media source, and they far exceed our abilities to respond to them. The sense of desperation that often comes of this leads to discord and violence: from bitter, cutting remarks to the atrocities of war; from pervasive racism to knee-jerk micro-aggressions. It contributes to our current, peace-bankrupt social discourse, leading to patterns of dismissing, dividing from, condemning, or hating people.

Millions of online fans have flocked to Susannah B. Lewis's hysterical, take-no-prisoners rants about her pet peeves in everyday life. Now, in How May I Offend You Today?, Lewis turns her trademark humor to ordinary events that work her nerves - from people who wear T-shirts with indecent images to public displays of affection in the plumbing aisle of Lowe's - while keeping a wry eye on herself and her own temptation to vent grievances "like a teenage girl in overalls and Birkenstocks."

The notion that some might have it better than others, for no good reason, offends our sensibilities. Yet, until we talk about privilege, we’ll never fully understand it or find our way forward. Amy Julia Becker welcomes us into her life, from the charm of her privileged southern childhood to her adult experience in the Northeast, and the denials she has faced as the mother of a child with special needs. She tells us how a life behind a white picket fence can restrict even as it protects and how it can prevent us from loving our neighbors well.

The Jesus People movement was a unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity. It first appeared in the famed "Summer of Love" of 1967, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and spread like wildfire in Southern California and beyond, to cities like Seattle, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. In 1971 the growing movement found its way into the national media spotlight and gained momentum, attracting a huge new following among evangelical church youth.

From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. In a world turned upside down, where the past and the future, and the nature of truth itself, all take shape according to a corrupt government's whims, one man, one spectacularly hopeless man, fights to overcome his history and his name - and, if for only once in his life, to put things right.

Join Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend, authors of the New York Times bestseller Boundaries, as they share the research and guidance you need to raise your kids to take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions. What Boundaries has done for adult relationships, Boundaries with Kids will do for you and your family.

Those conversations that are so vital for your children's health and happiness don't have to be difficult if you're prepared. A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey with Your Kids about Sex shows you how to deal with what goes on above the neck as well as below the waist. Here's how to help your child face the struggles, questions, wonders, and rewards of his or her developing sexuality.

Have you ever felt trapped by your family’s pain? Living under the weight of generational curses, toxic patterns, and emotional wounds that you never asked for — but can’t seem to shake? You’re not alone. And you don’t have to stay stuck. In From a Broken Family to a Blessed Family, Canaan D. McGee shares his raw, real, Spirit-led blueprint to help you finally break free and become the first in your family to say, “Enough.”

Alongside offers practical application and biblical truths to highlight the complexities of relational youth ministry, address the needs real teenagers encounter in their daily lives, and engage their hearts rather than just their behavior. Hill explores what it looks like to not only share the love of Jesus with our teenage friends but to share our very lives with them, as well.

Featuring insights from the perspective of both a pastor and his wife—The Pastor's Family identifies the complicated burdens and expectations ministry brings to the life of a family. Brian and Cara Croft identify the unique challenges that pastors face as husbands and fathers. They also discuss the difficulties and joys of being a pastor's wife and offer practical advice on raising children in a ministry family.